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Media Type: Article – Recent: The MAHB Group, Stanford University

Date of Publication: October 17. 2019 | Draft first submitted September 15, 2019

Year of Publication: 2019

Author(s): Thomas Boudreau, Furtuna Abebe, Maheesha Mudannayake, The Global Trust Project, Salisbury University.

The Restoration as an immediate imperative:

Using negative emissions to reduce the amount of CO2 to below 400 PPM in the global atmosphere.

SUMMARY: Building on the previous MAHB article, “1% Solutions”, this article provides a cumulative  “1PPM strategy” concerning the research, development and deployment (R&D2) of 15-20 Negative Emissions Technologies with the goal of collectively or sequentially lowering the CO2 in the global atmosphere to below 400 ppm as the immediate and urgent imperative of humanity. This strategy should be pursued simultaneously with vigorous carbon cuts to insure the RESTORATION of the global atmosphere to levels of pre-400 ppm of CO2  that insures life on the planet for the now threatened future.

INTRODUCTION: THE RESTORATION

This paper will present several operational methods of negative emission technologies (NETS) needed to reduce CO2 in the global atmosphere below 400 ppm within the immediate future, meaning the next 5-10 years.  This must be done simultaneously with urgently needed carbon cuts, like those planned in the Paris Agreement, since no one strategy or method will accomplish this alone.  In view of this, this article proposes a “1 PPM NET each” strategy in which scientists, policy makers and citizens initiate a variety of mitigation methods that each take at least 1 ppm or up to 1% of the total CO2 out of the global atmosphere. This strategic and diverse approach is called the Multiplex Operational Mitigation Methods (MOMMS) approach since the decisive emphasis is on actual operational research, design and immediate deployment (R&D2) of at least 15- 20 such methods as the immediate imperative of humanity.

Specifically, with 15-20 actual operational and effective methods of Negative Emissions Technologies (NETS), we could reduce CO2 in the Global Atmosphere to a level below 400 ppm permanently, making our survival more certain in a very problematic future due to climate change. We call this historic effort the Restoration and can still be done, especially if and when combined with the Earth Armistice which can raise the necessary funds immediately.  The decisive and desperate need is to employ what the great Gandhi called the mindset of “Experiments with Truth,” and actually implement–despite the uncertainty factors– a series of 1 PPM solutions immediately–such as reforestation, carbon farming, blue carbon, carbon sequestration and carbon cuts — or face alone the coming and unabated  inferno of climate change.

BACKGROUND:

In an earlier article, the Global Trust Project (GTP) argued that:

“We know we are running out of time to make a decisive difference before runaway climate change occurs.  This is why it is absolutely necessary at this late date for a Multiplex Operational Mitigation Methods approach. The MOMMS approach must animate discussion, experimentation and deployment of any means that promises to effectively cut, curtail or capture carbon in the global atmosphere. Developing 20 such methods, as an immediate imperative of governments, scientists and citizens, will get CO2 below 400 ppm, which still should be possible…. “This is admittedly a simplistic yet very tempting summation of the beckoning potential of carbon dioxide removal’s (CDR) potential.”

“This must be part of a much greater effort to go green. Even if, with the proper testing and long term deployment methods, we are successful by using MOMMs carbon sequestration methods in removing 1% of carbon each from the global atmosphere, that would be a significant result and contribution to becoming a carbon free world.” Such NETS are also a job creator in a green economy.”

So, reducing CO2 in the global atmosphere is the immediate and imperative goal; once successful, the ultimate goal must be striving for a global atmosphere of 350 ppm, the level that our best scientists say is necessary to sustain human lie into the future.

THE MOST PROMISING MOMMS: RESEARCH, DEVELOP AND DEPLOY NOW

The most promising mitigation methods that we have identified are listed below with websites cited for further research and information. This list is by no means comprehensive but is meant to initiate the actual R&D2 for each of these by governments, institutions, foundations or individuals in the immediate future.

So, the MOMMS with the most potential to result in a RESTORATION of the Global Atmosphere, when enacted together, in groups or even sequentially, to levels below 400ppm of CO@ include:

1. THE DEPLOYED REGIONAL IRON HYPOTHESIS: This MOMM consists of country-specific shoreline sequestration methods using systematic buoy systems or farms, each buoyed loaded with titrated iron filtrate, to enrich and vastly extend already existing oceanic plankton streams. Many such plankton streams already seem to originate within the territorial waters of liminal states, such as Iceland, Norway, Angola, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru—where the trans Pacific plankton blooms seems to begin—or Argentina, where the globe spanning Antarctica plankton blooms seem to originate.
2. OLIVINE AND THE OCEANS: Project Vesta, using olivine on beaches to capture CO2 in oceans and other rock weathering projects should be R&D2 immediately as well since olivine and other ultramafic minerals are plentiful, if not under your feet right now.
3. INDUSTRIAL CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE: Carbon Capture and Storage.  The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions claims that: Carbon capture, use, and storage technologies can capture more than 90 percent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants and industrial facilities.”  We should try to find out very quickly if this is true and can be done. Also, a very promising project is taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and storing it or turning into fuel.  This latter project, pioneered by the Carbon Engineering Company, may well be the wave of the future, if it can be ramped up quickly.
4. CARBON FARMING:  According to the Carbon Cycle Institute: “Land management is the second largest contributor to carbon dioxide emissions on planet earth. Agriculture is the ONE sector that has the ability to transform from a net emitter of CO2 to a net sequesterer of CO2 — there is no other human managed realm with this potential.”

The Carbon Cycle Institute goes on to state:” Recent studies demonstrate the efficacy of several carbon-beneficial agricultural practices in increasing soil carbon sequestration.  Compost use has been shown to increase the amount of carbon stored in both grassland and cropland soils and has important co-benefits, such as increased primary productivity and water-holding capacity.”

1. BLUE CARBON: “The International Blue Carbon Initiative is a coordinated, global program focused on mitigating climate change through the conservation and restoration of coastal and marine ecosystems;” THIS IS AN excellent idea that needs to be developed and deployed, probably again using tax incentives to promote the RESTORATION of wetlands and coastal marine ecologies locally, and worldwide.
2. AFFORESTATION AND REFORESTATION: Afforestation refers to planting trees or high carbon capture plants—like Bamboo! –where no forests or plants existed before. Reforestation refers to restoring forests where they once were; while an extremely promising idea, the growing areas of drought and wildfires may make this problematic in certain parts of the world suffering from increasing declines in rainfall. For the promise and potential see here:  So just plants trees!
3. DIRECT AIR CAPTURE (DAC):  The idea is to directly suck carbon dioxide out of the air and store it underground.   The advantage of this method is that such DAC units could theoretically be set up anywhere.  The disadvantage is that the technologies are still at a start-up stage and need government support and tax incentives to develop quickly. Read more here.
4.    BIOCHAR: Quoting from the Carbon Brief webpage, Biochar is: “Biochar is the name given to charcoal that is added to soils rather than burned as a fuel. The charcoal is produced by burning biomass, such as wood, crop wastes and manure, while cutting off the supply of oxygen. This process is known as pyrolysis.

“A recent study found that biochar has the potential to sequester up to 4.8bn tonnes of CO2e per year. It has “fewer disadvantages than many negative emissions technologies,” the paper says, with limited need for additional land and water.”

1. THE MORATORIUM: Cutting the carbon footprint of individuals from developed nations by 50% in the next one to two years.  The idea of this strategy is to use a variety of approaches during the Restoration period, such as tax incentives for homeowners to plant up to fifty percent of their property or more with trees, stop eating red meat, advocate a “2 for 2” population policy that suggests parents have only two kids (why be outnumbered?!), end reckless maritime pollution in shipping, cut out all but essential jet travel,  and no new coal power plants for the duration of the RESTORATION, etc. (Forthcoming by Maheesha Mudannayake et al,)

CONCLUSION: Now or Never?  We shall soon find out……

” Pour ce qui est de l’avenir, il ne s’agit pas de le prévoir, mais de le rendre possible. “ 
                                                                          – Antoine de Saint Exupéry, Citadelle

“As for the future, it is not a question of predicting it, but of making it possible…..”

It’s stunning how little R&D2 has been done to actually make operational many, if not all of the MOMMs outlined in this article. So, with all due respect, the time for rhetoric or debate is over in view of the overwhelming scientific evidence presented by the IPCC and other scientific groups concerning the increasing danger of intensifying climate change. So, this article has proposed a RESTORATION of the global atmosphere by employing a variety of MOMMs to achieve levels of under 400 ppm as the immediate imperative of humanity.

The Restoration and Rebirth of the Earth Atmosphere

By Thomas Boudreau PhD

The need to mobilize the world’s states, peoples, and resource to restore the global atmosphere to levels of 400 ppm as the immediate challenge of humanity in order to survive climate change. This can be done using a variety of mitigation methods, including negative emissions, but we are rapidly running out of time to make a decisive difference.

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SUMMARY: THE IMMEDIATE IMPERATIVE: RESTORATION TO 400 PPM OF CO2

In view of the great and growing dangers of climate change,[1] the immediate task of all peoples, states, international organizations (INOs), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and private industry must seek to restore the global atmosphere to levels at or below 400 PPM as an Immediate and achievable task. The ultimate task by all states must be collective efforts to restore the Earth’s atmosphere to 350 PPM, the level that Dr. James Hansen of NASA and other scientists have identified as critical to sustaining life on this planet. [2] Thus, as a starting point, an UNGA resolution should call for the recognition of the Earth Atmosphere as a global trust and calling for its RESTORATION for present and pending generations; this is now an immediate and historic responsibility of all of humanity. We are rapidly running out of time to take any sort of effective collective action, so it must be emphasized with the ultimate serious: the time to act is now, or never. So the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)  and  other world leaders must make a clarion call to begin such a RESTORATION AND REBIRTH OF THE EARTH ATMOSPHERE as the most immediate and ultimate task of humanity.[3]

This reflection paper is an excerpt from the Barry University Law journal article by the same title which can be found in the Environmental and Earth law Journal (2017) at: https://lawpublications.barry.edu/ejejj/vol7/iss1/. See this article for full footnotes and sources.

             Dedicated to the memory of Wangari Maathai, Kenya

^“Where there is no vision, the people perish”

Proverbs 29:18

RESTORATION OF THE EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE

INTRODUCTION: THE GREAT MORAL CHALLENGE OF OUR AGE

AGENDA 2030: THE RESTORATION AS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT:

 It should be pointed out that such a RESTORATION effort is almost synonymous with sustainable development, broadly defined, and must include a variety of mitigation strategies and methods such as continuing carbon cuts as well as greatly accelerated research and development of Green Technologies; as the 2030 Agenda states, “We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet. We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path.” The term “transformative” or “transformation” is key since this is exactly what the restoration requires as well.  Due to the severity of current and coming climate change, the only way now to achieve these 2030 goals is to seek a restoration of the atmosphere.[1] States and peoples must undertake—in the spirit of Gandhi— massive “Experiments with the Truth” and begin sustained diplomatic efforts immediately to restore the atmosphere before we soon simply run out of time. [2]

Fortunately, there is a carrot—unlike carbon cuts which are often viewed as punitive by some governments, restoration of the earth’s atmosphere that includes negative emissions can be a much greater domestic economic stimulus than military spending and thus help create hundreds of thousands of permanent jobs throughout the world. This can enhance sustainable development for all and immeasurably help developing countries achieve the goals of Agenda 2030. This stimulus result will make any current leader much more popular at home, and even abroad. In short, this goal of atmospheric RESTORATION is still within reach; if there are enough or even the same number of entrepreneurial scientists and engineers that, say, work in defense industries or space agencies among the MIOPS, this goal should be within human possibility to obtain. But time is rapidly running out. Unfortunately, our collective capacity to restore the global atmosphere will inevitably degrade due to the increasing damage caused by climate change to the ecologies and economies of the world. Also, there are always the specters fueled by increasing national debts of economic decline or even catastrophic international war. So, we must begin NOW, or very soon. States and peoples must undertake—in the spirit of Gandhi— massive “Experiments with the Truth” and begin sustained diplomatic efforts immediately to restore the atmosphere before we soon simply run out of time.

Such RESTORATION efforts will create enormous employment as well. Specifically, we must experiment with, and deploy carbon sequestration methods and technologies, among other possible techniques and conservation strategies, to lower the Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. In particular, the “Iron-Hypothesis” –the placing of iron particles in the oceans to grow massive plankton blooms has not been empirically tested to the necessary degree or scale of potential oceanic application—beyond feeble “one (or two)shot” attempts and then subsequent very tentative studies.[3]  The funds for these can come through an Earth Armistice or by the MIOPs paying for the remediation of their proportionate contribution of CO2 and other Green House Gases (GHGs) to the global atmosphere.[4]

In short, the critical RESTORATION of the global atmosphere can be enhanced by developing, a portfolio of mitigation methods; such a portfolio must specifically include concerted efforts to develop an experimental and then ideally, if proven effective, the operational capability to deploy iron filings from ALL ships—the so-called “Iron Hypothesis,”—on a massive scale in the Southern Oceans (NASA, 2015; George, 2007).[5] In particular, the iron ore mines of Argentina are near railroad lines that lead directly to ports on its southern coast (Puerto Deseado), where the great Antarctica plankton blooms seem to begin. Argentina is ideal since all the key components of carbon sequestration can be brought together with the smallest carbon footprint and maximum potential impact. On the other side of South America, Peru and Ecuador seem to be the literal ocean front for the great Transpacific Plankton bloom.[6] Thus, the question becomes: Who will fund these projects?  The answer must be those states that have historically placed the most CO2 and other Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) up there; these states can be described as the Most Industrialized or Polluting States or “MIOPs” and include the United States, China, Russia and Germany or the EU.[7]

As such, the MIOPS should begin to fund pilot projects in Argentina and, when proven though constant experimentation and testing to work, commence large scale implementation of carbon sequestration right on Argentina’s coast where the subsequent Plankton blooms might spread throughout the southern oceans. Carbon sequestration, which involves land or sea based efforts to capture and sequester CO2, removing it from the global atmosphere, is distinguished here from Geo-Engineering efforts that involves the airborne efforts to spray or cast out effluents that will then reflect the sun’s light back into outer space. While both approaches involve dangers and possible unseen consequences, I favor carbon sequestration over geo-engineering since it can be deployed in large areas in removed places far from population centers. Yet, all methods must be attempted, and implemented until one or more are proven to succeed in cutting the constant increases of C02, GHGs, in the Earth atmosphere, as well as the slow but steady increase in the Earth’s average temperature are stopped and reversed; these approaches include: carbon cuts which have been preferred and the focus of most international efforts since the Rio Earth Summit; a) carbon sequestration based on the “Iron Hypothesis” and other land based or sea based methods of capturing CO2; b) carbon farming; c) olivine oxidation; d) geoengineering such as the purported possibilities of solar reflection. [8] Other potentially large scale carbon sequestration methods must be implemented as well. Untried ways to achieve the massive carbon sequestration should be as varied and innovative as the human imagination and following policy initiatives allow. For instance, vastly expanded and added efforts must include, in memory and honor of Wangari Maathai, the continuous planting a billion trees per year on each of the inhabited mainland continents; there should also be massive and accelerated conservation efforts with energy or electricity as well as recycling, especially throughout the developed world where the waste is greatest. Time is now not on our side as the danger of irreversible climate change is rapidly growing; so, we need to accelerate global climate consultations, continuous negotiations and lasting action.

 As a global organization, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) can help mobilize the necessary commitment to RESTORATION as well as the necessary research and development of policies, programs and technologies especially during yearly or bi-yearly special sessions to accomplish greater efficiencies in all possible mitigation methods, including healthy carbon sequestration as well more remote techniques as “in stratosphere” and space-based solar screening. In short, every possible mitigation method or every “Experiment with Truth” —in the spirit of Gandhi — must be tried until one or more mitigation method proves effective. [9]

In doing so, the rather obvious ethical and even legal rule of application is that such mitigation or sequestration technologies should not be deployed if the actual damage that they cause is greater than the growing danger and increasing devastating consequences of continuing, unabated global climate change. There is now a cruel yet unavoidable calculus of cost-benefits calculations concerning the benefits and inevitable consequences of simply doing nothing, such as droughts, migrations and increasing extinction events. For instance, critics of carbon sequestration in the oceans often cite the unintended potential consequences of large scale deployment of technologies based on the Iron Hypothesis; yet, there is a massive and growing toxic orange algae bloom growing off the coast of California RIGHT NOW (2017) caused by increased temperatures and unabated climate change. [10] This toxic bloom is causing a massive and growing kill-off of fish, the seabirds or mammals that rely upon them.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the globe, species extinction is accelerating due to climate change, and projected to continue in the future. Scholars and policy makers have long speculated about the inevitable increases in human conflict as entire populations migrate or suffer from famine or drought due to climate change. The increasing costs of not doing anything effective —and thus allowing such unintended consequences to GROW— has to be calculated against the possible and still hypothetical unintended consequences of carbon sequestration methods. Due to the rapidly collapsing climate status quo, the deadly costs of doing “nothing more” are very steeply increasing. “Policy Purists” who advocate “carbon cuts or nothing!”— which was perhaps an appropriate attitude and approach twenty years ago — are now possibly the greatest hindrance to climate progress and even human survival. There are now rapidly increasing costs of doing nothing can to be measured, calculated and compared, even roughly, against the inevitable cost/benefits of carbon sequestration methods, geoengineering and the R/D of new technologies; the time has now simply passed when ethically “ideal” or “pure” cost free measures were perhaps feasible. The Earth is rapidly heating up to uninhabitable levels, or will in the next years and decades, the polar ice caps and glaciers are melting at unprecedented levels, sea levels are rising and extreme weather events are spreading as well as intensifying; in view of deeply troubling developments, we need to intensify our efforts through a collective commitment to climate policy pluralism and have a variety of strategies, methods and approaches to stabilizing the Earth’s climate; so far, it becoming increasingly obvious—except to rabid climate deniers and ironically environmental purists— that carbon cuts alone simply aren’t working. The Paris Agreement states that, even if fully implemented, the Agreement will leave significant gaps in the action that is needed. We can’t wait any longer for states to voluntarily comply; we need to mobilize new mitigation methods, including negative emissions, in order to successfully address the increasingly catastrophic global crisis of climate change.

 Furthermore, what if “Plan A”—the Paris Agreement and the promised carbon cuts—simply does not work in time, or are too little too late? The specter of the similar yet largely unsuccessfully Kyoto Protocol based largely on the same process of providing “promissory notes” concerning voluntary carbon cuts by states, should caution us not to place all our hopes again in only one approach or plan.[11] In view of this, we need, a truly experimental approach to try simultaneously other diplomatic approaches and collective methods to prevent further catastrophic climate change. For instance, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), “total world military expenditure rose to $1739 billion in 2017, a marginal increase of 1.1 per cent in real terms from 2016.”[12]  Given this, states have the funds and can devote a significant fraction of this enormous expenditure of funds to actually overcoming climate change in the very near future, especially if states declare an Earth Armistice until the great and growing danger of climate change is overcome.[13] To do so requires states to define their current and future national security in terms of ending the threat of climate change; this is becoming increasingly obvious to defense ministries around the world.[14] Governments of the United States, China, Germany and the EU—the MIOPs—currently have the necessary funds to overcome climate change and restore the atmosphere to a nonthreatening level to all of life—if they define their national security in terms of ending drastic climate change. The MIOPs—who are also major spenders in arms expenditures—must lead in this effort, especially in view of their historic and continuing contributions to the GHGs that are largely responsible for climate change.

Yet, vested interests within governmental bureaucracies are powerful forces to preserve the budgetary status quo unless there are countervailing factors and pressing considerations that a country’s leadership must face and thus force changes within their government. If the Earth’s Atmosphere is internationally recognized as a global trust, then one such factor— however marginal— might be the pressing reality and prospect of such governments being held legally accountable for their proportionate responsibility to restore the atmosphere. If the domestic or regional courts of developing countries vigorously pursue this issue within their own jurisdictions, then religious leaders, elders, teachers, community groups, and private citizens must take personal and communal responsibility to act now to restore the atmosphere. With the deadly storms, wildfires, heat waves, winds and droughts rapidly increasing, we must act now; we will not get a second chance.

CONCLUSION:  ITS NOW, OR NEVER……

In view of the great and growing danger of climate change, humanity must fully mobilize with a truly historic common purpose to restore the earth’s atmosphere, once and for all. So, around the world, Political leaders, religious leaders, elders, teachers, community leaders and private citizens must make collective as well as personal responsibility to do everything possible to contribute to this critical RESTORATION. With time rapidly running out of time, and truly extreme weather events –such as droughts, wildfires, record heat weaves, hurricanes, floods, and extreme winds rapidly increasing– we will not get a second chance; so, the time to act is NOW to take every and all steps necessary to insure the RESTORATION AND REBIRTH of the Earth Atmosphere to, first 400 ppm and finally to 350 ppm of CO2. Only in this way can we insure the survival for all current and future generations of life on our Mother Earth.

See also:

Article on Earth Atmosphere as a Global Trust 

Website on Earth Armistice

 Website on Global Trust Project

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[1] See note 31 at: https://lawpublications.barry.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1067&context=ejejj IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 151 pp.;

[2] James E. Hansen et. al, Target atmospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim?, OPEN ATMOS. SCI. J., 2, 217-231 (2008); See also James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato, Paleoclimate implications for human-made climate change, 11 SPRINGER, 21, 21- 47 (2012); James Hansen et. al, Perception of climate change, 109 PNS, E2415-E2423 (2012); James E. Hansen, Defusing the global warming time bomb, 290 SCIENTIFIC 90 ENVIRONMENTAL AND EARTH LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 7]

[3] For full citations, and sources see: “The Earth Atmosphere as a Global Trust” at Environmental and Earth law Journal (2017) at: https://lawpublications.barry.edu/ejejj/vol7/iss1/

[4] See: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf

[5] Gandhi, M. (1983). Autobiography: The story of my experiments with truth. Courier Corporation

[6] Dopyera, C. (1996). The Iron Hypothesis. Earth Magazine, (October Issue). Also, infra, note 8

[7] For a discussion of the Earth Armistice proposal, which could raise hundreds of billions of dollars, see: https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/the-earth-armistice/.  For a discussion of proportionate state responsibility, see note 3, supra.

[8] See for instance R. Greene et. al, Testing the Iron Hypothesis in Ecosystems of the Equatorial Pacific Ocean, 371 NATURE 123-129 (1994); John J. Cullen, Status of the Iron Hypothesis after the Open-Ocean Enrichment Experiment, 40 LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY 1336-1343 (1995); Caroline Dopyera, The Iron Hypothesis, EARTHMAGAZINE (Oct. 1996), http://www.palomar.edu/oceanography/iron.htm; Carbon Sequestration, LAMONT-DOHERTY EARTH OBSERVATORY, http://www.Ideo.columbia.edu/gpg/projects/carbon sequestration; David Biello, Controversial Spewed Iron Experiment Succeeds as Carbon Sink: Dumping Iron into the Ocean Stimulates Blooms of Diatoms that pull down Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere—but only under the Right Conditions, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (Jul. 18, 2012), https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fertilizing-ocean-with-ironsequesters- co2/.

[9] See Supra, note 3.

[10] Ibid. Andrei. Supra note 3 “The Earth’s Atmosphere as a Global Trust” for full citations and sources/

[11] Ibid., Supra note 3.

[9] See supra, note 5: Gandhi, M. (1983).

[10] See Supra, note 3.

[11] See supra, note 3.

[12] [12]See:  https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2018/global-military-spending-remains-high-17-trillion

[13] See:  https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/the-earth-armistice/

[14] Ibid.