Renewable Dentistry?

Sir Richard Branson, who's in the enviable position of having so much money he's giving it away, must have read my earlier entry about scrubbing the skies. He recently announced a twenty-five million dollar prize for scientists to come up with a way to pull the carbon dioxide out of the air.

Interestingly, just a few days ago I heard on the BBC about some plan that involves seaweed or fungus or something that can eat CO2 and turn it into baking soda, otherwise known as sodium bicarbonate. I can just imagine how cool it would be to have huge machines scrubbing the air and pulling out all the excess greenhouse gases and transforming it into mounds of baking soda. No, it might not be good for the Arm and Hammer people, but the rest of us would benefit.

Those of us in the developed countries could have sweet-smelling refrigerators at even less cost than we currently enjoy, while those in the emerging countries and England could have bright white teeth! Not only that, but everyone whose heart works the way they're supposed to would never have to worry about heartburn.

Just think of all the burping!

I have a hunch, though, that the hippies might not like this idea. While I still believe that cleaning the atmosphere is more palatable to the world's leaders than decreasing emissions, I can't help thinking that many won't be happy unless humanity suffers. The only way, they'll say, that we can get the planet back in balance is by reducing, and anything we do on the other end, cleaning up afterwards, is misguided.

I remember when I first began hearing about acid rain, and all the conservatives said it would hamper our economy to install any safeguards. They were, of course, wrong and the economy has done quite nicely, even benefitting from the smokestack scrubbing advances. They're saying the same thing now about reducing carbon emissions, and I think we can handle that, too, without crippling the ability for people to work and make money.

Now, the hippies are onto a good thing, but I just can't see the world giving up snowblowers in place of shovels, replacing lawn mowers with shears, or recycling all our old electric toothbrushes. Sir Branson, I feel, is on the right track and his earlier success with offering less than half the money for someone to fly above the reaches of our atmosphere was pretty successful. He's had a few duds in his time, and I'm not counting my crappy Virgin Mobile Phone in the list but I easily could, but I think he's taking a very practical reaction to the global climate change problem.

And those of us who eat chili and drink black coffee can only applaud what may come of his generosity.