Concentrations of atmospheric CO₂ have been in long-term decline since the start of the cretaceous period. Science tells us that the threshold below which plant life can no longer perform photosynthesis and at which all plant life will cease stands at around 150 parts per million (ppm) of atmospheric CO₂.
It’s time to end the famine and increase the one component of the atmosphere that is definitively ‘green’. Save the planet from the 150 ppm ‘extinction line!’ Go CO₂↑
While CO₂ levels have recovered a little from an estimated 280 ppm in 1800 to 420 ppm today, to make up a fragile 0.04% of the atmosphere, there’s no room for complacency. The virtuous circle by which ancient plant life provides abundant energy while emitted CO₂ develops new green plant life must now be permanently secured.
et the required action will never come about if we resort simply to public persuasion or to open debate. The extinction line emergency justifies professionally-devised population-level behavioural change interventions and a direct approach to decision-makers.
We will create an invitation-only international symposium, the ‘Club of Miami’, targeting ambitious public figures and any looking to spice up their careers with the promise of an informal brotherhood – one which hands them the keys to global salvation. They may notice that while they have been invited as leaders to watch, other contemporaries have not. In time, the membership net will widen to include the overlooked – and all will believe. If the former French President Francois Hollande can publicly warn, as he did in 2015, that earthquakes will increase due to anthropogenic climate change, the lesson is clear: the cart of truth rattles behind the horse of opportunity.
For an elected politician, the pain of ‘might have been’ runs deep but cannot compare to the anguish of ‘so very nearly was’. King across the water, prophet without honour, voice crying in the wilderness – having portrayed himself as all of the above in his propaganda masterpiece An Inconvenient Truth, Al ‘the Pardoner’ Gore surely has another great cause left in him. At the Edge of the Line will be the movie of 2025 and Gore’s resolute countenance will peer out at us once again from the posters.
Other avuncular yet unworldly public figures who see themselves as guardians of nature, such as Sir David Attenborough, can then easily be enlisted. Consider the case of TV celebrity Bear Grylls, who flipped from advocating veganism in 2017 to campaigning today for an all-meat diet. His Majesty the King of England, defender of the planet if not the faith, can, in time, be recruited to the cause.
Once influential figures are in place, a million conversations will propagate the message: “Look at those roses that didn’t bloom in my garden this year and last – Go CO₂↑”; “The poor maize yields in Zimbabwe, worsening over recent years, there you have it… Go CO₂↑”
A million young eyes will roll heavenward at any hint of dissent – “So you want the plants to die??”. Photosynthesis deniers will be firmly banished, never to teach or speak in public again. Professionals of all kinds will soon fear to be thought ‘photophobic’ by their peers. Celebrities are to be smeared as ‘photophobic’ particularly if they have not even uttered such a heresy, the more effectively to intimidate those who might. Representatives of poorer regions of the world, dependent on agriculture, will be paraded at the ‘Club of Miami’ to tell us about life at ‘the edge of the line’.
