Is there any way to reverse the affects of global warming?

Answer 1

We can't.

Long, long ago in a world that was unfit for human habitation (i.e. we would die in it) there was far more carbon dioxide in the air. Over millions of years plants photosynthesised this carbon diaoxed to create carbohydrates, locking up energy from the sun chemically.

If the plants were eaten or burned or simply died and decayed, the carbon went back into the atmosphere. But some were fossilised, to form oil and coal. Over MILLIONS and MILLIONS of years (note the timescales here) this reduced the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.

The plants evolved to cope with this lower amount of carbon dioxide. The earth cooled. Animals evolved to live on this cooler earth. Including man.

Then, 200-300 years ago man started to dig up lots of coal and oil and burn it. In the space of just 300 years man has put back into the atmospere up to 1/2 of the carbon it took MILLIONS and MILLIONS of years and generation upon generation of plants to bury under the ground.

You could not plant enough plants to soak this up now. To get rid of it you need to lock it up and bury it again. But we know of no way to do this.

Answer 2

Well, the greenhouse effect is one of the conditions that enable life as we know on the planet, by buffering the temperatures and regulating the thermal balance between solar energy and the Earth's radiation. It's a good thing, except now it's getting too good.
Global warming is probably due to several causes, and we cannot control some of them (normal warmer/colder cycles, solar activity, etc.). We can control man-made emmisions of greenhouse gases, including CO2 (carbon dioxide, from combustion of organic substances), CH4 (methane, from the intestinal activity of animals, especially cattle and other herbivores, also from rice pads, swamps, etc), O3 (ozone, from air purifiers and other appliances, and also forms in the lower atmosphere from other contaminants), nitrogen oxides (from car exhausts and industrial sources), etc. And we can increase reforestation, because the greatest "absorbants" of CO2 are the oceans and the plants, especially the young trees that are growing.
These activities must involve both developed and underdeveloped countries, because the former are the largest producers of industrial greenhouse gases, and the latter are the places where deforestation is occurring (burning that produces CO2 and CO, while the CO2 absorbing plants are removed).

More from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/aqtrnd95/globwarm.html

Text of the Kyoto Protocol, an international convention for global CO2 reduction:
http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html
Sadly, major countries such as the US and Australia have declined to ratify this treatise.

Answer 3

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

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

Answer 4

Bottom line, we can help slow the cycle, but can not eliminate the cycle. Just ask yourself...if global warming is bad....why is it that as some of the ice-glaciers are melting we are finding remnants of cave dwellers from millions of years ago? This means that it once was warm for the dwellers to survive...then it got cold. It is a cycle that we will NOT be able to reverse...but could help our environment by giving us cleaner air if we try.

Answer 5

There are a few interesting theories. One noted scientist has proposed that we could reduce CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by encouraging plant growth. Plant respiration involves taking CO2 out of the air and putting O2 back in (the opposite of us animals). This scientist claimed that the biggest plant expansion opportunity is ocean algae in northern seas. He claimed that what was limiting the growth of this algae was the amount of iron in the water. More iron would cause much more plant life and lead to less CO2. He suggested grinding waste iron, loading it on a supertanker, and spreading it about the northern oceans. Neat idea.

Answer 6

I think global warming is part of the natural cycle that the earth goeas through. Looking at the history of earth we've been warm, cold, warm, cold..... Sometime in our future is another little ice age.

Answer 7

We keep messing with the earth and before we know it we will have botched it up and kill everyone. How dare we little humans think we know everything.
We should keep things clean, and work on the survival of the human race by being ready to live in space.
All it takes is one big rock from the sky and the earth is no longer.

Answer 8

We all have heard of people spraying lime (alkali) into rivers and lakes and over trees to neutralise acid rain. Since some pollutants are acidic when mixed with water, (CO2), could we probably spray alkali substances in polluted areas from as high as possible to neutralise as much of the pollutants. The neutralised pollutants can then fall as rain, not hurting anything.

Answer 9

Due to human nature, I don't believe we will reverse the effects.

And the coming ice-age won't be a 'little' one.

Answer 10

No.