What is the most important thing that needs to be done about global warming?

Answer 1

there is not one thing ,there are many
here is a general consensus .limited to my field of experience and data

Is global warming a man-made menace?

not all there are natural cycles in the planets life
but a lot is influenced by mans existance ,and this is increasing with overpopulation,putting strains on Natural resources and increasing contaminations as well as destructions of essential componants the ensure living conditions for all life forms

some home truths

politicians and scientists who work for politicians have downplayed the facts because solutions are expensive and means change and change effects many people income,and most of the world is kept in the dark of the real things that are going on.


in North Africa,India,Mexico ,millions of people are effected by land loss and desertification


in recent times thousands of people have died because of exessive heat,usually old people.in India ,Mexico and France,
deforestation causing desertification,the desert conditions causing very cold nights and scorching hot days

in china, thousands of what used to be farmers are running for their lives from the dust storms that have burried their towns and turned their lands into dessert,the globe where they were got to hot for them .
and instead of producing food they are now needing it from some where else,and they will drastically effect the world food prices when they start buying water in the form of grains ,at any cost destabalising governments, in some countries ,could be the result
(are you seeing more Chinese around interested in agricultural lands ,we do here in Mexico)

,the Sahara is growing by 7 kilometers a year
and all of the desserts we know are a results of mans actions ,and they are increasing ,not getting less ,in the dinosaurs days ,there were no desserts.

collectively this planet is drying up because of bad farming practices like,over grazing and fertilizers,

as far as the food production is concerned, Global warming or some of its effects are serious,rising seas result in landloss

each degree rise in temperature means 10%crop loss

more landloss because of desertification every year,we have less areble land to produce food ,for an extra 70 million people ,

and there is less and less water (because of deforestation),to irrigate this production ,
and there are less and less farmers to do it..
who are overpumping deep carbon aquifiers
who are plowing more and more unstable lands because they have lost so many million hectares to desertification ,
because of bad farming practises ,such as using fertilizers and heavy machinary or over grazing

RISING SEAS
The northpole is melting ,and we will know it without ice in our life times.
this does not affect the sea level because it is ice that is already in the water.but the melting ice from Green land and the south pole ,are another matter.

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

i am a Permaculture Consultant for the department of Ecology for the regional government in Guerrero Mexico
http://spaces.msn.com/byderule

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 50 languages and won the best book award in 2003.

Answer 2

Other than awareness (which many of the above have pointed out), the number one (time-wise) concrete step is probably conservation. During the late seventies and early eighties, when there was an oil crisis and the price of gas was extremely high, oil consumption dropped dramatically in a very short period, simply because of the introduction of a few simple efficiency technologies - more fuel-efficient cars, better insulation, lighting, etc. In the intervening years, the situation has relaxed considerably, and so we're quite profligate with our energy. This could probably be easily reversed and even improved upon without much effort or loss. It probably doesn't even require much new technology; a lot of these technologies exist, and merely need to be expanded and more widely adopted. As a simple example - energy-efficient lightbulbs that have approximately 1/4 the power consumption of an incandescent bulb have been available for years - but people still continue to buy incandescents. This could be overturned in a matter of months, simply by phasing out production of incandescents.

The second concrete step that needs to be taken is finding ways to produce electricity reliably that do not use fossil fuels (e.g. coal), and finding ways to fuel transportation that do not rely on oil. These are much harder, and good solutions do not yet exist.

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Addendum replying to Marc G, below: the papers you cite are fringe theories, and aren't even very good papers at that. The first one, for example, is roundly trashed by Aeschbach-Hertig in a reply in the same journal (Environ. Geology, Oct 5, 2006). Briefly, the authors don't know what they're talking about and didn't even discuss the greenhouse effect! in point of fact, the available literature is overwhelmingly in support of global warming and overwhelmingly in support of human influence being the major cause. Thus the IPCC stance that it is 90% certain that humans are responsible for the current warming trend.

Answer 3

Well, there are several things that you can do to lessen the amount of CO2 being put into the air such as: changing your light bulbs to an led light bulb, turn of all appliances if they are not in use (even the little lights that tell you what time it is on your vcr or dvd player, just unplug those things), turn off lights when they are not in use, keep the ac and heater off when you are not home (when you are home try not to crank up the ac or heater to an unnessisary temperature, use blankets, layer on clothing, or open the windows as much as you can), try not to rely on your car so much (if you can go some where and it is walking distance then go for it because cars are a big part of global warming).
The most important thing that needs to be done in order to slow down the process of global warming would be to stop chopping down forests that are our major source of oxygen, stop wasting money on a war that is a loose loose situation and use the money to produce better forms of transportation that are enviromentally friendly, plant more trees, use better filteration devices on factories who emit pollution into the air and get as much of the information about how global warming will distroy our earth to as much people as we possibly can. One person can't do it alone but if more and more people chip in and make contributions then we'll see a much brighter future. Anyway, I hope I have answered your question. If you want to know more about global warming deffinately buy the movie:
An Inconvenient Truth
or go online to the site: http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/default.asp
Karissa

Answer 4

What makes you think something can be done to stop global warming?

I am fully on board with the fact that global warming/climate change is occuring. I couldn't disagree more with the premise that humans are causing.

I have provided a few journal articles, not stuff from the media, that offer up alternative reasons for global warming. As far as I can tell, none of the authors have shown up on sourcewatch as being in the pockets of the oil companies, if you care about that sort of thing.

As for things I'd like to see done....
More nuclear energy, synfuel refinement from coal, etc

Answer 5

I think it's something to think about and you should try to incorporate eco friendly habits into your daily routine, but I believe there are more important matters in the world right now, that should take priority over global warming at this point in time.

Answer 6

You may like to read these two answers I provided to questions similar to yours. They're long so I won't copy and paste them in here.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AvuwTb_4JEjYUAasjcqb0YLsy6IX?qid=20070210112745AAqQ4cw&show=7#profile-info-nG122hwCaa

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Am88OUuVY6_WHIRcGzlmH1Hsy6IX?qid=20070222171654AA4cxTh&show=7#profile-info-013a2b39091086f94ea6a92140984555aa

To answer your specific question - the most important thing as I see it is to educate people about the facts. There's an awful lot of rubbish circulating which is helping nobody. Those who don't want to beleive in global warming promote their case based not on fact or evidence but on misrepresentation, half truths and blatant lies. In this question http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AoUyO7pibRjqaeVTCCziw_bsy6IX?qid=20070222195252AAYgxec&show=7#profile-info-Xvz8v9nzaa there was 'evidence' put forward to support the case against global warming which as you'll see from my response, is complete nonsense.

It would also help a great deal if the politicians butted out and didn't use global warming as an excuse for introducing more taxation and legislation.

Answer 7

a switch to biofuel ... it works with all the same infrastucture already in place ... vehicals can be converted or manufactured to run on it with a minimum amount of money 2-300$ .... and it is a replaceable fuel that will actually cost less per mile than gasoline for the consumer ... the only thing blocking its usage are those in high places making money from oil period.

Answer 8

I believe that the very FIRST necessary step is to get worldwide governments AND citizens to really RECOGNIZE and understand that global warming is a real and devastating danger.

Answer 9

Everyone has to realize that this is HAPPENING. Most people won't admit that we are destroying the earth slowly and slowly. The government also has to take fast action on this and stop avoiding the issue.

Answer 10

nothing can be done. people in this world are so corrupted nowadays. One country alone will not improve the situation as the other countries will make it even worse (a lot of 3rd world countries don't really give a F about this)

Answer 11

stop driving gas guzzlers and SUVs. Switch to an electric car or an economy car