The human race as a whole is dangerously shortsighted and few people who actually have depth of vision and wisdom to see potential problems and likely solutions seldom ACT on those problems.
Assuming that Global Climate Change is nearly as bad as the worst doomers presuppose- I don't believe it is going to be that bad, but then I think humans are self interested enough to not choose to go to extinct, so who knows until it is too late...
Anyways, even assuming the worst there are simple measures we can take now to reabsorb much of the released CO2, while turning down emissions only a little. And the easiest, cheapest, and most likely to be effective is simply - use plants to absorb the CO2. Sure it will take a lot of plants and we can't let them just turn around and be burned or composted freely (that would just release back most of the CO2 they had absorbed). But using plants to absorb CO2 and putting those plants into a form that doesn't burn or rot to easily makes sense.
Trees are good for the purpose of absorbing and sequestering CO2, but start off slow and aren't appropriate nearly everywhere.
We need weeds.
Weeds that grow REALLY big, REALLY quickly, and have numerous industrial uses beyond burning / composting. The weeds will need to grow in places we don't normally have agriculture, not need anything in the way of fertilizer or pesticides, and be usable in a wide range of climates, and optimally take up a good amount of CO2 per acre per year while allowing for the soil to remain or increase in fertility.
Thinking about weeds brings up the quintessential 'weed' - Marijuana and its non euphoria giving industrial twin, Hemp.
Hemp has a vast history of very useful industrial purposes dating back literally thousands of years. From clothes and ropes to cars to oils to so many products it is almost ridiculous. Of particular note for our purposes is 'hempcrete' ( a mix of lime or portland cement and hemp fibers ) if you use hempcrete for construction, the hempcrete will continue to absorb CO2 for years. And, if you can't find productive uses for the hemp, you can bury it or sink it underwater deeply and sequester the CO2 long term that way- maybe even in millions of years producing new fossil fuels for the future.
But this is less about the uses of hemp when harvested than a 'back of napkin' rough estimate of the use of hemp in rescuing us from a catastrophic rapid climate change that many believe is coming due to our release of atmospheric CO2.
Our industrial global society is estimated to produce 39.8 billion tons CO2 per year; (let's round up to 40,000,000,000 tons) ( http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29601644 ) some claim that as compared to a single volcano it isn't that much. They are wrong . Volcanic degassing released something like 100 - 200 million tons (200,000,000 tons) of CO2 each year, and a single massive volcanic eruption can release several million more but that is still only @ <1 emissions="" font="" global="" human="" of="" size="2">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earthtalks-volcanoes-or-humans/
)... Humans are indeed increasing the CO2 in the air significantly...
But not to worry! Weeds (Hemp) can save us- or at least help us soften the blow.
One hectare of industrial hemp can absorb 22 tons of CO2 per hectare (or about 5,500 tons per square mile or about 12 tons per acre) per crop -up to 6 crops per year but we can figure an average of 2 harvests per year in most of the USA. The land area of the lower 48 states is approximately 1.9 billion acres (1,900,000,000 acres) of which probably 10% - 15% is unused grass land or shrubland that could be planted in hemp production (based on these global statistics http://www.agter.org/bdf/en/corpus_chemin/fiche-chemin-231.html ).
Taking a pessimistic 10% of that that would give 190 million acres (190,000,000) of the US that could be planted in industrial hemp, to absorb atmospheric CO2, in the US alone of: 3,800,000,000 tons CO2 per year!
Since grass land absorbs only about 1-2 tons CO2 (2400 – 3600 lbs) per acre we can largely discount that offset that switching to hemp production would cause.
40,000,000,000 tons CO2 produced /year
3,800,000,000 tons CO2 absorbed /year by the USA (plus lots of fiber and vegetable oil related products able to be produced!) that is nearly 10% of the worlds total CO2 output with only one nation making a dedicated push. If other nations start making a similar push to use unused lands to plant CO2 absorbing plants like hemp, and plants on city rooftops, highway verges, suburban lawns etc, etc, global CO2 caused warming could be nearly eliminated without as much economic pain as eliminating all emissions would cost us.
Sure, that is a stretch - likely there are plenty of factors other than legalities and motivation to planting a weed all over the place to offset our CO2 emissions, but even a decent effort in that direction could seriously reduce the rate of global warming. Motivation and legalities are the biggest obstacles at this time.
I personally would be first in line to plant my spare empty acreage with industrial hemp if were legal to do so (without too many hoops to jump through). I could volunteer up to 60 acres that could do 1-3 crops per year depending on precipitation. So I could save 720 TONS of CO2 from the atmosphere - per crop! And I could use the fibers and oils for numerous local purposes or sell them on the open market. And doing so would also help get rid of invasive noxious weeds that keep colonizing my land. (trees don't do well on my land as it is very hard for them to survive the winters and winds.)
The only obstacle to my trying it is the government and shortsighted politicians.
What actions are you willing to take, for what causes that you can see, and what are the obstacles stopping you?
Me? I am voting, writing my congressman, and planning. I am also building an off grid homestead with my own labor, minimal fossil fuel inputs, and otherwise doing my best to reduce my footprint while still being a modern member of our society.
