An economic solution

Carbon fee and Dividend. (link)

This proposal is not mine. I believe it originated with Citizens Climate Lobby and championed by Bruce Hyer, with additions by Cathy Orlando. However, I am not sure that their proposal goes far enough.

Carbon fee and dividend is a direct fee on carbon pollution on fossil fuels at their point of entry into the economy with 100% of the dividends returned back to citizens

The basic proposed structure is:
1. A fee is charged at the point of origin or point of import on greenhouse gas emitting energy (e.g. oil, natural gas and coal), based upon scientific data as to its likelihood to produce CO2 pollution.

2. The fee is high, and is progressively increased.

3. The fee goes into a trust fund, and is returned straight to citizens/households by CRA equitably (on an equal per capita basis) and in full. None goes to government!
Cathy Orlando

Much more detailed layout here.

The issue I have with this is that the changes we need to our logistics infrastructure are more substantial than what this will fund.

I feel that we have achieved the current capacity by building an infrastructure around cheap energy extracted from fossil fuels. As such, to transform into a different society with the current situation of the baby boomers, US debt levels etc, is a tall ask. Not saying it is impossible, but given the circumstances, I would say it will be very unpleasant for many.

From Wikipedia, some sobering statistics;

• Retail stores, hospitals, gas stations, garbage disposal, construction sites, banks, and even a clean water supply depends entirely upon trucks to distribute vital cargo. Even before a product reaches store shelves, the raw materials and other stages of production materials that go into manufacturing any given product are moved by trucks.
• By 2011, trucking moved $603.9 billion in freight – more than 80 percent of all freight transportation revenue
• Agricultural products totaling $118,832,000, or 82.7 percent, were shipped by truck in 2007 (excluding animal feed, cereal grains, and forage products). About half of that agricultural freight was shipped by for-hire trucks and half by private trucks. More than 92 percent of prepared foods, including dairy products and prepared fruit, vegetable, and nut products, were moved by truck in 2007.
• Within the health care industry, trucking moved $501,445,000 worth, or 65 percent of the total value, of pharmaceutical products in 2007.
• Lumber and other wood products totaling $168,913,000 were shipped by truck in 2007, accounting for 91.9 percent of this class of product.
• Over 80 percent of all communities in the US rely exclusively on trucks to deliver all of their fuel, clothing, medicine, and other consumer goods. 

Get ready for inflation to bite hard, and not just with food. This will lead to deflation of asset prices, and an escalation of US debt.

"Why does logistics have to be central to the argument?" Because western society is living on the edge as it is. Why is the US so obsessed with growth, to the point of going to war over it? Because if they don't grow their unfunded liabilities, and the replacement of the US dollar as the world currency, will result in a depression that will make the 30s look like a Mardi Gras.

The people in power are fully aware that we are reliant, for over 1/2 our oil supplies, from Middle East suppliers. The oil supplies are dwindling and the political environment becoming more unstable. Most people would be unaware that countries are only required to hold 90 days worth of fuel. In a crisis that fuel is rationed according to a preset hierarchy. Logistics is not even on the list. For anybody who doesn't understand the scope of the problem please see this post. 

Anything that would create an additional burden on GDP, without radically changing the way we consume, will be unacceptable. That is why the best they can do will be to attempt to change things over time. However, time is not on our side.
The type of structural reforms required to replace our reliance on logistics would be a complete remodeling of our society. I am not justifying a continuing of the status quo, I am just trying to be realistic. There is no way to support the cities we currently have without logistics, something's going to give.

Looking at the trucking industry again. We would need to replace or update thousands of vehicles. Who is going to pay? The driver? The ones in Australia are barely making ends meet. The problem is actually larger than that. We need to move freight onto an electric freight network with primary line-haul performed by trains. While converting a track system from diesel to electric would be feasible, the problem is that;

1. We do not have the power source, 
2. and the current track system (particularly in the US) is not extensive enough.

We cannot expect to changeover our infrastructure by charging the logistics companies more to move our freight. Otherwise they will simply pass on the cost of the carbon fee, serious inflation will result and there will be no infrastructure changes. There has to be scope to finance the governments ability to provide a rail system. This is a community need, not something that should be left to corporations. 

Extending the proposal

I would suggest that this be extended in the following manner. It would be more equitable if the distribution of the dividend was on the inverse of the amount of consumption (sales) tax paid by a tax payer. That is, the more they consumed, the more they were responsible for emissions. The system could be simplified by the use of the consumption tax bell curve. Divide it into quarters. Much like tax brackets. 


An example of the distribution might be as follows;
Households who consumed the highest amounts Q4 would receive 0 dividend. 
Q3 would receive .5 dividend. 
Q2 would receive 1. 
Q1 would receive 2.5


Initially the bell curve is not even. Given current western consumption it is negatively skewed (leans to the right). That means a lot of households would receive no dividend.
Over time the bell curve would skew to the left.
The effect of this would be important. The early adopters of minimal consumption would be very well rewarded. A few would be receiving 62.5% of the dividend. There would be a powerful incentive for the curve to drift to the left.

It would create a system that actively rewarded those who minimized their consumption. That in turn would lead to innovation, as there would be a financial reward for reducing consumption. People would pay for products that reduced their consumption with the expectation of dividends from the system. It would also help provide a safety net for the elderly.

Whether an income is high or low should not be a factor. Low consumption is rewarded. High consumption is penalized (through the carbon fee). The effect would be to dramatically swing the way we consume as a society. People would be paid to grow their own food.

Prior to the distribution of the dividend, a logistics trust fund would receive a tax on the total. It's mandate would be the modernization of the logistics system and the possible funding of Community Farming Centers.

Disease

Overview

This article is going to look at disease from 2 perspectives. The personal one and then the global implications. The implications for where you live, migration and social stability are important.

Personal

Don't get sick in the first place. You don't want to have to go to hospital. Do everything you can to stay healthy, this is something that your doctor can't prescribe.

Eating five daily portions of fruit and vegetables is associated with a lower risk of death from any cause, particularly from cardiovascular disease ... finds a new study.(link)

Antibiotics and evolving organisms have created a large problem that will not go away. If you catch something from a hospital, it will drain your financial resources. The organisms are evolving quickly.



Hospitals are a breeding ground. The longer you stay in the more likely you are to catch something.



Not all states are equal



Life style choices are important too. From this page, here is what is happening with multiple drug resistant Gonorrhea. The days of free love are over.

Global

IPCC conservatively estimates 90cm sea level rise at or before the end of the century. That puts;
42 million people at risk within Indonesia 
Roughly 17 million in Bangladesh
64 million in China
4 million in USA
7 million in India
You get the idea.

There will be effects other than just sea level rise, in particular drought and heat. All this adds up to migration. When the people move disease will come with them.

In most immigrant source regions, infectious diseases continue to represent major causes of death and morbidity due to respiratory infections, gastrointestinal and diarrheal diseases [12], tuberculosis [13], and HIV infection/AIDS [14]. The risks of infectious disease acquisition in those source nations are manifest in certain immigrant and migrant populations after they move to their new destination. As migration continues in an increasingly globalized world, health care providers at the primary care and specialist level can expect to be faced with the challenges of recognition, diagnosis, and management of diseases that are themselves the consequences of international factors.
http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/38/12/1742.full

Here is a map of TB


And it is growing



TB and HIV in South Africa
You can see the risk for Europe and southern USA. TB spreads through the air, so it is serious.

Ebola

I am going to use Ebola as an example of disease risk through migration. However, Ebola while highly contagious, is only contagious through bodily fluids (UPDATE: well, unfortunately that is not entirely true transmission through limited air distance is possible). As such it is not the risk as a mutant form of the flu might be. Should it appear in Southern Europe as I speculate it might, I believe it will be contained. The strain of Ebola known as Ebola Reston is only known to exist in the Philippines. That strain is not damaging to humans, but is contagious through the air. If the Ebola Zaire and Ebola Reston strains ever mix, then the situation will get even worse at an incredible rate.

There is no vaccine against Ebola Zaire. It is very infectious and can kill in a short time with 90% mortality. So far it is only found on the African west coast, but it is not contained. If it spreads throughout Africa, coinciding with high temperature anomalies Europe could be hard hit through migration. In the migration article, I mention that a lot of people wanting to migrate to Europe actually pass through the Ebola contaminated areas. This disease has an incubation period of up to 3 weeks.

There are some real factors working against its containment right now. There is a sort of conspiracy theory going on among locals that the UN is actually bringing it into the country. Health staff have even been attacked. The Red Cross in Guinea said it had been forced to temporarily suspend some operations in the country's southeast after staff working on Ebola were threatened on Wednesday. "Locals wielding knives surrounded a marked Red Cross vehicle," a Red Cross official said, asking not to be named. An MSF centre elsewhere in Guinea was attacked in April by youths saying the charity brought Ebola into their country. 

Now a new conspiracy theory has emerged (link).

Police were guarding an Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone on Saturday, the day after thousands marched on the clinic following allegations by a former nurse the deadly virus was invented to conceal "cannibalistic rituals" there, a regional police chief said.

People are already trying desperately to immigrate anyway they can to escape conflict. Southern Sudan will create additional burdens. Climate change would make this worse, but so far Africa has really been spared the temperature anomalies the rest of the world is seeing. 

Historically, El Nino results in drier than normal conditions for the African East coast. Let's hope the Ebola situation gets contained soon. The longer term issue is that without a vaccine this could be a real threat. The problem is that as the world warms the African West coast becomes uninhabitable. See the maps at the end of the where to live post. That area of Africa will not be sustainable for habitation in the traditional sense. The people will have to move. Though it is likely that this situation may have been resolved by then, as the mortality rate is so high and containment relatively easy (if people abide by guidelines).

Mosquito-born diseases

A human is the host, the mosquito bites and becomes the carrier to another human. This will have wide implications as humanity starts to migrate. The higher the density of people the more targets,

Most adult female mosquitos live 2-3 weeks. They have a range of up to 3km per day from their breeding site. If a community is isolated and clean of disease the risks are vastly reduced. Here is a mosquito containment plan, it has a lot of good practical advice.

Malaria

Malaria was thought to be coming under control. Once again evolution has kicked in, it seems throughout Asia it is getting multiple drug resistant (MDR). This hasn't hit Africa yet. But the implications with migration is important and are studied in this document. The basic premise is that to control it while populations are migrating, means controlling it at the source. As, at least, the Asian source is going MDR the outcome with climate change is dark.

Chikungunya

Chikungunya has been spreading out of Africa into the Indian Ocean region, Asia and Europe in recent years. So far, more than 400 travelers have carried it into the U.S. and it has spread for the first time in Florida and the New York area. The Pan American Health Organization reports more than 900,000 cases since December across the Caribbean and Central America. It has killed 25 people. It’s carried by the same mosquitoes that carry dengue and West Nile. It’s not especially deadly but it’s very painful and up to 90 percent of infected people feel sick. Chikungunya does not spread person to person, but if a mosquito bites an infected person and bites someone else, it can spread that way. Clinics are on the alert for it.

(link)

Dengue

Dengue is moving into the United States, especially in Florida and south Texas. Three people have died recently in the U.S. from dengue. Like chikungunya, it’s spread by mosquitoes and health experts are on alert for cases among people who have not traveled. Dengue is the world's fastest-spreading tropical disease and WHO says it represents a pandemic threat. It can cause a hemorrhagic fever — a fairly horrific set of symptoms that include bleeding under and on the surface of the skin. The good news is that only about 20 percent of people infected with dengue show any serious symptoms at all. It’s another one that doesn’t pass person to person.

(link)

West Nile Virus

Prior to the mid-1990s, WNV disease occurred only sporadically and was considered a minor risk for humans, until an outbreak in Algeria in 1994, with cases of WNV-caused encephalitis, and the first large outbreak in Romania in 1996, with a high number of cases with neuroinvasive disease. WNV has now spread globally, with the first case in the Western Hemisphere being identified in New York City in 1999;^[1] over the next 5 years, the virus spread across the continental United States, north into Canada, and southward into the Caribbean islands and Latin America. WNV also spread to Europe, beyond the Mediterranean Basin, and a new strain of the virus was identified in Italy in 2012. WNV is now considered to be an endemic pathogen in Africa, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Europe and in the United States, which in 2012 has experienced one of its worst epidemics. In 2012, WNV killed 286 people in the United States, with the state of Texas being hard hit by this virus, making the year the deadliest on record for the United States.(link)

To fix it

If your not familiar with why climate change is the most pressing issue humanity as ever faced then please read this first.

There are 2 related issues in the Arctic. One is the release of carbon from the permafrost that is dealt with here. The other is the release of carbon from the sub-sea sediments of the Arctic ocean which is what this article deals with. This is now a proposal in the MIT CoLab.

As mentioned elsewhere once the methane of the arctic circle begins to be released then global warming will accelerate dramatically. The effects will be more devastating than anything man has known in its history. 

To review the situation here is Dr. Wadhams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iRqv_RhLno4

 I should make it clear that I consider this to be a line of last defence, and I would dearly hope that it would never be required. That said if it were needed I would like to know that it had been very carefully thought through, and that is why I have posted it now.

This would be a solution that would require no new technologies, just the slowing down of water flows. At the end of this article I will provide supporting evidence that demonstrates this would work.

Here is an image of the Arctic circle courtesy of Wikipedia, at the top of the image the small gap between Alaska and Russia is the Bering Strait. The thin dark blue area is the Fram Strait. The white mass is Greenland.

As temperatures begin to rise the Greenland ice sheet will begin to melt. The Greenland ice sheet contains 2,850,000 cubic kms of ice. That will be a significant amount of cold water being dumped into the sea. It's enough cold water to raise the world's oceans 7m. However, it will not distribute evenly. Fresh water doesn't quickly mix with salt water. The rest of the oceans are denser, and warmer. That denser water is not going to give way easily. The ice sheet melt will be blocked from going south. The cold water would flow towards the Arctic first. The immediate effect of that will be to cool it.

2.8 million cubic kms of cold water will flow into a place with shallow sea beds. The total volume of the Arctic ocean is 18,750,000 cubic kms. That is a replenishment of 15%. In a lake cold water goes to the bottom (called the hypolimnion). In terms of the methane hydrates that is where it is needed most. However, that is really just a delay. The sea beds are shallow and without an ice cover the water will begin to heat up.

There is another effect of the melting Greenland ice sheet. There is an ocean current called the Thermohaline circulation that brings warm water up from the tropics. It is the reason why England does not experience the temperatures of Siberia. The cold water from the melt will cause a slowdown of this circulation by blocking the upwelling stage off the southern tip of Greenland. A disruption of the circulation would slow down the warming of the arctic. Again another delay, but not a fix.

Now, what if the circulation could actually be shutdown through terraforming? It would be perhaps the greatest engineering feat mankind has ever done, but the benefits would be its survival.

2 changes need to be made;

Blocking the Pacific inflows

The Bering Strait Sea Wall

The Bering strait must be separated from the Pacific ocean. This could be achieved with a low tech sea wall. The effect would be to isolate the Arctic ocean from warm water coming from the Pacific ocean. During the winter, cold Alaskan winds blow over the Chukchi Sea, freezing the surface water and pushing this newly formed ice out to the Pacific. If this movement was stopped by a land bridge, that cold water would have a chilling effect on the rest of the sea. During summer gates could be opened at the top layer allowing warm water out. There would be a positive flow because of the land runoff feeding the Arctic ocean.

It would not be difficult to build a sea wall there. The answer is in the terrain. Both on the Russian side and on the Alaskan side are mountains so there is plenty of foundation material. In addition the Bering Strait is extraordinarily shallow. So shallow in fact that there is already a proposal to tunnel under it.
http://inhabitat.com/russia-green-lights-65-billion-siberia-alaska-rail-and-tunnel-to-bridge-the-bering-strait/ The strait averages 98 to 164 ft (30 to 50 m) in depth and at its narrowest is about 53 mi (85 km) wide. That is nothing for a sea wall. The sea bed was exposed previously in mankind's existence (see below) why not again?

The argument could be made that this would result in ecological damage, however, more damage will actually result from waiting. "Mooring data indicate the Bering Strait throughflow increases ~50% from 2001 (~0.7Sv) to 2011 (~1.1Sv), driving heat and freshwater flux increases.(link)
The changes are actually happening now, at a very fast pace. Closing it would actually do more to preserve the ecosystem than continuing with the current state.
Finally, the ecological damage coming from this becoming a shipping route will add to the growing problem. (link)

As part of this solution the sea wall would require sluice gates. The gates would allow fine tuning of the water temperature for those concerned with the possibility of creating another ice age. However, that scenario would be very unlikely given the current levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. A byproduct of the sea wall would be phenomenal hydroelectric generation (more below).

Blocking the North Atlantic current

There are 2 methods by which the North Atlantic current could be slowed or even stopped from entering the Arctic.

"In the depth range of 150–900 meters is a water masses referred to as Atlantic Water. Inflow from the North Atlantic Current enters through the Fram Strait, cooling and sinking to form the deepest layer of the halocline, where it circles theArctic Basin counter-clockwise. This is the highest volumetric inflow to the Arctic Ocean, equaling about 10 times that of the Pacific inflow, and it creates the Arctic Ocean Boundary Current.^[17] It flows slowly, at about 0.02 m/s.^[15] Atlantic Water has the same salinity as Arctic Bottom Water but is much warmer (up to 3 °C). In fact, this water mass is actually warmer than the surface water, and remains submerged only due the role of salinity in density." wikipedia

The Fram Strait

The underwater gully running through the Fram strait needs to be blocked. An underwater sea wall is needed from the Belgica Bank to the Yermak plateau. The effect would be to stop the West Spitsbergen current that brings in the Atlantic current.

Faroe Islands to Scotland shallowing

Another option is to shallow the waters from the Faroe islands to Scotland. Rather than allowing the North Atlantic current to continue to the Fram Strait block it at the Faroe Islands.

In order to shallow the sea bed, or the gully, I would propose an artificial reef. We have taken trillions of tonnes of metal from the Earth's rocks, why not give some of it back? Take the derelict artifacts of mankind, clean them of pollutants and then scuttle them. The result would be a huge area of sea life completely protected from fishing legal or otherwise. You cannot dragnet over a sunken ship. It would be a haven for sea life the likes of which could not found anywhere else in the world. Derelict ships could be towed, other artifacts could be barged.

If you think that this would result in environmental pollution then look at these;

Artificial reefs actually generate business. 

Details

Looking at the image of the current flows and depth profile here;

You notice the vast majority of the N. Atlantic current goes to the East of the Faroe Islands, not the West, as that is hindered by a southerly moving East Greenland Current, and also because it is shallow. So the critical point is to the west. Looking at the western depth profile between Faroe Island and Scotland there is a narrow gully that is the primary transport for the Atlantic current. It goes from 60.664433, -6.020508 to 59.968072, -5.009766 (~100km). Shutting down that gully would block the predominant flow.

http://www.latlong.net/

(http://www.seismicatlas.org/entity?id=34206343-9500-4097-ace4-f8b48a184b15)

A deep sea barrier at the southern tip of the Faroe-Shetland Channel (FSC) would force the Nordic Deep Water inflow up. This is fresh water which would add an additional restraint to the North Atlantic Current (NAC) surface water flowing North. It is not feasible that this would stop the NAC however, it would tend to redirect it and reinforce the ThermoHaline Circulation (THC) east to west off the southern tip of Greenland.

So if the reef height was 1000m from the floor, and the reef was 1000m wide, and it was 100km (actually only 56km) that would give 100 million m^3.

Not all of this has to be blocked. There just has to be sufficient structure to allow natural processes to eventuate. In particular cold water corals. They can survive at 4C which, I believe, is well within tolerance for this environment.

They only grow slowly but they can be very extensive;

The largest reef yet discovered, off the coast of Norway's Røst Island, is 40km long and 2-3 km wide. Another Norwegian reef has grown to a height of 165m above the surrounding seabed.

So I think it is best to aim for an environment that is a catalyst for nature to take over. In that case, periodic spires of scuttled ships would act as posts where the coral would gradually fill in the gaps. But the reality is that coral grows slowly (5-25mm a year).

What would it take to plug this gully? Current estimates are from 200 to 600 ships are sent to the wrecking yards each year (let's say 400 avg). I am going to calculate based on the size of a small Panamax ship (294m * 32m * 12m) * 400 = 45,158,400m^3 per year

http://maritime-connector.com/wiki/ship-sizes/

All the ship wrecking for 2 years = 90 million m^3 that has the gully blocked, and would effectively throttle the N. Atlantic current into the Arctic sea. This combined with a closure of the Bering Strait would result in a positive outflow of fresh water from the Arctic. The Arctic has a yearly positive inflow of 2890 km³ of freshwater from rivers (here). This extra water would flow out south into the Atlantic, the warm salt water going north would be blocked.

The combined effect

The combined effects of blocking the Bering strait and throttling or stopping the North Atlantic current, would be numerous;

• The inflows into the Arctic would be colder fresh water 2890 km³ coming from rivers, glacial and ice sheet melt
• The Arctic ocean would become much less saline
• The water would be less dense.

Those effects would mean;

• Increased ice coverage in the Arctic. Saltwater has a much lower freezing point than freshwater does. Therefore ice would form much more readily.
• The ice would increase the reflection of the suns rays (albedo) which would decrease the temperature of the Arctic ocean.
• A slowing of the Thermohaline circulation flows into the Arctic. The less dense cold water would be a net outflow from the Arctic region via the Bering Strait hydroelectric dam. 

The result would potentially be the beginning of a new glacial period, at least in the Arctic. Without warming from the Atlantic water, temperatures would severely plunge. 

If we wait to implement this there are some potentially huge costs ;

The first is the the positive feedbacks currently activated will become too established to reverse. The feedbacks are many but, in particular, would be the oceans becoming anoxic.

The second is that the climate changes that are already in the pipeline, and the resulting environmental degradation are going to force a mass migration Northward. The implementation of this proposal would probably result in severely dropping temperatures. The people would be caught with no infrastructure and now freezing temperatures.

There is evidence that this approach would in fact work. This article (based on a paper released in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) states the improbability of the North Atlantic current being shutdown and causing an ice age, while the Bering Strait is open. Close it and the dynamics change very rapidly. The Bering Strait has actually been closed before, by nature, and it lead to dramatic climate change as I am predicting. In fact the Bering Strait was closed a mere 14,000 years ago. As such, it is obvious this would have no detrimental effect on the ocean. So this is not an unnatural solution to a devastating problem.

There are virtually no risks associated with implementing it. There would be a fear that the water in the Arctic would become more stagnant which may lead to anoxic events. However, that won't happen. Look at the profile of Mediterranean sea. In addition, it would be balanced by the decrease in water temperature which would hold more dissolved oxygen. Finally, the Bering strait was closed only 14,000 years ago this was a time when flora and fauna was thriving.

Hydroelectric power

There is another benefit, and it is extremely important. The pressure difference between the Arctic sea on one side of the Bering Strait Wall and the Pacific ocean on the other, would be colossal. That is clean potential energy. The beauty is that it could be done, with little, if any negative consequences.

The flow rate of the water moving through the Bering Strait is roughly 1.4 x 10^6 m^3/sec ( http://aslo.net/lo/toc/vol_11/issue_1/0044.pdf). This net northward flow is driven by the difference between sea level in the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans (0.4–0.5 m). This is a hydraulic head (.5m) for power generation, the pressure is most definitely there.

So .5m head and 1.1Sv gives us (as potential power)
P = 1,000,000m^3/sec * .5m
P = ~ 4.4 gigawatts
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/stab2529/northern_shelf.shtml
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/JC092iC07p07097/abstract
So a hydroelectric plant is certainly feasible. In context, the 3 Gorges dam in China can generate 18Gw.

By building the Bering Wall no lands would be flooded, we would get clean electricity, and the Arctic sea ice would be restored. Most importantly, between the Bering Wall and the throttling of the Thermohaline current, the methane hydrates would be preserved. If we let the situation with the methane hydrates accelerate, we will end up with the oceans dying. The flow on effect of that is the reduction of the very air we breath.

Nothing in the history of mankind could be more important than this. Time is short, the following image is of temperature anomalies moving from the Pacific into the Arctic sea. If this continues unabated the methane hydrates will melt. The result will be huge emissions of methane and runaway climate change.

Azolla

As mentioned the water will become less saline. Once the surface water gets to 10ppt (currently 30 ppt), Azolla can thrive. This is very important. 

The Azolla event occurred in the middle Eocene epoch,^[1] around 49 million years ago, when blooms of the freshwater fern Azolla are thought to have happened in the Arctic Ocean. As they sank to the stagnant sea floor, they were incorporated into the sediment; the resulting draw down of carbon dioxide has been speculated to have helped transform the planet from a "greenhouse Earth" state, hot enough for turtles and palm trees to prosper at the poles, to the icehouse Earth it has been since. (link)

The draw down effect of Azolla 49 million years ago has been estimated to have reduced the atmospheric concentration of total of 2850ppm CO2, and in the process brought on an ice age. Azolla is an amazing plant and its ability to control methane in rice paddies, may be just what is needed now. Should Azolla thrive again in the Arctic it could be harvested en masse and provide a significant energy source through Biogas. Some species of Azolla can handle -5C so temperature will not be a limiting factor (link). Salt is.

The cost of waiting

It is ironic that if we started now, we could throttle the Thermohaline Circulation gradually and the transition would be smoother. If we wait and block it in a desperate panic, the climate shift could be violent. While there are many variables involved it could conceivably happen like this;

• CO2 levels remain in the atmosphere for 40 years.
• Methane remains in the atmosphere for 70 years.
• Much of the population would have had no choice but to migrate North into an area of little infrastructure. 
• Slowing the THC initially does nothing for the climate, because of the current Green House Gases (ghg) in the atmosphere. Society is desperate, so the THC is shutdown.
• Civilization has reduced its CO2 emissions to near zero through change or collapse.
• Gradually it's effects are presented, methane emissions stop.
• A period of stasis
• The Arctic begins to chill
• The Arctic begins to freeze again. Albedo (reflectivity) increases, with no black snow.
• Now through the Mpemba effect, the water begins to freeze at a rapid rate. 
• Albedo now increases on land as well.
• Now the population must migrate South into an area that has seen no infrastructure maintenance in 2 generations.

If you have any contributions or rebuttals please comment. It is important that all the issues are considered.