Good points, but US forests were likely growing for much of the past few centuries, because they were not in equilibrium.

These days, forests in the US are used extensively for making paper and wood (as opposed to heating), which does result in carbon capture.

And that doesn't even take into account carbon sinks. The US still is 30% forested and has 3,000,000 km2 of forests, down from about 5,000,000 km2 preindustrial, busily capturing CO2. For most of its history, the US was almost certainly a net carbon sink, with the switchover probably occurring sometime in the second half of the 20th century.

It takes 15 Terawatts to power the world and each fission reactor apparently provides about 1 gigawatt, so to furnish 50% of the world's energy needs of today with nuclear, we'd need to build 1 billion nuclear fission reactors.

I love how soccer matches and Rugby games all end with everyone in the stands hugging over there in europe. There have never been any riots after or during games.

temporary marshall law

Sorry, it was Solar Trust that got the 2.1 billion loan and the closed their doors. Wrong solar company.

Contrary to inaccurate media reports, no taxpayer funds were loaned to Solar Trust of America. The company withdrew from the Department of Energy's Loan Guarantee Program in August 2011 foregoing any government funding for the Blythe Solar Power Project.

Didn't Solyndra get 2 billion?

Crap, at my high school, as I later found out (it wasn't common knowledge at the time), three of the four P.E. teachers had married students, and that a fifth, who had moved to middle school but who had been part of the faculty at the time had also married a student.

The next billion use Series 40 (Symbian), not Maemo.

I'm not claiming another mechanism

Carbon cycle is not the only thing that can change the amount of atmospheric CO2, you know :)