So what can we do about Global Warming?

[USMC the Almighty]

Let's leave the other thread to discussions on humans effect on global warming/whether its something to be concered about.

Assume for a minute that global warming is occuring. Okay. So what do we do to stop it?

Kyoto's a joke and everyone knows it. Even advocates of Kyoto admit that if all nations signed the agreement and obeyed it, it would affect global temperatures by less than a tenth of a degree. Certainly not worth economic disaster.

The bottom line is this. While Gore and everyone else is so consumed in global warming and pretending to be environmentalists, real environmental harms are occurring. How many children in third world countries die from water pollution? How many people die due to the burning of bio fuels indoors to keep warm. Millions! And you are worried about something that might or might not happen.

Instead of all this hollering and waste of money on the phony cures and plans they should look at and talk about the realities. They keep on the doomsday path and some nut might come to a conclusion that the best thing to do is reduce the population back down to the level it was at in about 1800.

Meanwhile, the rest of us know that the earth is going to take care of itself.

 

[Sgt Schultz]

The earth will always take care of itself, but that doesn't mean it's going to take care of humanity.

 

[Rokerijdude11]

The earth will always take care of itself, but that doesn't mean it's going to take care of humanity.

excellent point

 

[9sublime]

I think its too late to be honest. I think its not the generations alive now, but two or so generations down the line who are really going to get screwed over by all this. Sure, we are seeing some quick changes on glaciers, in desert cities and on the coral reef, but thats only going to be the start at this rate. If everyone parked their car, cut off their electricty and lived like that we would have a chance, but its not going to happen and I'm not saying I would be up for doing it either.

 

[Rokerijdude11]

Id pretty well have to agree unless we are willing as you say to cease most of our daily activities and substitute clean energy in its place the inevitable will happen regardless

probably as yousaid........ increasingly worsening over the next couple of decades, till it reaches its tip over point

 

[Dave]

I think its too late to be honest. I think its not the generations alive now, but two or so generations down the line who are really going to get screwed over by all this. Sure, we are seeing some quick changes on glaciers, in desert cities and on the coral reef, but thats only going to be the start at this rate. If everyone parked their car, cut off their electricty and lived like that we would have a chance, but its not going to happen and I'm not saying I would be up for doing it either.

Actually, those things would not really make a difference either. I'm not sure if you are in the camp that believes that cO2 emissions are to blame, but if you are, most scientists say that even if cO2 emissions were completely cut out today, they would still at least double before there is even a chance for a change. A lot of the methane and other "greenhouse gases" in our atmosphere come from simple decaying matter and natural causes that are out of our control. I tend to side with those that say that our global warming is caused by natural external factors, so I would say that there is not one thing we can do about global warming.

 

[Rokerijdude11]

Co2 emissions from animals, people, and rotting vegetation, is what CREATES Natural Global Warming!! Which is, and MUST always be, present,in order for the globe to be habitable.... Without solar radiance, and global warming, this would be a block of ice instead of a habitable planet



Increased Co2 only means that MORE solar radiance is TRAPPED within the atmosphere ....helping to warm things what is so difficult to admit about that

 

[9sublime]

The emissions from decaying animals forms part of the nitrogen and carbon cycles this planet relies on, and shouldn't cause any dramatic increase without human activity, but stay at a reasonably constant level.

I think that scientists may say its going to carry on going even if we turned everything off is because it has a delayed reaction to some extent (although I'm not quite sure), a bit like China's population. If they had instigated a 2 child policy, the population still would have rocketed for a while before getting smaller.

 

[mr universe]

how's this for simple things to do:

energy efficient light bulbs. You can get them cheaper than incandecents for your utility company, or if you're filthy rich, pay the two dollars for one, it saves you money on your electricity bill and less energy is consumed.

errands. do them all at once, make one large trip instead of five small ones. It will save you money on gas, as your engine is more effficient when it is warmed up.

Switch your energy sources. Your energy utility may or may not charge you a small amount to purchase your energy from green sources, like solar and wind, switching mine cost an extra five dollars a month.

recycle aluminium and plastics, easy one. you can even get paid for it, or let the county take care of it for you. Or find a homeless guy, he'll recycle them.

get your car tuned up and change the oil regularly. it wil extend the life of your car, and boost your energy efficiency.

turn off your lights when you're not in a room. saves you money.

turn off the tap when brushing your teeth. less water being treated means more energy for other things.

public transit. actually cheaper than a car if you factor in gas, wear and tear.


These are VERY eassy to do and most of these will save you money.

so if you don't believe humans are responsible for an accelerated greenhouse effect, at least these will save you money.

 

[mr universe]

i even did a search for you

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=easy+things+for+global+warming

 

[palerider]

Co2 emissions from animals, people, and rotting vegetation, is what CREATES Natural Global Warming!! Which is, and MUST always be, present,in order for the globe to be habitable.... Without solar radiance, and global warming, this would be a block of ice instead of a habitable planet

Increased Co2 only means that MORE solar radiance is TRAPPED within the atmosphere ....helping to warm things what is so difficult to admit about that

Increased CO2 lags behind rising temperatures. Increased CO2 is an effect, not a cause. Every scrap of ice core data that we have shows this. There is not one instance of rising CO2 levels preceeding a temperature rise.

 

[PLC1]

There is no doubt that the Earth is getting warmer, and very little doubt that the burning of fossil fuels is accelerating that warming. It's time to quit debating those two points. The jury is in, and CO2 has been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by everyone but the headinthesand crowd.


What can we do about it? Well, we could burn less fossil fuel. That seems to be the solution being promulgated by those who say that GW will be a disaster.

We don't know whether GW will be a disaster or not, but we do know that GWB was.

OK, so that was an uncalled for jab at the president that had nothing to do with the topic at hand. So sue me.

What would happen if we suddenly invented a practical cold fusion technology, and no longer needed to burn coal and oil? Would the Earth begin to cool down, or return to a preindustrial age climate?

No, of course not. The CO2 we've already put into the atmosphere would still be there. There is probably nothing we can do to stop GW (Though GWB will be gone soon, thank heavens), but we could slow it down by cutting back on emissions of greenhouse gasses.

Now, the unanswered question is this:

Is it worth it to limit burning of coal and oil, or to try to sequester carbon dioxide?

I don't know the answer to that one, and neither do you. How much would it cost to cut back? How practical and expensive is carbon sequestration? How much effect would such moves have? What problems will be caused by GW in the future?

We could argue about the answers to that one all day, and never accomplish anything. I don't know the answers, and neither does anyone else.

No, not even Al Gore nor Rush Limbaugh, nor anyone on this forum.

One thing is for sure, and that is that there will be money made and money lost on trying to solve the problem of global climate change. Money, not reason nor technology will be the driving force behind any efforts that might be made to counter GCC (Global Climate Change, a much more accurate term for what is happening than GW, but not one that lends itself to unwarranted jabs at the current president.)

My opinion is that we need to concentrate our efforts on apolitical research into just what changes are likely to occur, and then make decisions based on reason and fact. Unfortunately, the history of mankind has few instances of basing major decisions on reason and fact, as opposed to emotion and partisanship, but we can always hope.

 

[DrWho]

how's this for simple things to do:

energy efficient light bulbs. You can get them cheaper than incandecents for your utility company, or if you're filthy rich, pay the two dollars for one, it saves you money on your electricity bill and less energy is consumed.

errands. do them all at once, make one large trip instead of five small ones. It will save you money on gas, as your engine is more effficient when it is warmed up.

Switch your energy sources. Your energy utility may or may not charge you a small amount to purchase your energy from green sources, like solar and wind, switching mine cost an extra five dollars a month.

recycle aluminium and plastics, easy one. you can even get paid for it, or let the county take care of it for you. Or find a homeless guy, he'll recycle them.

get your car tuned up and change the oil regularly. it wil extend the life of your car, and boost your energy efficiency.

turn off your lights when you're not in a room. saves you money.

turn off the tap when brushing your teeth. less water being treated means more energy for other things.

public transit. actually cheaper than a car if you factor in gas, wear and tear.


These are VERY eassy to do and most of these will save you money.

so if you don't believe humans are responsible for an accelerated greenhouse effect, at least these will save you money.

Bury every organic thing we can. All our organic garbage, organic recycling, lawn clippings, yard waste, old wood, etc. - deep.

A pound of burried carbon will do much more than not wasting water while brushing teeth.

Hey while were at it let's go looking for carbon to bury. I bet we can find it all over the place. We could completely offset our carbon emmissions and more.

 

[palerider]

There is no doubt that the Earth is getting warmer, and very little doubt that the burning of fossil fuels is accelerating that warming. It's time to quit debating those two points. The jury is in, and CO2 has been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by everyone but the headinthesand crowd.

If the jury is in, and has found that CO2 is guilty, then the jury has completely disregarded the physical evidence. There isn't a single bit of physical, observable, evidence that shows that CO2 is responsible for raising the earth's temperature. Every bit of evidence collected, shows clearly that rising CO2 levels lag behind temperature increases.

We are in the relatively early stages of a natural warming cycle that will eventually melt the ice at both poles. When this warming period began, glaciers extended over most of the northern hemisphere. Tell me, Mr. Judge and jury, exactly who was responsible for melting the ice back over 2000 miles before we ever got out of the bronze age?

 

[JavaBlack]

Reducing the human-caused portion of global warming is a good idea... but it is far from being all we must do. The process is irreversible... It can only be slowed to the point that we can catch up.
To catch up we must deal with the problems... dying crops from change in environment and flooding from rise of oceans.
I think the former won't be too hard in this day and age. Surely we can build climate-controlled greenhouses for plants and we can genetically alter plants.
The latter... That's tough. The worst case scenario: evacuate our most populous and richest cities and rebuild them from the ground up?!
I think that maybe we might be able to build a device that reflects sunlight from the polar ice caps... maybe.
Or how about this? Water desalinization. It's how Saudi Arabia gets most of its drinking water.
If we make a more efficient form of such machines, mass produce them and export them around the world...
This kills two birds with one stone. It creates a water supply that is pretty much inexhaustable (the oceans)... and it creates an incentive to store lots of ocean water... Perhaps if used around the world, the ocean levels will drop enough that the melting polar ice caps will not flood us.

Maybe. I'm really grasping here.