Expel CO2 into outer space? Not so fast!

I love creative ideas, don't you? More than that, I love the creative process. For me brainstorming is like the intellectual big-O. It's so much fun, and it's productive to boot. Who do we have to thank for planes, trains, and automobiles?

So what are your personal favourites? Right now I'm eating a nice warm bowl of curry, so I'm glad someone had the idea to:

1. Bring fire together with plants to make food (it's so obvious, and unless you are 100% raw vegan, utterly important)
   
2. Domesticate plants for agriculture
3. Put together coriander, fenugreek, tumeric, cumin etc. to make curry powder. (Not so hot about on the British colonization of India)
   

Hey, I even love stupid ideas that come out of the creative process. Get them out into the open, toss into the no pile, and move on thank you very much.

So it really bugs me when I see something gives me far too much of the no feeling. Take the idea of fighting global warming by expelling CO2 into outer space, for example. UCLA physicist Alfred Y. Wong has the idea to use earth's magnetic fields to ionize carbon dioxide which in theory would produce this ejection.

What's wrong with this picture? True, carbon dioxide is arguably our most despised enemy. Why not be rid of it by whatever means possible?

Here's the thing: CO2 holds our most valuable resource - oxygen. Losing that CO2 means losing the opportunity for getting that oxygen back. Forever. Last time I checked, I still needed air.

Nice try Alfred. We need outside-the-box thinking to tackle climate change, but I'm going to vote no on this one.

VIA: Economist : Treehugger