Global Warming: What's your fantastic, out-there solution? (Anything)?

Question

Global warming is an issue that many scientists are now saying can't be stopped. So - desperate times call for desperate measures. I don't care how crazy it is, make up an idea and post it.

Example: Build a giant pipe dozens of miles tall into the higher layers of the atmosphere and push all our polution through it. Sure, we become earth-locked, but...

Okay, anyone else have an idea?

Answer 1

There's many ideas that are being considered at the moment, here's a few of them...

HUMAN VOLCANO
Volcanic eruptions emit large quantities of sulphur dioxide which blocks out some of the heat from the sun. Following the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 the average global temperature fell by 0.5°C. One proposal is to simulate natural volcanoes by firing pellets of sulphur into the upper atmosphere where the particles of sulphur will reflect back some of the solar radiation.

SULPHUR BLANKET
Nobel Prize winner Professor Paul Crutzen has put forward a scheme which, like the Human Volcano, uses the principle of sulphur to block out some of the suns rays. Professor Crutzen's idea is to launch rockets into the stratosphere (10 to 50km above Earth's surface) and release one million tons of sulphur. This radical plan could have drawbacks including an increase in acid rain and damage to the ozone layer. At low levels sulphur dioxide is a toxic gas and in the past was emitted in large quantities from factories; ironically the Clean Air Acts which reduced industrial pollution removed much of the cooling sulphur dioxide from out atmosphere.

SOLAR MIRRORS
The US National Academy of Sciences has proposed a scheme that would involve positioning 55,000 gigantic mirrors in space. Each mirror would be 100 square kilometres in area and the effect would be to reflect some of the sun's heat energy back into space. For the time being neither the technology or financial resources exist to enable such a scheme to go ahead.

GLOBAL SUNSHADE
A similar scheme to the space mirrors idea involves placing a giant sunshade in orbit between the sun and Earth. British astronomer Roger Angel has proposed creating such a shade some 1.5 million miles from earth, at the point where gravity from the sun and the earth balance. His sunshade would consist of 16 trillion individual glass discs, each one microscopically thin and weighing just one gram. On board each disc would be a tiny camera, computer and solar sails allowing each disc to align itself so as to refract light from the sun just enough so it misses Earth. Angel proposes using electro magnetically propelled launches, each one delivering a million discs into space.

MOVING PLANET EARTH
Perhaps the most ambitious of all schemes so far proposed is one to actually move planet Earth into a different orbit. It has been estimated that if Earth were 1.5 million miles further from the sun then the reduced heat energy received from the sun would compensate for anthropogenic global warming. Dr Ken Caldiera of Stanford University, an opponent of geoengineering, has calculated that the energy required to move the Earth this far would be the equivalent of 5 quadrillion hydrogen bombs (5,000,000,000,000,000).

CLOUD SEEDING
Cloud seeding isn't a new concept and is one that has been tried with some success as a way of bringing rainfall to dry areas. One variation on this theme is to launch a fleet of self propelled vessels to sail the world's oceans and spray a fine mist of sea water particles into the atmosphere. Marine Stratocumuli clouds form over much of the world's oceans and they're particularly effective at reflecting sunlight back into space. Professors John Latham and Stephen Salter from the UK believe that by increasing the number of such clouds, enough heat from the sun can be reflected back into space to offset global warming.

ARTIFICIAL TREES
A school science project provided the inspiration for Professor Klaus Lackner's concept of using artificial trees to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Air passes through the device and hydrogen sulphide absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, each 'tree' could remove 90,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year. The carbon dioxide would need to be permanently stored and the professor believes this could be achieved by drilling holes thousands of metres deep into porous rock beneath the oceans; the CO2 would be injected into the holes where it would permeate the surrounding rock.

PHYTOPLANKTON
Phytoplankton are microscopic marine plants, invisible to the naked eye but visible from space as blooms of green ocean. Like all plants they photosynthesise - taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. Increasing the quantity of phytoplankton will result in more carbon dioxide being absorbed and when the plants die they sink to the ocean floor taking the carbon with them. Professor Ian Jones of Sydney University advocates that by using nitrogen rich urea to enrich parts of the oceans low in phytoplankton their numbers can be significantly increased.

More info on one of my websites...
http://profend.com/global-warming/pages/combat.html#4

BBC News article about some of the above...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/6298507.stm

BBC trailor for a programme broadcast recently that includes some of the above...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6360000/newsid_6364700/6364731.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm

Watch the programme from Google Video...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=286000425078890061

Answer 2

Watch it, because we cannot change it, we did not cause it and if we muck around with mother nature we may find our messing about has caused irreparable harm. Now of course if all we do is line the pockets of some politicians and the GW industries, well nothing will hurt, except you will be lighter in the pocket book.

Wherever you get your information on the topic, you need to expand your sources. It is universally accepted by scientists in the field that man has no effect on the temperature cycles we see. They believe it is the sun, gee that sounds kind of logical anyway, and they believe that this whole AGW thing is a con job.

Have you watched the Great Global Warming Swindle? Excellent production, full of real scientists, in that field of study, who actually worked on the original IPCC panel who all say this hysteria is a crock.

Answer 3

Build a huge, and I mean huge, room somewhere on earth. I'm thinking about the size of France, and open all the windows to let air in, then close the windows. The carbon dioxide will eventually rise to the top since it's lighter than oxygen-

Wait, that won't work.

Build a huge refrigerator to freeze air, remove the CO2, then release the decarbonated air. Store the CO2 in a giant underwater greenhouse.

Answer 4

Watch the movie "An Inconvenient Truth." It's very informative and gives you advice to help stop it. I think they even have a website. There was also an article that I read a while ago that was about the global warming debate and whether or not it's real. There are actually a lot of different opinions about it, one person even said that it's just a phase the Earth goes through every thousand years. Another person said that the earth will start to cool off in a few years. I'm not sure which opinion is right, but you should take the advice to help stop it just in case.

Answer 5

Yes many scientists are stating that it can't be stopped - while many of those same scientists are also making the claim that the problem has been wildly overstated. Things are not as dire as some would have you believe!

My solution - Whether the problem is as bad as stated or not, there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON NOT to try and better ourselves. We need to continue to develop and use new technologies to be more efficient and less polluting. We need to start implementing technologies that have already been developed. Doing so will mean less pollution, will mean greater efficiency, and in the long run more money in our wallets! Not to mention becoming more independent of an energy market currently dominated by a core group of countries in the middle east! Iran acts up (as present) and gas prices rise! Break this cycle!

Part 2 of my the solution - openly challenge anyone who tries to tell you how to live your life, but refuses to change his/her own ways. Do a google search for news stories about Al Gore, and you'll see what I mean. Rather than change his own life style, he claims to offset his own carbon footprint by purchasing carbon credits from those who have changed their lives! Mr. Gore's message would be much stronger if he actually started to publicly live greener himself, rather than live off the backs of others!!!!!

Answer 6

Simple. Since it's all based on a wrong assumption, we ignore the Liberals. If you really want to solve the 'problem', just put a series of mylar mirrors into orbit around the earth, to reflect a percentage of the sunlight away. That's the real cause of the problem anyway.

Answer 7

Let it alone, global warming is not a reality. The earth goes through cycles. The same thing happened 70 years ago. By 2025 it won't be a problem.

Answer 8

Wall off Kalifornicatya and put all the perverts, degenerates, ecologists, environmentalists, animal 'rights' freaks, junk scientists, femiNazis, Chicken Little Syndrome sufferers, ACLU, UN, communists, socialists, Democrats, and, last but not least, liberals in it. When they start diversifying and tolerating each other, Fire bomb them to oblivion.
Or, better yet, air drop them in Muslim countries so they (the terrorists) will keep occupied for a while. Tell them we will buy the shrunken heads back so we can hang them on our car mirrors.

Answer 9

Tape up the mouths of all liberal politicians and Hollywood celebrities to stop them from spewing their ignorant hot air.

Answer 10

Convert to all green renewable energy, maximize efficiency in planes, ships, trains, big rigs, passenger cars, trucks, houses, buildings, industry and scrub all the excess carbon in the air by planting trees and with technology worldwide.