Thoughts on "Net Zero Carbon Emissions"

It is getting popular, it seems for companies to announce that in a certain amount of time, they will achieve "net zero carbon emissions."  Let's get a notion of what this means; everybody exhales carbon dioxide, and every building and factory in the world is built with materials that require the use of carbon fuels to get to market.  Every company in the world uses electricity, and hence for a company to achieve "net zero", one must go much further than to simply get one's electricity from solar or wind (impossible at peak demand hours, mind you) while getting LEED certification for their buildings.

No, you've got to somehow compensate for the carbon emitted to build your buildings, make the windmills and solar panels, and the like, and the key idea for that is called "carbon credits".  On one hand, some "carbon credits" are issued to people who fund things like electric cars and windmills, but....the problem with that is that even if these reduce carbon emissions, it still takes carbon emissions to make them.  You can't make steel without using coal, to put it mildly.

That leaves a second level of carbon credits, which more or less amounts to paying people who live in the rainforest not to use a part of the land they inhabit.  Now at best, the land that is so "sequestered" is simply land they weren't going to use anyways, so the net result is zero.  At worst, however, it's land they were, or were planning to, use for supporting themselves, and a key principle arises.

Nobody signs on to let their children starve.

So when one plot of land is "sequestered", they simply go to another, generally one where it's not as advantageous to plant.  In other words, they're going to clear cut more land than they would have cleared to begin with, making the "carbon credit" actually carbon emission positive.

Ouch.  So how does one fix this?  One investigates how one may actually sequester carbon in the soil, in buildings, and elsewhere.  There are plans to inject carbon dioxide into the ground, but....that's incredibly dangerous if it should escape.  Lower tech options are better.

One big way to do this is to consider how "Mother Nature" might help us.  What would happen if cornfields were returned to pasture and alfalfa, where broadleafs like alfalfa have root systems that are up to 30' deep?  What would happen if we stopped using corn for fuel to allow this--and some of those fields were returned to forest? 

Along the same lines, if carbon emissions are really a huge issue, we need to consider not just how to "eliminate" them, but how to reduce them.  Maybe stop paying people to divorce their spouses through child support, alimony, and welfare programs.  Maybe consider prohibiting governments from making buildings from heat-porous masonry.  Lots of good ideas come to mind--none of them involving carbon credits or solar panels.