Sure there is. I have written extensively about it before.

Can we reverse global warming?

Right now in fact the bipartisan Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA) is being considered in congress and needs support. It is an improvement over previous attempts at climate change bills because the fees collected on carbon emissions will be allocated to all Americans to spend any way they choose. The government will not keep any of the fees collected, so the size of the government will not grow.

I do support it in principle, as I see only one flaw. It is a Carbon Fee & Dividend bill and the dividend could be better used to improve its efficacy.

This problem is not only about emissions. This is a carbon cycle. Trying to fix this by eliminating carbon emissions is tackling the problem with one hand tied behind our backs. It won't work, and several researchers have made the claim we already passed the point where that alone it actually can’t work.

image courtesy wikimedia commons

You need to go back to basics and rethink what causes Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) to begin with.

1. We are burning fossil fuels and emitting massive amounts of carbon in the atmosphere as CO2 mostly but also some CH4 and a few other greenhouse gasses.
   [2]
2. We have degraded the environmental systems that would normally pull excess CO2 out of the atmosphere.
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   (mostly grasslands
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   )
3. By putting more in the atmosphere and removing less, there is no other place for the excess to go but the oceans. They are acidifying due to absorbing just part of the excess.
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   (roughly 1/2)
4. That still leaves roughly 1/2 of emissions that are building up in the atmosphere and creating an increased greenhouse effect.
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   (from ~280 ppm to 412+ppm CO2)

So this leads directly to the way we must reverse AGW:

1. Reduce fossil fuel use by replacing energy needs with as many economically viable renewables as current technology allows. Please note that most current forms of ethanol gas additive are not beneficial because they further degrade the sequestration side of the carbon cycle and take more fossil fuels to produce than they offset.
   [8]
2. Change agricultural methods to high yield regenerative models of production made possible by recent biological & agricultural science advancements.
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   [10]
3. Implement large scale ecosystem recovery projects similar to the Loess Plateau project, National Parks like Yellowstone etc. where appropriate and applicable.
   [11]
   [12]
   [13]

In short we need to reduce carbon in and increase carbon out of the atmosphere to restore balance to the carbon cycle.

Consider this technically viable and economically advantageous option:

A carbon market with verified carbon offsets

1. It directly rewards farmers and land managers for sequestering carbon in the soil
   [14]
2. It stimulates the economy (through the above)
3. This market will reduce food costs.
4. It will improve food security for both rich and poor alike.
5. The market is simultaneously AGW adaptive and mitigation strategy because carbon in the soil has many characteristics that improves yields, help reduce the effects of both floods and droughts, and also directly removes atmospheric carbon and stores it in the soil long term.
   [15]
6. The agricultural solutions the carbon market would promote are needed anyway
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   , so this is a simply way to fund it and kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
7. This market solution has far less cost and would be far more effective than any political plan being considered including the bipartisan EICDA.
8. The energy solutions the market favors are given no direct money since those technologies already exist. But gradually they will still take over due to having smaller carbon footprints and can out compete head to head this way.
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9. We can implement such a market right now without the need for new unknown technologies.
10. This is not a redistribution of wealth scheme, but rather a public works project capable of gathering conservative political support as well as liberal political support.

In short, the carbon emissions sources will be paying for land managers to sequester their carbon footprint back into the earth where it belongs. This is a paid service, not a liberal tax and spend scheme with an ulterior social agenda. Unlike previously tried carbon markets, there is no trading between emissions sources. They simply pay for the service of sequestering their fossil fuel footprint back into the soil where it belongs. The better they provide that service, the more they get paid. It's specifically takes advantage of the best known economic motivator known to mankind, the capitalist free markets.

If you want somebody to do something, pay them to do it, and they will!

But since most of the sequestration would be done by farmers, and everyone must eat, we all still reap the rewards in low cost food and regenerating soil fertility. This because it varies from the EICDA in that instead of dividends to everyone from a carbon tax of emissions, this would actually directly pay those balancing the carbon cycle for that service. Since the carbon farmers also still produce agricultural products, they greatly reduce costs for food production for everyone. It means we can also eliminate the current farm bill subsidies and save that cost. This means it would be billions less costly than the currently considered EICDA.

"If all farmland was a net sink rather than a net source for CO2, atmospheric CO2 levels would fall at the same time as farm productivity and watershed function improved. This would solve the vast majority of our food production, environmental and human health ‘problems’." Dr. Christine Jones

And best of all? It's already set up and ready to go at the local government level. Just awaits funding. Pass the legislation and even in the most conservative of States it goes off and running immediately.

Carbon Sequestration Certification Program

The other big holdup is the regulatory burden on agriculture that favors industrial producers over the local integrated small family farm.

This regulatory burden MUST be removed in order for farmers to have the flexibility to do what is required to make their farms sustainable and capable of sequestering long term carbon in the soil at high rates and efficiencies.

As a farmer, what do you wish more people understood?

So yes, go support the bill! We can always try to hammer out some minor changes in how the dividend gets paid, the regulatory burden placed on farmers, and coordinate both sides of the carbon cycle later. It is even possible we keep the dividend but use the carbon market verified offsets like a credit. The important part is to begin to make changes to mitigate AGW before it is too late.

Here are the links.

Go HERE for the actual text of this bill.

WRITE your congressman to show support and add a LINK in your letter to this answer.

CALL your congressman to show support and request that A carbon market with verified carbon offsets be added to this bipartisan EICDA bill.

Please go HERE and support this bipartisan legislation if you are a community leader.

Thanks for your time.

I am an organic farmer. I am not afraid of change. I am the change.

Relaxed. Researched. Respectful. - War Elephant

Footnotes