Could Cannabis provide an answer to climate change? (English)

The article discusses the very real possibility that Cannbis could play a part in stabilizing a global environment. IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) projections of climate change within the context of an industrial and therefore fuel dependent World consider the best possible strategies to remedy the situation; these strategies explicitly link the areas of agriculture, land use and society's demand for resources with the industrial utilisation of biomass. Utilisation of biomass in both the energy and transport sectors holds several benefits not least because these can be used to offset or substitute directly for fossil fuels thereby reducing emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), particurlarly carbon dioxide (CO2), while simultaneously sequestrating atmospheric CO2 via photosynthesis by creating and enhancing terrestrial carbon sinks. There exists at present much of the technology to translate this into a pragmatic climate change mitigation option with higher energy efficiency and lower unit capital costs than conventional methods of energy production. Cannabis cultivation could be used to promote environmentally beneficial methods of agriculture which could actually help secure a long-term strategy of land management, ensuring that food shortages do not occur. The greatest advantage for Cannabis cultivation as a method of climate change mitigation is in terms of logistics and the comparative ease with which this particular form of biomass could be integrated into the existing fossil fuel economy.