I like this idea! And I think it is worth investigating new ideas and technological solutions to problems. Obviously CO2 scrubbers are not going to remove ALL of the CO2 because we are pretty good at producing it. But clearly we are creating more than plants can process.

We have to tell them to stop burning the RainForests, otherwise the world will end. This I believe is the True Cause of Global warming. But the easy money is from carbon CO2 charging for fuel and not saving the rainforests.

Tragically, the tropical rainforests are being destroyed at an alarming rate. According to Rainforest Action Network, more than an acre-and-a-half is lost every second of every day (refer to the entries below to see, quantitatively, what that translates into). That’s an area more than twice the size of Florida that goes up in smoke every year! "If present rates of destruction continue, half our remaining rainforests will be gone by the year 2025, and by 2060 there will be no rainforests remaining."

THE COST OF RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION
. . . "almost half of the world’s original four billion acres of rainforest are now gone. The lost area equals the combined size of Washington, Idaho, California, Nevada and Arizona."
. . . "in 1500, there were an estimated six to nine million indigenous people inhabiting the tropical rainforests of Brazil. By 1900, that number had dropped to a million. Today, there are less than 250,000 indigenous people left in Brazil."
. . . "man has recently increased nature’s "normal" extinction rate by 10,000%. Most of this increase is taking place in the rainforests."
. . . "by conservative estimates, 9,000 species are going extinct each year, most of them from the rainforests."
. . . "we are presently experiencing the largest mass extinction since the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago; only this time it’s occurring at a much faster rate."

At the very least, "with the destruction of the tropical rainforests, over half the plant and animal species on earth, as well as numerous indigenous cultures will disappear forever."(2) If strong and decisive action is not taken immediately to reverse the destruction of this vital ecosystem, the consequences will be catastrophic. In fact, many scientists agree that the earth could very well become uninhabitable for virtually every living species, including humans!

http://www.savetherainforest.org/savetherainforest_007.htm

The solution is not that we should drive less if one can not. Many people just choose to drive because that is big luxury/status in a so called free country. The solution is to drive more efficient vehicles and not get the expensive gas guzzling sports car or SUV. But the rich people do as they please anyways and the manufacturers feed the most profitable market.

In the US with Canada following they are moving up the corporate fuel mileage (CAFE) to 35 mpg by 2020 from 24 mpg now.

Can't argue with David Suzuki.

He also says we should drive less. That is a practical step our city can and should take. We can’t very well tell other countries how to behave while our millions of cars are pumping large amounts of CO2 into the air. I’ll move my votes accordingly.

It would be a lot simpler to tell the developing nations to stop burning down their Tropical Rainforests. Funding from the CO2 scrubbers can instead go to subsidize the developing nations and prevent further destruction of the world. David Suzuki even says pumping CO2 into the earth is a BAD idea.

@DriveMore I think we are a long way from worrying about there not being enough CO2 in the atmosphere. Scrubbers act as an artifical rainforest, as the article says.

Carbon dioxide is used by plants during photosynthesis to make sugars, which may either be consumed in respiration or used as the raw material to produce other organic compounds needed for plant growth and development.

Removing CO2 from the air will eventually kill everything up and down the food chain due to starvation.

A better idea is to stop the destruction of the Tropical Rainforests in the Amazon and SE Asia. That is where your climate change is coming from when huge areas of Rainforest are burned every year.