A variant of the make or buy debate. Consider make.

Large vertical pipes could, they [James Lovelock and Chris Rapley] say, be used to mix nutrient-rich waters from hundreds of metres down with the more barren waters at the surface. This could cause algal blooms at the surface, which would consume carbon dioxide (CO2) through photosynthesis. When the algae die, some of this carbon could sink into deep waters. The algae may also produce chemicals [dimethyl sulphide aerosols] that spur cloud formation, further cooling the planet. . .

The idea may seem far-fetched. But a wave-driven 'ocean upwelling system' to absorb CO2, very similar to what Lovelock and Rapley are proposing, is currently being developed by a company called Atmocean, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Phil Kithil, chief executive officer of Atmocean, estimates that a pump-driven up-welling system, if deployed across 80% of the world's oceans, could help bring down to the ocean floor an additional 2 billion metric tonnes of carbon per year, potentially doubling the ocean's annual rate of CO2 sequestration. The company has developed floating tubes, 3 metres in diameter and 300 metres long, that it claims can do just this.

I like these types of proposals. It's a sort of environmental kung-fu that nudges the system a bit while relying on its own momentum and strength to do the heavy work. It's so much more attractive than the hair-shirt self abnegation of the enviro-whackos and politco-whackos. It's also more attractive than the brute force mechanical proposals to capture emissions and squirt them into the ground or elsewhere.

I'm attuned to the low power, low input ways of leveraging the tendencies of natural systems to achieve seemingly spectacular results. I use them in my work to make comparatively fast changes without great cost.

For example, when I get a new pasture to renovate in this neighborhood the soil is always thin and sandy. It needs about 8 tons per acre of organic matter as soon as possible. I could haul in 8 tons of manure and spread it, or 8 tons of forage and feed it out to cattle who will then make manure on site, or I can grow 8 tons of forage and in effect pull the organic matter out of the air.

The last option is cheapest and slowest, but I can give the system some nudges to speed things up. If I plant some improved forage varieties that produce well all year long, as well as some super productive nitrogen fixing legumes, and fertilize a little bit - at about 1/3 the normal rate - and feed a little imported forage to substitute for initial low production, I can get the organic matter in less time.

The net cost is much less and I don't have the massive quantities blues from hauling around tons of stuff. And, I'd need to do the seeding anyway so in a sense it doesn't count as a cost of the organic matter fix. In short, I make organic matter rather than buying it. It takes skill and some resources to make it, but the cost is far less than buying. And, the land is in production all along rather than being fallow, closed for remodelling.

From my perspective the cattle are co-workers helping me renovate their own pastures. I use them to do my heavy work. It is their hooves that in effect till the soil for seeding. I just move them around, feeding them hay on skimpy pasture, and they tear up the ground a bit, one paddock after another. Then I broadcast the seed and continue feeding them. They hoof in the seed with their continued milling about in the empty paddock, giving the seed soil contact, which is all it needs to germinate. I do this in paddock after paddock and by the time they are all done there's forage in the first one seeded.

I'm not sure this is all clear, but perhaps you get what appeals to me about the ideas of Lovelock and Rapley for carbon management. What they propose is much the same as what I do, but they are doing it in the ocean rather than on land. In both cases lots of carbon is sucked out of the air and sequestered by plants. It isn't sequestered for geologic time, you can't stop, but it shifts the balance, reducing the amount of carbon in the air at any given time by increasing the amount in land and water.

It's a process rather than a project.