What ideas do you have to combat Global Warming?
Filed in Uncategorized on Jan.23, 2009
Eug asked:
Some of these are slightly farfetched, but not impossible, so don’t laugh at me please.
Some of these are slightly farfetched, but not impossible, so don’t laugh at me please.
1. Collect fresh-water ice off of Antarctica, and Greenland, and sell it as bottled water
2. Create fields of solar panels in the world’s sunniest, hottest locations such as the American Southwest, African Sahara, Middle east
3. Build extremely tall Wind Turbines, tall enough to reach the earth’s jet stream, which is always windy
4. Build very sturdy Wind Turbines on Mountain tops, Sea cliffs, and other low-lying area which are very windy.
5. Find healthy places to store nuclear waste, and start using Nuclear Energy (which doesn’t have global warming-causing agents)
6. Invent filters which will not release CO2 through a car’s exhaust pipe
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January 23rd, 2009 at 2:19 am
Plug all the volcanos, because they put out more green houses gases than people do.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:37 pm
get rid of enviormentalist, it is natural
January 24th, 2009 at 7:08 am
One of the main causes of desertification in Africa and Asia is the infestation of their waterways with aquatic weeds. Water Hyacinth, water lettuce, Phragmites reeds and Typha cattails clog rivers and lakes and dessicating the countryside. Look at Lake Chad in Africa. Its not just drying up, its being sucked dry by Typha Australis. The clearance of these weeds would restore the lake and the aquifers it recharges, and the “lake effect” rains that are so desperately needed. And Typha of any type can be harvested at a profit in food, fuel and fiber. Typha is an excellent CO2 remover, but for each molecule of CO2 it removes it absorbs one molecule of H2O and transpirates many more. Look into it. See how much there is, how much trouble it causes, and how much could be done with it.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
well ive heard that global warming isnt being caused ny co2 emissions at all. we all know about the ic-age. how do u think the earth warmed up then to melt the ice? there wasnt industry in that era so it cant be from co2. the global warming is just NATURAL. also ice core samples show that the temperature of the earth changes 800 years before co2 levels changed, indicating this change in temperature cannot be caused by co2 at all. im not saying im right, but think about it. i also realise this wasnt really an answer to ur question but i thought this may be of interest anyway.
January 24th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Please read this whole thing.
Well, I don’t believe that there is anything we as humans can do to stop it, because new studies from scientists at NASA have been studying the Sun’s activity. They have found that the sun is going through natural solar flares and also, that the ice caps on the the southern part of mars are also melting. Mars is warming right along with Earth. Unfortunately, there are no people on Mars to create global warming so therefore the logical assumption is, is that the sun is warming it. If the Sun is warming Mars, then couldn’t it very well be warming the Earth? That IS what it’s for isn’t it? Otherwise we’d just be one block of ice and darkness. Of course, Gore only briefly mentioned it in his book (in the footnotes) because if Mankind isn’t warming the earth, then what excuse can he have for taxing industry and executing his massive wealth transfer scheme? The sun’s radiation has increased 0.5% per decade since the 1970′s while carbon output has waxed and waned with global recessions. If warming were caused by carbon output, you’d expect to see temps fall in slumps and rise in booms along with carbon output. Data show no such link.
It’s all a big scam. Don’t fall for it.
January 28th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
If politicians put to public what they prefer, a fundamental change in their lifestyles, and increases in the cost of energy, or a shift to nuclear energy, do not bet the public will chose the former. It WILL be nuclear energy. To those of you concern about the environment, think about that.
January 31st, 2009 at 7:57 pm
We could launch a couple thousand missiles containing 10 tons of Liquid Nitrogen (each) at the sun. That will definitely stop global warming. If that fails, just launch the missiles at ourselves, then we won’t be so worried about global warming.
February 2nd, 2009 at 6:47 am
Find alternative to petrol… Why should we still be driving cars powered by a 100 years old technology. I think if car manufacturer push for electric cars our planet will be freed from its most polluting factor… Electricity can be created by wind, light, water and you can add nuclear energy if it s safe and controlled.
February 4th, 2009 at 2:59 am
In regards to these:
“1. Collect fresh-water ice off of Antarctica, and Greenland, and sell it as bottled water”
If desalinization does have an effect as is THEORIZED based only on the evidence in sediment cores, then the scale we would need to bottle would not be sufficient to alter this.
“2. Create fields of solar panels in the world’s sunniest, hottest locations such as the American Southwest, African Sahara, Middle east”
umm what do you think this would accomplish? Cleaner energy than coal maybe? Think about the eco system of those desserts though. Though your viewpoint of the area is desolate, those areas are acually not devoid of life and anything placed in these deserts would effect those eco systems.
“3. Build extremely tall Wind Turbines, tall enough to reach the earth’s jet stream, which is always windy” There are actually already plans that have been presented that would “Fly” kite like turbines that did this.
“4. Build very sturdy Wind Turbines on Mountain tops, Sea cliffs, and other low-lying area which are very windy.”
Cant comment on this but there are already lots of wind turbines in these types of areas. however now enviromentalists are complaining about wind turbines in California that have killed condors because they fly into them.
“5. Find healthy places to store nuclear waste, and start using Nuclear Energy (which doesn’t have global warming-causing agents)” There is no “healtier” place to store waste. The problem is the shelf life of the waste is so long before it is harmeless that it would pile up faster than it was produced. A more efficient idea is producing a less harmful waste product from nuclear energy. One idea that has been presented is a silicone covered ball or nuclear material that once expended is actually safe to handle with bare hands. and can be placed in storage without risk of contamination to the water table.
“6. Invent filters which will not release CO2 through a car’s exhaust pipe” Even if we eliminated all CO2 from the 500 million cars on this planet, the human population increase would replace all CO2 eliminated by the year 2020. (Thats just counting the CO2 humans exhale! Cars on average emit 10000 – 12000 pounds of CO2 a year while a human expels 712 Pounds per year JUST from exhaling. Since the population is going to more than double by 2020 this would replace all that CO2
CO2 despite being the largest by volume of GHGs expelled and in our atmosphere is no where near the % increase of other human produced GHGs Methane actually has the largest increase in volume in our atmosphere than any other GHG.
Do humans have an impact on the NATURAL occuring Global warming? Yes but dont fool yourselves it does occur naturally! But to what extent human contribute is largely unknown. Because of the roughly 8 known factors that contribute to climate change only about 3 are well known enough to make determinations. With the other factors so unknown the degree at which human impact GW is only an educated guess.
None of this of course means we should ignore the fact that humans are contributing to the equation. The less impact we have the better in all reality. So if you are looking for ideas here are a few.
Actually being developed:
1. Wave generators. They are segmented snake like devices that lie on the ocean surface and ar tethered to the ocan floor. The gereator on the floor is connected by cable to a shore plant. The natural occuring motion of the ocean moves the segments opposite directions transferring this motion into energy. A field of these (Trying to guess the size since I dont recall exactly) about 5 -10 Square miles in size could supply ALL of England with power (I say england because that is one of the areas that they are creating one of these fields. The amount of area of ocean this would take up compared to the size of the country is AMAZING.
2. Like mentioned before. Silcone covered nuclear material that was developed by people at either MIT or one of the IVY schools, dont recall exactly, that renders the spent materials harmless from nuclear plants. The materials are also so safe in this form that risk of the plants having a meltdown is virtually nil.
3. Gene therapy for crops that will allow them to survive in hotter climates. WHY? Because even if humans are not speeding up GW it will eventually happen naturally. Once crops die off disease and famine will be the largest contributor to human death, we after all could survive cold or warm times thanks to technology…but we still have to eat.
The fact is human contribution will never be halted. We will only get to the point that we cause ourselves to choke our own lives out by over population. When death happens on the scale that more than half the world population dies, that is when true less impact will happen.
little tidbit fact: Did you know that we are technically still in an ice age? Under the true definition of ice age since there are still Global ice caps we are still in an ice age. We are in the receeding period of that time but still technically in one.
In response to:
“Find alternative to petrol… Why should we still be driving cars powered by a 100 years old technology. I think if car manufacturer push for electric cars our planet will be freed from its most polluting factor… Electricity can be created by wind, light, water and you can add nuclear energy if it s safe and controlled. ”
This answer is just stupid. Although it would be smart to convert to NO GHG cars the electric cars produce more GHG than a gasoline car does not by themselves but by feeding of the electrical supply that is STILL over 80% coal burning production.
Also Cars only contribute about 23% of the CO2 emissions worldwide and like I mentioned above human population growth will replace all the current car CO2 by 2020 just by the new CO2 being produced from exhaling.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:47 am
I found the answer by Brekkon0 to be most insightful and informative. Rather than repeat most of it I will try to add to it.
The solution to emitting less green house gas is largely going to be from reducing our energy consumption overall. Renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and wave are all exciting and moving in a positive direction, but are unlikely to replace fossil fuel consumption in the next 30 years. Nuclear energy is the only source abundant enough to replace fossil fuels, if we can ever solve the toxicity problem.
Most of our GHG emissions come from burning coal, not from petrol. And most of our energy consumption comes from the industrial, commercial and residential sectors. Transportation accounts for approximately 13% of GHG emissions in the US.
The most sensible way to reduce our consumption of energy in the US is to increase population densities. Cities like New York and Chicago have approximately half the environmental impact of cities like Tampa, FL or San Antonio, TX. Living in a tall apartment building makes it much easier to heat and cool your living space. Also, the distribution of everything uses less energy when we live closer together. Public transportation, needless to say, becomes much more cost effective and energy efficient. Lastly, by sharing more of our space, it leaves more room for forests or other carbon sinks.
The key to all of this is promoting policies that make it easier for us to live together and to share common spaces. As a liberal, I am an avid proponent of school vouchers to fund public education. I think our current system, by tying educational choice to where you reside, has pushed us into ever more geographically isolated enclaves. But to blame the problem solely on public education policy is an oversimplification.
We also need policies that make it more expensive to drive. We need better parks in urban areas, and we will probably have to build better public transportation systems before they are needed. Build it and they will come.
An international carbon tax is the best policy to promote. After that, I would push school vouchers, then parks and transportation.
February 13th, 2009 at 6:24 am
we have to be quick to collect fresh water from the poles ,and check the news they are doing it right now in a sort of Water rush (like the gold rush)because the water is of high quality.
93%of the worlds water is salt
of the remaining 7 %,75% is locked up in Ice in the poles glaziers and mountain snows .and a lot of this is melting now .
everybody is so preocupied that co2 ,or polution is the only reason of climate change
many people forget about desertification
desserts are like a fire they gobble up the edges with the heat and so grow.
forrests regulate the climate ,they absorb heat during the day and release it at night ,that is why desserts are freezing at night and cooking during the day
Forrests produce water ,and regulate the atmosphere we breathe (they absorb carbon )as well as protecting the earth from the sun
if forrest are being exchanged for ashalt,concrete and desserts
what is gonna keep this planet habitable for us
Global warming is a very complex collection of many effects
climate change is caused partly by desertification ,and most desertification is caused by man
the thinner ozone layer helps to speed this up.and this is caused mainly by air polution ,also as a result of mans actions like burning coal to create electricity,and for this your ideas are not so crazy
Global warming is in theory reversable,but it will mean global co operation between all countries ,and taking into account human nature and the world politics ,it is unlikely that this will happen,
At least not untill we are all in the middle of planetary disastres and it becomes a battle for the survival of humanity every where.
SOLUTIONS
if you want to help the planet ,plant a tree every week ,if everyone on the planet did we we would be able to reverse the destructive processes
reduce carbon emisions,and they are already working on that by alternative forms of energy and regulations on carbon producing materials,aerosol cans,burning rubbish,industrial chimneys,powerplants etc.
the capture of carbon and the production of water and assist the aquiferous manta.
the world bank pays large subsidies for reforrestation to capture carbon and the best tree for this is the Pawlonia
Waterharvesting projects ,such as millions of small dams.to redirect over ground waterflows from the rains into the ground to supply subteranian water supplies.
the protection of existing forrests.
stop building more highways,urban planning to include vegetation stop building cities encourage people to return to the land to conduct their business from there which now has become possible thanks to the internet.
education to motivate people to auto sufficiency by building more home food gardens.
education on environmental awareness
education on family planning to curb over´populaion
Agricultural education and improvements to follow the principals or sustainability and soil management.
more environmental or land ,design to prevent bush fires,such as–fire breaks
,more dams.regulations and control for public behaviour
alternative effeciant public transport to discourage the use of the internal conbustion engine
recicling wastes,limit water use
Source(s) Lester E Brown is the director and founder of the global institute of Environment in the United states .he has compiled a report based on all the satalite information available from NASA,and all the information that has
come from Universities and American embassies WORLD WIDE ,
his little book–a planet under stress , Plan B has been trans lated into many languages and won the best book award in 2003
i am a Permaculture Consultant for the department of Ecology for the regional government in Guerrero Mexico