What kind of things can be done about global warming to stop it from ruining our earth?

Answer 1

I don't think we can stop it; I think we can only slow it down and buy more time for our scientists and engineers to find solutions. To this end, we can reduce, reuse, recycle, repair. Stop behaving as if there's no tomorrow and the planet has limitless resources that we can fritter away endlessly. "Roflwtime!" (first answer) has a great list of suggestions.

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“CapNemo” likes to go to all the global warming questions and paste in a statement pooh-poohing the threat. His statement is misleading and incorrect.

He says it’s only increased by 1 degree (F) in 125 years. This is a misleading number, because it is a global average: land and sea. We don’t live in the middle of the ocean and that’s not where the polar ice caps are melting. The temperature change over land surfaces has been twice that, and most of it in the last 40 years.

He says, “The average temperature in Antarctica is 109 degrees below zero.” If you go to his source, it says, “Temperatures reach a minimum of between -80 °C and -90 °C (-112 °F and -130 °F) in the interior in winter and reach a maximum of between +5 °C and +15 °C (41 °F and 59 °F) near the coast in summer.” OK, now the observation that the caps are melting makes more sense. It melts at the coast, in the summer, DUH! (Note by the way that his average number (-109) is only 3 degrees lower than one of the minimum numbers. I wonder, what kind of math did he learn?)

Then he says, “Back in the '70s all the hype was about global COOLING”. All what hype? I was around then. I don’t remember any hype. And if you go to his source, it says, “This theory gained temporary popular attention due to press reporting … The theory never had strong scientific support”. He tries to mislead us, by implying that a temporary flurry pf press reporting is comparable to what we are seeing now and that some hype without scientific basis is somehow similar to a consensus within the scientific community about global warming.

The truth is that those 2 degrees are HUGE in the scale of average weather change. But the real problem is the speed of change and that it's accelerating. Scientists are predicting a temp 4 to 8 degree (F) increase over the next 75 years. “This may not sound like a great deal, but just a fraction of a degree can have huge implications on the climate, with very noticeable consequences." (http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/U/ukweather2080/5_predicting.html ). Yes, scientists predict, that's their job. They've gone to school years more than we have and spent their lives studying this stuff. This representrs humanity’s BEST GUESS at where this is all going. Of course, you can believe it snows in hell, or any other stupid thing you want. No one can stop you from believing what you'd rather hear, than what is the most probable outcome.

The link between CO2 and global warming is undisputed at this time. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by more than 50% over the last 115 years (250 to 381 ppm, http://awesomenature.tribe.net/thread/fcc70c8b-be7e-489b-85f7-6c6c08031c65 ). In the last 30 years, it increased at a rate 30 times faster than at any period during the last 800,000 years. In other words, this change is totally unprecedented. (http://awesomenature.tribe.net/thread/fcc70c8b-be7e-489b-85f7-6c6c08031c65 ). What else is totally unprecedented about the last 115 years? Industrialization and the population explosion. Duh. This is not rocket science; it is simple arithmetic!

"If Bert Drake is right, the good news is that, within the foreseeable future, Maine residents will be able to stop banking their foundations and to store their down parkas and snow blowers in the barn permanently. The bad news is that a lot of those barns will be underwater" (http://awesomenature.tribe.net/thread/fcc70c8b-be7e-489b-85f7-6c6c08031c65 ). Yes, this is opinion. Who is Bert Drake? He's an SERC researcher who's been studying this for 17 years. If we aren’t going to believe our scientists, who then shall we believe??? Oh, I know. Let's believe CapNemo!!!

If global warming wasn't a real threat, why have 178 nations ratified the Kyoto Protocol to limit CO2 emissions? Why are the US and Australia the only two holdouts among the industrialized nations? (http://environment.about.com/od/kyotoprotocol/i/kyotoprotocol_2.htm )

CapNemo’s statement reminds me about the frog in the pot on the stove that doesn’t move as the water gradually gets hotter and hotter. From this seemingly insignificant 2 degree change, we’ve already seen enormous consequences. (http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Impacts/) How much hotter does it have to get for some people to wake up and face the music? And in the meantime, while you’re pondering all of this, be sure to check the dates on people’s references. Things are changing so rapidly that older information is no longer useful.

Average Northern Hemisphere Temperatures for last 1000 years:
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/Template/0_CO2ScienceB2C/images/subject/other/figures/mannetal_nh1000.jpg

Answer 2

Actually the temperature of the earth has increased less than 7/10 of 1 degree (C) from 1880 to 2005. That is an increase of about 1 degree (F) in 125 years. You may choose to believe that is global warming or you may not. Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/2005cal_fig1.gif There are numerous charts all over the internet showing the same. Some say that 1 degree is enough to impact the global climate, others say it's not. Most proponents of global warming think the earth's temperature has risen much more than that and don't even know that it has only risen by 1 degree. But the charts do not lie as do the proponents on both sides of this issue. The average temperature in Antarctica is 109 degrees below zero. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica#Climate It seems to me 108 below (one degree warmer) is still pretty cold and not enough to melt anything. But there are those that say it will.

Back in the '70s all the hype was about global COOLING and another ice age was coming. I remember that they blamed pollution for that too. They said that all the pollution was darkening the skies and not as much sun was coming through so the earth was cooling off. It took many years to discover that they were mistaken and it was all just hype. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling So when someone says, "the sky is falling" don't believe everything you hear on either side of the issue. There are Spin Doctors galore out there.

Most of the time people will form an opinion and not really be informed about the subject with which they become so opinionated about. So it's best that you not form your opinions from other's opinions, (as in this forum) but on the facts presented. (Many do not provide any proof or links to prove their point, just their opinion.) With that said we do have a responsibility to do our part by doing whatever is within your power to keep our planet alive and well.

I hope that helps...

EDIT:
ftm- That's what this forum is about. Ppl ask questions and other ppl answer. It matters not if we paste an answer or type it.

1. Your chart showing 2 degrees increase is of the Northern Hemisphere. My NASA chart shows the temperature of the EARTH, not just the northern hemisphere. In fact here is a site http://epa.gov/climatechange/kids/bigdea... from the EPA stating the global temperature has increased less than 1 degree over the past century. All the global charts show similar temp changes. None of them show 2 degrees. You need to compare apples to apples here and stop the manipulation of what is being said. Global means all the earth, not just the northern hemisphere.

2. The second reference I gave says, "Temperatures reach a minimum of between -85 °C and -89 °C (-121 °F and -130 °F) in the winter and about 0 °C (32 °F) higher in the summer months." If you AVERAGE the winter temps given with the summer temps, you come up with -109 degrees average for the year. Again you are manipulating the answer to say something it does not say. You HAVE to take the minimum and the maximum to get an average. I'm surprised you don't know that.

3. I never said global cooling had strong support, in fact I said it was hype. The article proves that it was just that.

Next you go on to say, "Scientists are predicting..." It's what they do, they say, "it could, it may, maybe, probably, we predict..." Where are the FACTS in predictions and maybe and probably? The truth is there are no facts in those words. They keep their jobs by keeping the hype going... most people can see that.

Last, I clicked on your references and they either go to a "file not found" or a type of blog site where ppl give opinions. We want facts - not opinions.

You have twisted what I said by adding northern hemisphere charts when I referenced global charts, you have played down the temps in Antarctica, when my facts are accurate and you have not really given any working links where we can check what you are saying.

Sorry but that won't work in this forum... You can fool some of the people some of the time, some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Answer 3

Your question makes an assumption, that man can have an impact upon weather. This assumption may be false. First, suppose you were cooking a steak, and the steak started to burn. What would you do? Why, you would likely turn down the stove. The "stove" for the earth is the sun. To date, there is no data to show how much the radiant energy of the sun is increasing. How do you turn down the heat of the sun? Just a one percent increase in radiant energy from the Sun, and the earth cooks.

Second, the data that shows global warming is badly flawed. We have only had measuring devices over the last two hundred years, In Earth time, that is absolutely nothing. We do have information from history about global heating and cooling. That historical record shows that wheat grew in Greenland when the Vikings went there. Don't see much wheat there now. So, the Earth has lots of warming it can do before it gets back to where it was. Is this global warming, or just the globe going back to where it was?

Then there is man himself. I'm not talking man making things and pumping gasses into the air. Cows do that, lots. I'm talking 98.6. That's the average body heat of a human being. We have LOTS more humans today than just a hundred years ago. That's lots of radiators putting 98.6 degrees into the world. How much does the physical presence of man heat up the world? We could of course just fry everyone but our next Adam and Eve, but that seems a rather radical solution.


Yes, the world is heating up. It is pure agenda driven propaganda from the global heating people that big business, and industrialization, and the burning of rain forests is causing it. Until they can pin down the effects of a warming sun (and we know it is warming from all the solar flares of late) their argument really has little if any validity.

Bottom line; Not much of anything will change the trend in global warming. Mother Nature is gonna do just what she wants and man isn't going to change her mind one little bit.

Answer 4

There are two basic things we can do. One is to avoid wasting energy--that not only makes the problem worse, it costs money. The other is to shift to alternative energy production methods.

Ther is a lot of minsinformation out there about this--many people honestly believe doing these things would hurt the economy and cost consumers money or eliminate jobs. But in fact that is not the case.

As far as conservation goes--with existing technology, we could easily reduce the amount of gas used by the cars in this country by about 30%--and that would not only cut CO2 emmissions, it would put us well on the way to being independant of foreign oil. But we can also do a lot of other things--make sure homes are well insulated, etc. Some of these things require a small investment--using the "energy-saving" flourescent light bulbs--but tey pay for themselves many times over.

On a bigger scale, we can push for public policy changes like emphasizing good mass transit instead of just building more and more roads. Ultimately this not only helps the environment, but it saves taxpayers--and drivers--money, not to mention reducing traffic congestion. And if you've ever been a city with good mass transit, you know how convenient it is!

Actually, mass transit is also an example of alternative technology--its just not new technology. But there are several ways to produce energy that are becoming practical (wind, geothermal, solar, bio-eenergy) Solar is a good example. If you have the money to install it, it will pay for itself--and while that is stilly a pretty expensive investment, the cost is coming down.

And if you think about all these things, you'll see that they won't cost jobs--in fact some will create jobs. They wont hurt the economy--but they will cut our need forforeign oil. and they won't cost consumers--they will save money.

Not a bad deal! :)

Answer 5

In your personal life, you can do things like turning off lights, keeping the thermostat down in the winter, no AC in the summer, walking or riding a bike rather than driving, trip chaining (when you go out in your car go to all the places you are going to go for the day at once, rather than going out and going home and going out again), use paper rather than plastic (plastic is made from fossil fuels, paper isn't), plant trees. You can also raise awareness, get others to do the things you are. Write papers and post them up on message boards, form commitees in your neighborhood and go around doing things like planting trees, going door to door to talk to people about global warming, get others to join you and do things in their personal lives. Please, people, start today doing everything you can to stop global warming. Nothing else will matter when we don't have a planet to live on. Start today, if everybody starts doing little things we can make a big difference!

Answer 6

Encourage science to keep working towards understanding climate change so we can learn if global warming is really caused by man's effects or if it is part of the natural cycle. So far that hasn't been proven.

Answer 7

Number one on the list of to do things is replacement of landfills with a process that transforms trash into useful raw material. Landfills are the number one poluter of the planet without any doubt. And they can be replaced just as the horse was-by making a better system. Trash is always going to be generated and it makes no sense to dump it into poluting out the way places. Out of sight, out of mind is the only rule that the landfill applies and that makes no sense either.

Answer 8

well for one person cant do much but if many people stop smoking, using the aerosoft cans (like hairspray)save paper, and stuff like that it will help. every little bit counts!

Answer 9

There is no more important cause than the call to action to save our planet. This is a movement about change, as individuals, as a country, and as a global community. We are all contributors to global warming and we all need to be part of the solution. There are many simple things you can do in your daily life — what you eat, what you drive, how you build your home — that can have an effect on your immediate surroundings, and on places as far away as Antarctica. Here is a list of a few things that you can do to make a difference.

Replace 3 frequently used light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. Save 300 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $60 per year.
If every household in the United States did it, we would save a trillion pounds of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere!

Keep the tires on your car adequately inflated. Check them monthly. Save 250 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $840 per year.
If everyone in the United States did it, gasoline use nationwide would come down by 2 percent.

Check your car's air filter monthly. Save 800 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $130 per year.
Run your dishwasher only with a full load. Save 200 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $40 per year.
Use the energy-saving setting to dry dishes and don't use heat when drying.

Use the energy-saving setting to dry dishes and don't use heat when drying.



Make sure your printer paper is 100% post consumer recycled paper. Save 5 lbs. of carbon dioxide per ream of paper.
The paper industry is the third greatest contributor to global warming emissions.

I have bought 012345678910 ream(s) of paper (100% post-consumer recycled paper)



Move your heater thermostat down two degrees in winter and up two degrees in the summer. Save 2000 lbs of carbon dioxide and $98 per year.
I have set my air-heater thermostat.



Keep your water heater thermostat no higher than 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Save 500 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $30 per year.
I keep my water-heater thermostat no higher than 120F.



Air conditioner check. Save 175 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $150 per year.
Clean or replace dirty air conditioner filters as recommended.

I have checked my air conditioner filter.



Take shorter showers. Save 350 lbs. of Carbon Dioxide and $99 per year.
Showers account for 2/3 of all water heating costs! Using less water in your shower means using less energy to heat the water which means less pollution.

I take shorter showers regularly.



Install a low-flow showerhead to use less hot water. Save 300 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $150
Showers account for 2/3 of all water heating costs! Using less water in your shower means using less energy to heat the water which means less pollution.

Make sure your printer paper is 100% post consumer recycled paper. Save 5 lbs. of carbon dioxide per ream of paper.
The paper industry is the third greatest contributor to global warming emissions.

Move your heater thermostat down two degrees in winter and up two degrees in the summer. Save 2000 lbs of carbon dioxide and $98 per year.

Keep your water heater thermostat no higher than 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Save 500 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $30 per year.

Hope that helps!