Is anyone besides me disappointed in the Gore answer pick?

Question

The answer in itself isn't bad ... It just isn't feasible .... And to me seems just a stale echo of ideas we have all been hearing for the last decade now ...
Why not feasible ?... Because both consumers and corporations are always going to footdrag on anything that restricts or "weans us from the energy tit" ...Whether we are talking gasoline ,homeheating or energy in general- I do not have any faith either the vested corporations, or consumers are going to "buck up" to making any sacrifices of signifigance to curbing greenhouse emissions ...Add to this, if we have a four to eight year regime change in this country that actually pushes through legislation that will change things ... The next regime will simply come to reverse the trend ...
But am I wringing my hands in pessimism?... no
What am I optimistic about? ...hydrogen cell technology ...
Hydrogen cell technology has no carbon byproducts ... in fact its only byproduct is clean H20 ...Water ...

But hydrogen is limited ...where should we get it?...space ...

We need a total energy technology transformation ...one that engages private industry and the greed motive ...

Consider naive America that discovered petroleum ...the time of Henry Ford ...developing the internal combustion engine ...we now know those are dirty industries...
But why can't we enterpreneurially expand into space and harvest abundant hydrogen....electrolysis convert it to clean oxygens ...To correct our hydrocarbon century long blunder ...
Where is the spirit of innovation that this will take?

Why don't we cancel a few Norfolk Grummond 100 million dollar predator drone contracts ...beef up a space program ...and really get hydrogen harvesting going... Clean energy now!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ArVXX9_xxTBfYw8wsSClJRLsy6IX?qid=20060629201333AAu7EXE

thanks ..I'm off to see that link ...

Space is all hydrogen and helium ...engineers proposed fission based interstellar drives as long ago as the 1980's by?...gleaning hydrogen ...

This is how hydrogen is being derived now ...not oceans ...

http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/proj_production_delivery.html

sounds a rather petrocarbon based proposition ...

your way yields carbon wastes ...

Engineer ...I would prefer you being correct ...but I do not think you are ...our closest planetary corrollary of a greenhouse warm is Venus ...not too hospitable there ...took awhile to get a probe not to be digested by methanes and heat miles above the surface ...

but Richard M...it (hydrogen" is literally everywhere abundant just beyond our biosphere ...the new West ...space ..let's just go get it ...

Answer 1

I don't know what the "best answer" was; how do I find out?
However, I do agree with your concepts.
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Answer 2

Your right that hydrogen is not feasible how would we get it right now its made from natural gas quite a bit but that's a little redundant and many would like to make it from water which requires electricity so we would use some for of energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen then use that to burn to make energy so car can go fast well we already know nothing is one hundred percent efficient so we have loses at each stage it doesn't work there are many things we can do and may of us are doing but it doesn't take to hard of a look to show the hydrogen myth for what it is bottom line as long as you choose to rely on any popular form of energy there will be a great demand you have to deal with.

Answer 3

I have not read the thousands of responses to Gore's question but I did read a few dozen and I have to say that it was the most comprehensive and well spoken of those I saw. I understand your critique of the answer as infeasible. I agree that it is unfortunately not looking very likely but I will say this about Global Warming.

1) It will not exterminate humankind no matter how bad it gets. We are just too resilient and scrappy.

2) We will learn to deal with Global Warming. It is coming and we will have no other choice but to deal.

3) Cooperation and working together will make it easier to deal with, but we do not seem to be on that path yet.

4) Global warming will usher in an era of scarcity were food, water, and energy may all be in short supply. That is more likely to engender strife than cooperation in the short run, but eventually we will be forced to cooperate, or perhaps it is better said that the survivors will be those who cooperate.

5) We will emerge from the Global Warming crisis in a few hundred years a more mature species. We will have a stable population. We will have an economy based on renewable energy sources. We will have learned how to live sustainably within the resource limits of the planet. No matter what state we emerge in all of these things will of necessity be true.

6) And finally we will have learned how to cooperate on an international level. Either that or we will not emerge from the crisis with an advanced civilization. It is really that simple.

We would be wise to accept the advice of the answer to Gore's question. If we take that path our future will be a much more pleasant one. I am still optimistic that as the effects of Global Warming continue to multiply as they must that people will start to come around to see the wisdom of cooperation. But as I noted above sooner or later we either cooperate and do the right thing or our civilization fails and our offspring live as savages.

Edit - Lancelot

Earth is not Venus. Venus receives far more energy from the sun than does Earth. Earth will not succumb to a runaway greenhouse effect. Looking further back in the planet's history it is clear that it has suffered worse climate changes than human induced global warming and remained hospitable to life. There really is no danger of the planet becoming unlivable, at least not from global warming.

Answer 4

Seems to me a very innovative idea ...people should put aside their egoes (that they didn't think of it) ...show some interest and investigate if it might work ...nearly everyone else talks nonsense sacrifices (and other half of America introducing their kids to ATV's and 4 wheeling thus begetting another generation of motor madness ) ...and some politically correct mother Theresa slam dunks a Gore "sacrifice " campaign speech ...this rounds a turn, and points a path of optimism, innovation, and hope ..that few seem to be touching ... either they echo the "unfeasible" cut our energy consumption path ...or they consign us all to a collective doom-thinking it is a lost cause ... nice idea ...

Answer 5

No need to go to space to get hydrogen, we are literally swimming in it (oceans, anyone?)

Hydrogen is easily and most cheaply obtained by solar powered hydrolysis. No rush, we can wait out the cloudy periods.