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As it becomes more and more ingrained in humanity's psyche that we need to do something fast - and big - to offset all of the damage we are inflicting on Mother Earth, it's only going to become more obvious that only governments have the resources to tackle this job. Changing individual behavior is necessary, of course, and the first 10 years of this new century will probably be marked as "The Great Awakening," or some such labeling. But how big - and fast - should we be thinking when it comes to fighting global warming?

A recent article in the NY Times discussed some of the big planning going on right now:

Howard J. Herzog at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a proponent of carbon sequestration, which you might call creating carbon landfills (some of his papers can be read here). The basic technologies are already used in the energy business. For example, oil companies pump carbon dioxide into old fields to force out more oil.

But we don't know if it can be done on a scale that will let us keep up with the growth in coal-fired power plants, for instance, or if the carbon dioxide will stay put. To find out, Mr. Herzog estimates that it will take $1 billion a year over the next 8 to 10 years to build a large test project.

The trouble is that of about $2 billion the Department of Energy is spending on research into things like cleaner-burning coal, only about $100 million is available for carbon landfill research.

"I do find it somewhat surprising how little funding sequestration has received," David M. Reiner, a lecturer on technology policy at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, wrote in an e-mail message.

He noted that the technology has bipartisan support in Congress, and could meet multiple needs. It could help alleviate the rapid growth in emissions of carbon dioxide resulting from huge expansion of coal-driven power plants in China and India, and could help the coal industry survive in a world that wants to be carbon-free.

How 'bout even bigger ideas? Like capturing solar power in space and zapping it down to earth via microwaves. Or using millions of small spacecraft to create a solar sunshade to deflect about 10 percent of the sun's energy from earth.

Then there's the idea of geoengineering, which involves shooting particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, creating what is called the parasol effect. This has a number of proponents, partly because it appears to work: every time a major volcano erupts, producing a similar effect, temperatures decline over large regions.

But John Latham, a senior research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said that there was simply no money for geoengineering, possibly because there's a certain counterintuitiveness to shooting particles into the atmosphere.

Robert M. Metcalfe, the co-inventor of the Ethernet and now a general partner at Polaris Venture Partners, is surprised that the parasol effect is not getting serious research dollars, because it looks like the simplest and easiest way to deal with global warming. For one, it doesn't rely on reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

But he called it unfundable; it's barely past the idea phase, and venture capitalists invest in projects that will be commercially viable in three to five years.

"To pursue it is to be seen as a nut," Mr. Metcalfe said.

It's pretty obvious that these big ideas can only be funded by governments (which, remember, are run by us - voting citizens), since they are the only entities with deep enough pockets. We will need an environmental "Strategic Defense Initiative" or Green Manhattan Project, for sure.

It's time to call your representative!

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