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My Warlock convinced Tiamat and thirteen ancient dragons in a high council to restore two blue dragon eggs. She had this plan since about 8th level, and finally got to complete the ‘quest’ in full last night, at 15th level.Strap in, this one’s a doozy. Spoiler alert: She now owes Tiamat five separate favors (one for each of her heads).So some background: Back in Procampur around 8th level, Spinel was approached by two human men with requests for her aid. They both needed her to escort them to the King’s Archives up the Fire River for differing reasons. These two men are dragons in disguise: One ancient blue dragon, and one ancient bronze dragon.The bronze dragon is her father, in a twist that DM surprised me with. The blue dragon was the one Spinel talked to back in Dr. Trundall’s circus. She doesn’t find out that they’re dragons until the last leg of the adventure, so she spends the bulk of the time thinking that she’s stuck with an out-of-touch nobleman and a scruffy ship captain who can’t stop bickering with each other. As opposed to, say, two alignment-opposed dragons who have beef with each other. And oh, does the beef get personal.In short: It’s Many Hearts (the Bronze dragon)’s fault that two of Storm Skyraider (the Blue dragon)’s eggs were smashed. Many Hearts was blackmailed by the Draconid Order in order to overlook certain activities on the Sea of Fallen Stars (his territory). One of the things he overlooked? The Order stealing a clutch of Storm’s eggs in order to make a Blue Orb of Dragonkind capable of controlling him. The reason Storm approached Spinny in Procampur was for her to help him get his eggs back.During that time, one of the Order members smashed two of the six. The worst part is they had done this before Spinny and Co. even started the quest. There was nothing she or anyone else could do to prevent it. When DM revealed this, I almost started crying because, dude, poor Storm. (Which becomes quite the common refrain in our game.) He was still trapped at Dr. Trundall’s at the time and had no idea what was happening.Which brings us to the plan. Spinny was a teeny little Warlock at that time, and did not have the capabilities to enact what she wanted to do. It took about six levels and four in-game months for her to be able to do this.The original plan involved the following:Plane Shift to Avernus with the help of her royal advisor.Climb the mountain and request an audience with Tiamat. Manage to avoid any angry ancient dragon souls. Or Abishai.Actually convince Tiamat to relinquish the two unhatched dragon souls.Call the High Dragon Council and request a meeting.Convince the High Dragon Council to restore the two dragons and give them back to Storm.Don’t let Storm find out until she’s 100% succeeded. Under any circumstances. It would be bad to get his hopes up if she failed.That’s, obviously, not how it actually went down, though: Tell DM your plans, and they will find a way to subvert them in beautiful ways.So it actually went something like this:Plane Shift to Avernus with the help of her Lich advisor… and as soon as they get to Avernus, have him pet my Warlock on the head and say “Okay, I’ve got business to attend to here. Have fun!”This goes very poorly for said advisor. When Spinny came back from Tiamat, she found her advisor strapped to a spinning board while a Narzugon and his Merrogon underlings threw knives at him. That was a fun rescue: Spinny got to pretend to be an incubus and trick a bar full of devils!Turns out that purple fabric is not appreciated in Avernus. Red and green are the heraldic colours here, and her advisor trying to trade purple fabric was an insult. DM was giving us both a good laugh, since the puny little half-human Warlock talked to a big scary dragon goddess with no problems, but her 2–3,000 year old Lich advisor failed negotiations with a Narzugon.Meet an Incubus cleric-spy, who is currently channeling Levistus. Levistus is very angry and concerned and wants to know why his mortal informant is in Avernus.He also tells her that Asmodeus knows whenever a non-fiend steps into the Nine Hells. Which means Asmodeus certainly knows she’s traipsing through Avernus. Whoops.Accept Incubus Cleric as an escort, because Levistus won’t take no for an answer. And because healing cuddles are nice. (We determined that Levistus is a Life domain deity, like Ilmater. Endurance ftw!) And because he has a fly speed and we have to go up a frigging mountain.Forget that Zariel is practically the Big Bad of the campaign (my Warlock has foiled no less than four of Zariel’s schemes by now). Get chased by Zariel and Bel up Tiamat’s mountain until the two Arch-Devils get intimidated by proximity to the Scary Dragon Goddess.Actually go talk to Tiamat. Incu-spy waits outside because Tiamat attacks fiends on sight.End up being very surprised when Tiamat isn’t that scary. My Warlock is often too naive to be afraid of people, but I as the player wasn’t afraid of Tiamat either. Part of that was me hyping myself up for the scariest god in D&D and forgetting that my DM really loves to subvert expectations in fun and often cute ways. Red spent almost the entire time flirting! Green is this adorable scientist who doesn’t see humanoids much, and therefore wanted to study Spinny for awhile. Her heads play Three Dragon Ante among themselves! Tiamat is so cute!This comes into play later. Asmodeus mentions that Tiamat’s terrifying reputation is so that people leave her alone. She likes her privacy. So Spinny promised to keep quiet about how awesome Tiamat actually is.Agree to climb into Blue’s mouth so they all can taste her as a show of trust. (Red was the one who wanted to do it, but Spinny didn’t trust Red not to accidentally swallow her.) Then actually explain why she’s there.Learn that unborn dragon souls are a powerful spell component. Tiamat at first uses this as a reason not to relinquish them to Spinny. Eventually, Black and Spinny have a heart-to-heart (which mostly consisted of Black staring down Spinny, and then saying “No. We’re treating you as if you were to behave like us, but you aren’t us. You’re really here for altruism and to help your friend, aren’t you?”) and Tiamat agrees to relinquish the souls to Spinny.She then tells Spinny that Storm and Many Hearts are both members of the Council, as they’re the eldest dragons of their respective colours.Cast sending to Many Hearts, and ask him to call the council. Don’t say why the council needs to be called under any circumstances, just say that she’s in Avernus right now and Tiamat gave her blessing to call the Council.Escape from Avernus. (This had a whole unrelated fun bit that involved visiting Stygia and then getting pulled into Nessus by Asmodeus, but that’s for another Quora post. This one is massive enough as it is!)Take Incubus Cleric home to Helgebal with her. His cover is blown in Avernus, so it’s not safe for him to be there anymore.Convince King Sholsha that Incubus is the Official Envoy to Damara from the Nine Hells. (According to DM, Asmodeus is so amused by Spinny’s excuse that he’s going to make it legitimate! Diplomacy rocks!)Find a way to keep two unhatched souls safe and undetected for the next month until the Council can convene.This involves making a lockbox out of Zarzadik ore, which requires blood to activate. Thank goodness we brought Incubus Cleric home with us, because Spinny would have died from blood loss creating that damned box otherwise. (For reference, items made of Zarzadik ore can be hidden in a person’s bloodstream. Spinel also has a Zarzadik dagger that she can pull out of her left palm.)This also involves not telling anyone about the souls, or the lockbox, or anything. Spinel is a terrible liar when she’s not working.You know that whole “Don’t tell Storm” bit from the original plan? That nearly fell apart at a party: “Oh, Spinel! It’s so good to see you here, I’ve missed you!” “OH GODS HI STORM! Uhh… whatever Tiamat told you about what I was doing in Avernus is all lies! Lies, damned lies, and Narfelli propaganda.” “Tiamat? What? … Okay, Spinel, let’s try this again: Hello Spinel; Would you like to dance?” “DRAGONS CAN’T SEE SOULS, RIGHT? That’s just a lich thing?” “… *Sigh* Spinel, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I’ll bite: No. Dragons cannot see souls.” “Oh! Oh thank goodness! In that case, it’s wonderful to see you here! Would you like to dance?”Try to get Storm to send a delegate to vote in his place at the Council. Fail miserably. (“No, Spinel. This is my first Council. I can’t just send someone else. It’s a sign of weakness.”)Still don’t tell Storm what’s going on. Even when he’s flying them both to the Council.Beg him to maaaaaybe fly back home? No? Well, worth a shot.Meet the thirteen dragons in the council. Find out that she already knows five of them. (Many Hearts-Bronze, Storm Skyraider-Blue, Sylvia Cypress-Green, Daedroth Doomblight-Black, Ardok Freeman/Flamekhan-Red. She met all of the non-Storm Chromatics at one of Storm’s parties.)Get hugged by a Copper dragon who can’t believe that Many Hearts actually has a kid now.Meet a blatantly Autistic Silver dragon who has a fidget cube (or at least something with a clicker button. Once DM explained that Harmony wasn’t looking at Spinny’s face, I realized what he was trying to do. Which is kinda awesome, Spinny doesn’t meet a lot of other Autistics in our game, so having someone with similar communication preferences was nice!)Learn that not all dragons have humanoid disguises. Like the Gold dragon who presents as a big Golden Retriever.Spend so much time scratching him behind the ears. Who’s a good boy? (“Why yes, I have been told on multiple occasions that I am a good boy. Thank you for confirming this.”)Get a full face of poison breath from a Green dragon she’s met before. And lose over 2/3 of her hit points in the process.“Oh! Whoops. Skyraider, is that one your friend?” *Feeble thumbs up from the ground* “Hi, Lady Syl. Nice shot.” “HAH! Storm, your girlfriend is great, she took that like a champ!”Bond with a Gemstone dragon over having similar names (Spinel and Amber).Wonder what’s going on with her Black dragon buddy, because he seems to be scarier than usual.Actually plead her case to the Council.And immediately get hugged by a crying Storm, who then had to recuse himself.With Storm recused, the vote came down to an even split. 6 for, 6 against, and Spinny was given four hours in order to convince the six dragons who voted against her.Many Hearts voted no. Spinny wasn’t expecting to get shot down by her own dad. He even said “Spinel, if I knew this is why you wanted to call the Council, I might not have done so. You’re not a real dragon, you can’t meddle in these sorts of affairs.”Talk to each of the six dragons who voted no, and try to convince them to vote yes.Gold dragon voted no because he believed that the pull of Tiamat would be too strong, and he couldn’t risk evil rising up. Spinny basically opened up to him about her Orc girlfriend, and mentioned that even though Emetta feels the pull of Gruumsh every day, she’s still the most loyal, virtuous, and protective person Spinny knows. The two had a philosophical discussion, and Gold was particularly impressed by Spinny’s conviction. He agreed, so long as Spinny promised to remain a fixture in Storm’s life and be a fixture in his kids’ lives: Apparently Storm has been a much better person since he’s been around Spinny.This entire philosophical discussion happened while he was snuggled up in her lap getting scratched behind the ears. Just in case you needed a dose of “D’awwww~” today! Who’s a good pupper? You are! <3Black dragon voted no because he viewed Storm losing his kids as a sign of weakness. Spinny went to talk to him, and realized that he didn’t recognize her because, well, “I’m sorry, but all you humans sort of look the same.” “Oh, don’t be. I have trouble telling other humans apart! Our hair only comes in four or so colours!” “Right? Would it kill you all to have some variety?” Once he recognized her, the two had a bit of a heart-to-heart about Storm, as he’s a mutual friend, and Spinny started pulling out a bunch of sticks from her backpack. She finally explained that yes, Storm was weak—and she snapped a stick as she said it. She snapped a thinner stick with ease, explaining that she, too, was weak. She snapped a much thicker stick—with some difficulty—and explained that even Daedroth Doomblight himself could only go so far on his own. She then bundled the rest of her sticks and failed to break any of them. Even Daedroth with his 27 dragon strength could only snap the outer sticks in the bundle. He smirked at her, and said that he’d think about his decision.Cloud dragon was concerned that deciding to revive the two dragons would upset the balance between order and chaos. Spinny explained that both decisions, to let them stay dead or to revive them, would each comprise of order, chaos, goodness, and badness. Even her own altruism carried the potential of evil: She was trying to revive blue dragons. She eventually asked him, since everything else is equal in this decision, did he have anything to lose by opting for compassion, and to make at least three lives better in the process? He smiled, compared her to a feather in a storm cloud, and said that he would think about his decision.Copper dragon is one of the older dragons, and her reasoning was simple: Storm, despite being an ancient dragon and now the eldest Blue dragon, is still young. He hasn’t experienced loss the way many of the other dragons have, and this was a needed learning experience. Truth be told, Spinel didn’t fully convince Chalchihuitl to side with her. Copper made her promise not to tell anyone about what she was doing with the Council, and not to tell anyone that she sought a favor from Tiamat. Chalchihuitl was worried that everyone would seek Tiamat and the Council to fix their problems.Many Hearts the Bronze Dragon voted no for a multitude of reasons:His conscience. It’s his fault that Storm’s eggs were stolen in the first place. One could argue that it’s Many Hearts’s fault that the two eggs were smashed at all.Not wanting there to be more Blue dragons in the world. He’s one of the few Metallics who is concerned about there being more Tiamat influence.Believing that Spinny is being immature about this: An adult would accept that there’s nothing that can be done and to let Storm grieve and eventually put himself back together. Spinny is still enough of a teenager to think that walking into Hell and calling thirteen dragons together is a good idea.Believing that Spinny isn’t a real dragon (he’s basically right: She appears completely human, has no breath attack, and the only thing that clocks her as Draconic is that other dragons can smell her heritage. That’s about it) and shouldn’t be messing in dragon affairs. He later tried to take it back, and outright told her that she’s more of a dragon than he is, as he’s a self-hating dragon who lives among humans and tries to be one. That only helped so much; Spinny’s pretty bent out of shape about not being dragonny enough and is going to be questioning her heritage even more than she already had been.Spinny couldn’t really convince him. They had a personal argument, she questioned his virtues as a Bronze dragon, as he was supposed to be a stalwart protector. She, for the first time ever, spoke about all of the effort she had to go through to get to this point between Avernus, Tiamat, the Zarzadik lockbox, and hiding everything from Storm. She pointed out that it was Many Hearts’s fault that they were in this mess in the first place. She asked him why he didn’t recuse himself, because Storm recused himself, and Hearts should have. The entire thing was a beautifully tense roleplaying moment, and DM perfectly convinced me that Hearts was going to stay a firm “No”, and otherwise continue on his face-heel-turn. “I cannot say yes, Spinel. Please leave.”… Spinny may or may not have spent a few minutes after that conversation crying into Storm’s cloak and angrily murmuring about how “Only one of us is exhibiting proper Bronze virtues and it’s not him!” Even Spinny didn’t want to talk to Storm about feeling betrayed, or inadequate, or anything else, so it was just easier to disguise the entire thing as being mad at Many Hearts for being an inadequate dragon. You know, how she feels about herself.White dragon voted no, and she did not explain her reasoning. DM outright told me that Cryagona Winterhold was going to be the toughest nut to crack, so I (and Spinny) saved her for last. There wasn’t any real plan, and Spinny was a little fragile after her argument with Many Hearts. This backfired a bit, because for the first time trying to reason with each individual dragon, Spinny was intimidated. Cryagona pretty much ignored her, until Spinny basically just kept talking to her—both out of nervousness and out of the fact that she had fifty minutes left and no real plan to convince Cryagona.So, she babbled semi-coherently about “Prestidigitation Tea” and how it’s an icebreaker—but not a literal icebreaker! And got so nervous about that accidental pun that her hands started freezing up (Ray of frost is one of her Storm Sorcerer cantrips, so nervous-casting is excusable). Finally, Cryagona snapped her book shut and demanded to know why Spinny was there. Spinny explained that she had time, and still needed to convince Cryagona, and if Cryagona didn’t want to give her reasons for saying no, then all Spinny could do was try to get to know her better, and maybe help her see her reasons.Cryagona said, in no uncertain terms, “I said ‘no’ because I neither like nor respect Storm Skyraider. Anything which spites him is good for me.” This was when I asked DM if I could roll an insight check, and he said “… Roll a History check instead.” Spinny’s proficient in both and has higher INT han WIS, so I took it gladly. It turns out that The High Ice is melting, and much of that melted ground is being swallowed by Anauroch—Storm’s territory. Meaning that any more Blue dragons added to the population will further encroach on already threatened territory for White dragons. Out of everyone in the Council, Cryagona actually had a legitimate reason not to want to revive the dragons: Doing so would directly threaten her and her family’s resources.And it broke Spinny’s heart. Mine too. I didn’t have to narrate that Spinny started bawling because I did. Well, Spinny started bawling and immediately hugged Cryagona. This also got an unexpected reaction out of her, who immediately looked taken aback and sort of awkwardly positioned herself so Spinny wasn’t crying on her clothes, all the while asking her “Please stop, your eyes will freeze shut”. She asked why she was crying, and Spinny just blurted out “Because I understand now! The High Ice is melting like the Great Glacier north of home. The High Ice is melting into Anauroch and here I am asking you to revive two Blue dragons.” And she just keeps crying, mostly because it’s a horrible situation, and also because I can’t stop crying either at that point.“I don’t understand, then why are you crying?” “Because I understand why you said no, and I still have to ask you to do this. I’m sorry.”At that, Cryagona stood up, said “That’s enough.” and walked out of the room. The four hours were up and the Council needed to reconvene for a second vote.Re-count the vote. Spinny needed to win at least 9–3 in order to count as a confirmation. I was confident that she convinced Daedroth and the Gold dragon, and unsure about everyone else.However, before the vote could be counted, Many Hearts stood up, and admitted that he needed to recuse himself. He explained that it was his fault that Storm’s eggs were stolen in the first place, and that he would accept any punishments required. (DM later told me that there was never an option to convince Many Hearts to vote yes. But the best possible outcome did involve him owning up and recusing himself!)It turns out, Many Hearts admitting to his wrongdoing and recusing himself is the final nudge that tipped Chalchihuitl over to the “Yes” side.Everyone who voted no changed it to a yes. And two of them were wholly dependent on Many Hearts’s recusal. Had Many Hearts not recused himself, Chalchihuitl would have said “No”, making the vote non-unanimous before reaching Cryagona. The only reason Cryagona said “Yes”, is because literally every other dragon in the council had agreed by that point.Hang out in the Council area until the two dragons are restored. Try not to get completely tackle-hugged by a happy-crying Storm. Fail miserably at that last part.—Honestly, when I brought up to DM “So, Spinny’s got a goal to try to revive the dragon souls. She doesn’t have an actual plan for it yet, but this is what I’m thinking she’ll arrive at….”, I didn’t think he was gonna actually let me do it and succeed. I’m so glad he did, though, the entire adventure was a feels trip and opened up at least three new plot threads to follow!… Like Spinny’s new absurd goal: Convince King Sholsha to let her set aside territory in the Great Glacier for a White dragon settlement. Or lay out infrastructure plans for a White dragon and humanoid settlement. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s successfully integrated humanoids and a traditionally evil species. (Her hometown has basically a “Little Underdark” built within the last three months: A group of renegade/Ghaunadaur-worshiping Illithids and a cloister of Flumphs live there and have become quite friendly fixtures in the community…. Come to think of it, that’s another insane plan that I can’t believe worked: “Hey, Dad. Can we build an underground town for a group of Flumphs, a small colony of twelve Illithids-and-a-Ulitharid-Berserker-don’t-ask-long-story, and an Earth Elemental? You know, under the town?” Nothing good comes from Spinel casting sending when it starts with “Hey [name]?”)… Okay. Just about any quest that Spinny chooses for herself is an insane plan that I can’t believe actually works. The only sane quests she undertakes are things other people ask her to do!

One solution is parallel to Freeman Dyson’s geoengineering “solution” of just plant more trees. There are many reasons this won’t work, but the basic one is that planting trees increases stocks, but doesn’t stabilize fluxes. Using the bucket analogy, you have a created a bigger bucket, but still a bucket with no drain. It helps temporarily … until the new bigger bucket gets full. We call that Saturation. It’s a temporary fix that helps, but it is not a long term solution.However, maybe even accidently, Dyson might have stumbled onto something that can solve AGW to the benefit of all.Atmospheric CO2 level is the primary human impact we can change that directly influences energy flows. It comes down to the carbon cycle and the CO2 fertilization effect. Dyson is correct BTW that there is more carbon in the soil than in biomass and atmosphere combined. Also correct about the fertilization effect on plant growth. This is what is called a stabilizing feedback. The debunkers of Dyson are also correct about the increasing emissions from the labile fraction of soil carbon as temperature increases. Called a reinforcing feedback.Here is where it gets interesting. Dyson AND the vast majority of the Dyson debunking sources have focused on the wrong biome. It is NOT the forest plants that have the capability to mitigate AGW. It’s the grassland/savanna biome that actually can be a forcing for global cooling, and counter the current global warming trend.In a forest, the stabilizing feedbacks and the reinforcing feedbacks largely counter each other, and little is done long term to mitigate rising CO2 levels. Once you reach that saturation point you are done. You might even decrease albedo. But grasslands sequester carbon very differently than forests. Most grassland carbon is not sequestered in biomass, nor labile carbon in the top O horizon of the soil, but rather the newly discovered liquid carbon pathway. Grasslands also have higher albedo.Most terrestrial biosphere carbon storage is in grassland (mollic) soils. Where trees store most their products of photosynthesis in woody biomass, grasslands instead of producing a woody tree truck, secrete excess products of photosynthesis (exudates) to feed the soil food web, especially mycorrhizal fungi. Those fungi (AMF) in turn secrete a newly discovered compound called glomalin deep in the soil profile. Glomalin itself has a 1/2 life of 7–42 years if left undisturbed. The deepest deposits even longer with a 1/2 life of 300 years or more in the right conditions. Then when it does degrade a large % forms humic polymers that tightly bind to the soil mineral substrate and can last thousands of years undisturbed. Together they all form what is called a mollic epipedon. That’s your really good deep fertile soils of the world and they contain far more carbon, even in their highly degraded state currently, than all the terrestrial biomass and atmospheric CO2 put together. This LCP is what built those famously deep and fertile midwest soils.Even though wood is resistant to decay, the biomass of forests is still considered part of the active carbon cycle (labile carbon) That litter layer on the forest floor is relatively shallow, and most that decay ends up back in the atmosphere, unless locked in some kind of peat bog or permafrost. Tightly bound soil carbon in a mollic epipedon is considered differently than the labile carbon pool. It is the stable fraction of soil carbon, and grassland biomes pump 30% or more of their total products of photosynthesis into this liquid carbon pathway.The importance of this recent discovery of the Liquid Carbon Pathway (photosynthesis-root exudates-mycorrhizal fungi-glomalin-humic polymers-mollic epipedon) to climate science AND agriculture can not be stressed enough.Mollic EpipedonGlomalin: A soil protein important in soil sequestrationGlomalin Is Key To Locking Up Soil CarbonLiquid carbon pathway unrecognisedCenozoic Expansion of Grasslands and Climatic CoolingSo while specifically Dyson was wrong, he has identified in the most general terms the pathway forward. “Plants” is too general. Forests is categorically wrong, although we still need them for their rapid buffering capability on climate as well as many other important ecosystem services, not to mention lumber. But the forcing of CO2 mitigation long term comes from the grassland biome, now largely under agricultural management and that is plants after all. Dyson got the wrong plants and the wrong soils, but did hit on the right concept.The real question is can this mitigation strategy work within conservative ideals so that a political coalition between both liberals and conservatives can be made to devise a plan acceptable to both? It is pretty obvious that a carbon tax has and will continue to meet with opposition.I believe it is possible, yes. But certain areas will take dramatic change for that to happen. Most importantly energy and agriculture. Right now both those sectors have already overgrown what can be sustained. Quite predictable since they were never really sustainable since the industrial revolution anyway. Just took a while for people to realize it.For it to happen though, agriculture production models will need to be changed to regenerative systems, energy will need technological fixes like solar, wind, hydro and nuclear etc. and overall since population has already exceeded environmental capacity, a large amount of ecosystem recovery projects will be needed as well. So yes, reforesting can be a part where appropriate. All of these are possible, however I personally believe they are unlikely to happen in time on their own given social and institutional inertia.My focus is on agriculture. Having studied it quite intensely for years, I believe we currently have the ability to fix that one. Only a few minor gaps remain. I can only hope others committed to the other two big ones meet with similar success. But then comes the hard part, actually doing what we know how to do before these unsustainable systems currently in effect start failing world wide, collapsing even our ability to do what we know how to do! That’s the actual tricky part.For example, if agriculture fails before we fully institute regenerative models and the infrastructure changes needed, civilization collapses. Not much going to be done about it then. AGW will see to it that all three will fail if changes are not done soon enough. This has the potential to collapse civilization, or at least many nations including ours. Again making it near impossible to implement what we already know how to do.So how do we institute the changes needed in a free market economic base beneficial to mitigating AGW?The most important leg is agriculture. The answer may be more simple than you think. The rise of “king corn” can be seen as a direct result of a series of changes in agricultural policy instituted by Earl Lauer Butz, Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Most important to this policy change was the Buffer stock scheme (ever full granary) changes combined with urgings to farmers to “get big or get out”. (Which happened by the way. Now there is actually a crisis from too few family farmers, average age being 60.) That led to huge surpluses which we then were able to successfully use for many purposes, including major grain sales to Russia and China and many humanitarian aid projects.Something has changed though. Now China has opened up beef sales. This is a value added commodity over grain. It makes more sense to drop the buffer stock scheme on grain to a level we actually need to feed humans, and instead I propose a buffer stock scheme on grass fed beef instead. You can do this on the same amount of subsidies that we currently use for grain, and instead put them on restoring the great prairies/steppes/savannas of the world….raising beef. This would positively affect carbon sequestration, pesticide use, erosion, seasonal dead zones in our productive coastal waters, biodiversity, energy budget, economic growth, international trade balance, rural economic development, etc… AND if done properly, as many case studies at the USDA-SARE & USDA-NRCS clearly show, even increase total yields of food for humans.So to fully answer, instead of adding a carbon tax, one way to solve this is simply change what we subsidize. No need for new taxes. In agriculture instead of a buffer stock scheme on over production of king corn, a buffer stock scheme on carbon being sequestered in soils. Just redirect the same amount of funds away from one to the other. Same goes for energy. Fossil-fuel consumption subsidies worldwide amounted to $493 billion in 2014, with subsidies to oil products representing over half of the total. Those subsidies were over four-times the value of subsidies to renewable energy. Simply redirect the subsidies for fossil fuels over to renewables. Doesn’t necessarily need to cost one penny more.The idea that we are still subsidizing AGW, while trying to find solutions to AGW is quite frankly ridiculous. Goes to the wise old saying, “A house divided against itself can not stand.”Now for some interesting general numbers. “Under appropriate conditions, 30-40% of the carbon fixed in green leaves can be transferred to soil and rapidly humified, resulting in rates of soil carbon sequestration in the order of 5-20 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year.”Liquid carbon pathway unrecognisedFast facts: The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources5-20 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year x 1.5 billion hectares = 7.5 - 30.0 billion tonnes of CO2 per year AND that's just arable cropland, that doesn't even include the ecosystem recovery projects that could be done on degraded desertified rangeland mentioned by Allan Savory in his famous TedTalk. That's actually a larger area of land, but much more complicated to calculate. Because some rangeland is healthy and currently sequestering carbon in the LCP. A larger % is degraded by overgrazing and/or undergrazing, both causes of desertification and either nearly net zero flux, or actually a CO2 emissions source. Depending on the brittleness factor, they also each respond differently when properly managed. So it is difficult to quantify exactly how much more CO2 could be sequestered per year restoring these areas, but likely even more total (but less per hectare). China's restoration project of the desertified Loess Plateau early results shows just how significant this can be.Soil carbon sequestration potential for "Grain for Green" project in Loess Plateau, ChinaHow ecological restoration alters ecosystem services: an analysis of carbon sequestration in China's Loess PlateauOur results demonstrated a significantly increasing trend in ecosystem carbon sequestration over the fragile Loess Plateau (19.2 g C m−2 per year on average) since the implementation of the GTGP program, which resulted in a total of 96.1 Tg C fixed in this land. The Loess Plateau ecosystem had shifted from a net carbon source in 2000 to a net carbon sink in 2008. This sequestration of carbon is equivalent to 6.4% of China's total fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions in 2006 14. It should be noted that the restored area in the Loess Plateau accounted for about 6.4% of the total area covered by the GTGP program 15. Therefore, the GTGP program has made substantial contribution in mitigating China's anthropogenic CO2 emission.There are other types of ecosystem recovery too.Grassland birds: Fostering habitat using rotational grazingAnd crop agriculture:Pasture Cropping: A Regenerative Solution from Down UnderThe System of Rice Intensification (SRI)… … is climate-smart rice productionThe next two have USDA case studies on file with the USDA, and instructional vids. I will post both.No-Till Case Study, Brown's Ranch: Improving Soil Health Improves ...and12 Aprils Grazing Dairy ManualAs you can see, more food per acre. Little to no cost. More profitable. Large enough to mitigate AGW if done worldwide... As long as the other sectors, environmental restoration and renewable energy technological advances remains part of it.

One solution is parallel to Freeman Dyson’s geoengineering “solution” of just plant more trees. There are many reasons this won’t work, but the basic one is that planting trees increases stocks, but doesn’t stabilize fluxes. Using the bucket analogy, you have a created a bigger bucket, but still a bucket with no drain. It helps temporarily … until the new bigger bucket gets full. We call that Saturation. It’s a temporary fix that helps, but it is not a long term solution.However, maybe even accidently, Dyson might have stumbled onto something that can solve AGW to the benefit of all.Atmospheric CO2 level is the primary human impact we can change that directly influences energy flows. It comes down to the carbon cycle and the CO2 fertilization effect. Dyson is correct BTW that there is more carbon in the soil than in biomass and atmosphere combined. Also correct about the fertilization effect on plant growth. This is what is called a stabilizing feedback. The debunkers of Dyson are also correct about the increasing emissions from the labile fraction of soil carbon as temperature increases. Called a reinforcing feedback.Here is where it gets interesting. Dyson AND the vast majority of the Dyson debunking sources have focused on the wrong biome. It is NOT the forest plants that have the capability to mitigate AGW. It’s the grassland/savanna biome that actually can be a forcing for global cooling, and counter the current global warming trend.In a forest, the stabilizing feedbacks and the reinforcing feedbacks largely counter each other, and little is done long term to mitigate rising CO2 levels. Once you reach that saturation point you are done. You might even decrease albedo. But grasslands sequester carbon very differently than forests. Most grassland carbon is not sequestered in biomass, nor labile carbon in the top O horizon of the soil, but rather the newly discovered liquid carbon pathway. Grasslands also have higher albedo.Most terrestrial biosphere carbon storage is in grassland (mollic) soils. Where trees store most their products of photosynthesis in woody biomass, grasslands instead of producing a woody tree truck, secrete excess products of photosynthesis (exudates) to feed the soil food web, especially mycorrhizal fungi. Those fungi (AMF) in turn secrete a newly discovered compound called glomalin deep in the soil profile. Glomalin itself has a 1/2 life of 7–42 years if left undisturbed. The deepest deposits even longer with a 1/2 life of 300 years or more in the right conditions. Then when it does degrade a large % forms humic polymers that tightly bind to the soil mineral substrate and can last thousands of years undisturbed. Together they all form what is called a mollic epipedon. That’s your really good deep fertile soils of the world and they contain far more carbon, even in their highly degraded state currently, than all the terrestrial biomass and atmospheric CO2 put together. This LCP is what built those famously deep and fertile midwest soils.Even though wood is resistant to decay, the biomass of forests is still considered part of the active carbon cycle (labile carbon) That litter layer on the forest floor is relatively shallow, and most that decay ends up back in the atmosphere, unless locked in some kind of peat bog or permafrost. Tightly bound soil carbon in a mollic epipedon is considered differently than the labile carbon pool. It is the stable fraction of soil carbon, and grassland biomes pump 30% or more of their total products of photosynthesis into this liquid carbon pathway.The importance of this recent discovery of the Liquid Carbon Pathway (photosynthesis-root exudates-mycorrhizal fungi-glomalin-humic polymers-mollic epipedon) to climate science AND agriculture can not be stressed enough.Mollic EpipedonGlomalin: A soil protein important in soil sequestrationGlomalin Is Key To Locking Up Soil CarbonLiquid carbon pathway unrecognisedCenozoic Expansion of Grasslands and Climatic CoolingSo while specifically Dyson was wrong, he has identified in the most general terms the pathway forward. “Plants” is too general. Forests is categorically wrong, although we still need them for their rapid buffering capability on climate as well as many other important ecosystem services, not to mention lumber. But the forcing of CO2 mitigation long term comes from the grassland biome, now largely under agricultural management and that is plants after all. Dyson got the wrong plants and the wrong soils, but did hit on the right concept.The real question is can this mitigation strategy work within conservative ideals so that a political coalition between both liberals and conservatives can be made to devise a plan acceptable to both? It is pretty obvious that a carbon tax has and will continue to meet with opposition.I believe it is possible, yes. But certain areas will take dramatic change for that to happen. Most importantly energy and agriculture. Right now both those sectors have already overgrown what can be sustained. Quite predictable since they were never really sustainable since the industrial revolution anyway. Just took a while for people to realize it.For it to happen though, agriculture production models will need to be changed to regenerative systems, energy will need technological fixes like solar and nuclear etc. and overall since population has already exceeded environmental capacity, a large amount of ecosystem recovery projects will be needed as well. So yes, reforesting can be a part where appropriate. All of these are possible, however I personally believe they are unlikely to happen in time on their own given social and institutional inertia.My focus is on agriculture. Having studied it quite intensely for years, I believe we currently have the ability to fix that one. Only a few minor gaps remain. I can only hope others committed to the other two big ones meet with similar success. But then comes the hard part, actually doing what we know how to do before these unsustainable systems currently in effect start failing world wide, collapsing even our ability to do what we know how to do! That’s the actual tricky part.For example, if agriculture fails before we fully institute regenerative models and the infrastructure changes needed, civilization collapses. Not much going to be done about it then. AGW will see to it that all three will fail if changes are not done soon enough. This has the potential to collapse civilization, or at least many nations including ours. Again making it near impossible to implement what we already know how to do.So how do we institute the changes needed in a free market economic base beneficial to mitigating AGW?The most important leg is agriculture. The answer may be more simple than you think. The rise of “king corn” can be seen as a direct result of a series of changes in agricultural policy instituted by Earl Lauer Butz, Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Most important to this policy change was the Buffer stock scheme (ever full granary) changes combined with urgings to farmers to “get big or get out”. (Which happened by the way. Now there is actually a crisis from too few family farmers, average age being 60.) That led to huge surpluses which we then were able to successfully use for many purposes, including major grain sales to Russia and China and many humanitarian aid projects.Something has changed though. Now China has opened up beef sales. This is a value added commodity over grain. It makes more sense to drop the buffer stock scheme on grain to a level we actually need to feed humans, and instead I propose a buffer stock scheme on grass fed beef instead. You can do this on the same amount of subsidies that we currently use for grain, and instead put them on restoring the great prairies/steppes/savannas of the world….raising beef. This would positively affect carbon sequestration, pesticide use, erosion, seasonal dead zones in our productive coastal waters, biodiversity, energy budget, economic growth, international trade balance, rural economic development, etc… AND if done properly, as many case studies at the USDA-SARE & USDA-NRCS clearly show, even increase total yields of food for humans.So to fully answer, instead of adding a carbon tax, one way to solve this is simply change what we subsidize. No need for new taxes. In agriculture instead of a buffer stock scheme on king corn, a buffer stock scheme on carbon being sequestered in soils. Just redirect the same amount of funds away from one to the other. Same goes for energy. Fossil-fuel consumption subsidies worldwide amounted to $493 billion in 2014, with subsidies to oil products representing over half of the total. Those subsidies were over four-times the value of subsidies to renewable energy. Simply redirect the subsidies for fossil fuels over to renewables. Doesn’t necessarily need to cost one penny more.The idea that we are still subsidizing AGW, while trying to find solutions to AGW is quite frankly ridiculous. Goes to the wise old saying, “A house divided against itself can not stand.”Now for some interesting general numbers. “Under appropriate conditions, 30-40% of the carbon fixed in green leaves can be transferred to soil and rapidly humified, resulting in rates of soil carbon sequestration in the order of 5-20 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year.”Liquid carbon pathway unrecognisedFast facts: The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources5-20 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year x 1.5 billion hectares = 7.5 - 30.0 billion tonnes of CO2 per year AND that's just arable cropland, that doesn't even include the ecosystem recovery projects that could be done on degraded desertified rangeland mentioned by Allan Savory in his famous TedTalk. That's actually a larger area of land, but much more complicated to calculate. Because some rangeland is healthy and currently sequestering carbon in the LCP. A larger % is degraded by overgrazing and/or undergrazing, both causes of desertification and either nearly net zero flux, or actually a CO2 emissions source. Depending on the brittleness factor, they also each respond differently when properly managed. So it is difficult to quantify exactly how much more CO2 could be sequestered per year restoring these areas, but likely even more total (but less per hectare). China's restoration project of the desertified Loess Plateau early results shows just how significant this can be.Soil carbon sequestration potential for "Grain for Green" project in Loess Plateau, ChinaPasture Cropping: A Regenerative Solution from Down UnderThe System of Rice Intensification (SRI)… … is climate-smart rice productionThe next two have USDA case studies on file with the USDA, and instructional vids. I will post both.No-Till Case Study, Brown's Ranch: Improving Soil Health Improves ...and12 Aprils Grazing Dairy ManualAs you can see, more food per acre. Little to no cost. More profitable. Large enough to mitigate AGW if done worldwide.