commuting without fossil fuel

The Problem

The world needs a financial instrument suitable for buying, paying down and ending fossil fuel CO2 emissions. For 12 years since the publication of "An Inconvenient Truth" many conservation projects have been unable to halt the upward rocketing global CO2 levels. For you and me, the truth is every time I earn a dollar or spend a dollar somewhere I generate fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Examples of instruments used to dissolve, restructure and destroy social institutions are as follows: The Greenback dollar was used to finance the Union Army in the American Civil War. War bonds sold during World War II enabled 5 years of personal austerity and then they funded a decade consumer spending after the war ended. Symbolic free salt was used by Ghandi in his Salt March to destroy the British financial grip on India. Free Gmail accounts and free search furnished by Google replaced Yahoo, America Online and Alta Vista as the most popular home on the Internet.

Our Proposal

The proposed solution is to create a unit of exchange, which I unimaginatively name NEFFC for Not Emit Fossil Fuel Co2. The hard part is to locally instantiate the unit. We can figure out a value for NEFFC from the price of gasoline ($3.50/gallon), the pounds of CO2 generated by burning one gallon (19.6 lb for non-ethanol gasoline) the mass of the atmosphere 5.1E15 metric tons and the annual increase in CO2 2.518 E-6 (2.518 parts per million by weight) Now we need to instantiate the NEFFC unit on a local level. I propose putting up three atmospheric CO2 stations. They cost about $1000 dollars apiece to make.

We Assume that...

I am making the assumption that a small grant and a strong Conservation Labs endorsement will get others to see the solution path I am pointing at.

Constraints to Overcome

On the small scale, I am employed by a school district and I want them to set up or allow a school site affinity ride group. The activity will use the simple idea of 'not emit fossil fuel CO2 when commuting'. This is actually instantiating the prototype unit of exchange idea on a small scale. Another way of putting it is this: The purpose of NEFFC is to destroy the fossil fuel commute system. Lets try it out with 8 or 10 or 60 commuters.

Current Work

The NEFFC unit of exchange needs a software suite similar to that of Ethereum. Ethereum provides for a transaction to be conditioned on the execution of a software program. The NEFFC instrument needs an audit-able proof of work that confirms a specific act of not emitting fossil fuel CO2 was done. The local carbon dioxide emission measuring meters require software. The Megacities project in Los Angeles has approached the regional measurements problem and UCBerkeley also has a regional CO2 measurement program underway. I want to get my meters running, get the calibration working and adapt ideas from these projects.

Current Needs

I would like the grant check printed on a 2 x 4 foot sheet of paper, and an enthusiastic grant letter that I can show to a lot of people to get them to do a trial of NEFFC. I am 73 years old. If I die from Covid-19 my 40 years of work on the American energy crisis (started around 1981) will go in the dumpster.