What's that giant sucking sound?

I realize the topic of global warming never fails to generate an emotional knee-jerk from the environmental chicken little left. That's usually followed by an equal knee-jerk slapdown from some of us on the right. Rarely do we hear anyone discuss viable solutions (and no, I don't consider eliminating Corvettes in favor of rickshaws or living in teepees as "viable" solutions).

Dr. Wallace Broecker, the scientist who identified the role of ocean currents acting as "conveyor belts", which was later melodramatically butchered in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow", has a stopgap proposal that would seem to be a win-win:

Wallace Broecker says he likes windmills and fuel-efficient cars to the extent that they can buy time against global warming. But the ultimate solution has to be technology that can actually extract carbon dioxide from the air and power plants, and bury it

Outlandish, but apparently possible in theory. I like this kind of thinking, and believe it's important that more scientists crawl outside their political boxes and start finding solutions. Sure, that might require them to occasionally mind meld with a few capitalist pigs...

Backing him is hard-nosed businessman Gary Comer, who started the Lands' End mail-order empire in Dodgeville, Wis. Comer has funded a company — Global Research Technologies, in Tucson, Ariz. — that is building a prototype device that can take carbon dioxide out of the air for storage or eventual burial in salty aquifers.

...but it sounds like patriotic duty to me.

Lest you go smelling a rat and wondering if the good Doctor Broecker is just another oil stooge shilling for Commander Halliburton, here's what he said about our present leader back in 2004:

I mean, our President has got his head in the sand about CO2. Even his religious right is starting to shift and say, "Hey, we've got to do something about this." I think the tide is turning.

For the record, he doesn't think our current level of warming will propel Europe into an ice age anytime soon as depticted in the movie, but that doesn't make him a wingnut--he believes we'll get there eventually if we do nothing.

To maintain the proper level of conservative skepticism I'll add the following comment to the mix--we still haven't heard a rational explanation for past climate shifts that caused previous ice ages and subsequent recoveries. In other words, what caused the darn ice caps to defrost before SUVs came along? Since we really aren't conclusively sure, simply capturing CO2 might be nothing more than an expensive waste of time, if in reality some unknown process is driving the global warming boat.

But creative solutions are much preferable to hurled insults or world socialism. I think it's worth a look-see.