Cutting Carbon Emissions

The UN climate change conference now under way has been widely dismissed, particularly in the US. Another failure looms, it is said, proving that the top-down negotiated approach cannot work. But as the talks get serious, it seems that failure is not yet guaranteed.

The idea of the environment as an asset may horrify those who consider the great outdoors and all that's in it to be a collective human trust. But the fact is that most of what counts as an environmental asset is owned by someone.

To offset harmful carbon emissions, which make us sick and ratchet up the speed of global warming, we should conjure up a giant terrarium -- a safe harbor for earth's ecosystems.