One of the first scientists to draw the world's attention to the threat of global warming has called for an end to burning coal, saying trees should be grown and burnt in their place.
The Independent on Sunday reports that Professor James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has called for an end to carbon emissions from coal, replacing them with a massive programme to grow trees, which would absorb carbon from the atmosphere as they grow, then using them in place of traditional fossil fuels for energy with a form of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) at the point of use to be introduced.
Hanson says these methods are needed to bring down current dangerous levels of carbon emissions which are believed by a majority of scientists to be instrumental in causing climate change.
He said current policies to stabilise CO2 at 450 parts per million (ppm) was "...a recipe for global disaster, not salvation" and that the present ...