What can be done about Global Warming?

Question

My point of view is that Global Warming does exist and is a problem. If anyone has a different opinion, okay that's cool, but I don't care to debate it right now.

Basically, what are some things we can do to curve the effects of Global Warming? What things will have a definate impact on the environment. I know recycling and turning off lights and driving hybrid cars will help, but is there anything else?

Should countries back the Kyoto Protocol for instance? Is there legislation that can be suggested? Any scientific breakthroughs that we should pour money into to save the enviornment? Hydro-cars? Any bright ideas?

Answer 1

Global Warming is real. Understanding what causes global warming is the key to understanding our options. Basically humans have been releasing a number of different gasses in to the atmosphere in very very large quantities for about 100 years now. Those gases have changed the way the earth absorbs and reflects light from the sun. Those changes have resulted in the Earth absorbing slightly more sunlight than it used to and that extra energy is slowly heating up the Earth.

Here is the problem. The gasses we have already released into the atmosphere would be very difficult to take back out again and so we are basically stuck waiting for natural processes to remove those gases. That will take hundreds of years.

What we can do though is to keep it from getting worse. Today we are releasing more of these gases faster than ever so every day the problem gets worse because more and more greenhouse gases are building up in the atmosphere. To keep the problem from getting worse we need to stop releasing these gasses as quickly as possible.

Reducing greenhouse gas production is very hard because our way of life is based on using lots of energy. It is the production of energy is the main way we create the most important greenhouse gas, which is carbon dioxide. Every time we burn something, gasoline to drive someplace, natural gas to heat our houses, coal to generate electricity, we make more carbon dioxide. We need to learn how to generate our energy using methods that do not require burning fossil fuels.

There are many types of energy that do not require burning fossil fuels such as: wind power, hydroelectric power, solar power and nuclear power. One important complication is that all of these "clean" power sources are used to generate electricity. That is a problem for cars because cars currently do not run on electricity. That is one reason why people are working hard on electric cars, hybrid cars and fuel cell power cars.

There is one more "clean" energy source that does work with today's cars and that is bio fuel. In that case we grow plants, which absorb carbon dioxide to grow, and then later turn the plant matter into bio diesel or ethanol, both of which can be burned in a regular engine. The carbon dioxide that burning releases is the same carbon dioxide captured by the plants when they grow so there is no addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, which is why this is a clean fuel.

So basically there are a couple of things to understand about Global Warming.

1) We cannot make it go away no matter what we do because the gasses we have already released in the last 100 or so years will be in the atmosphere absorbing extra energy from the sun for hundreds of more years.

2) Global warming will get much worse if we keep pumping out greenhouse gases and it will last much longer. Greenhouse gases come from burning fossil fuels to generate our energy. Therefore we must change the way we generate energy as fast as possible.

Answer 2

Look at all the facts and not the spin propaganda.
We cant because we did not cause it because it is only changing marginally world wide. Global Warming is a trojan horse for Socialism, wake up Americans. Global warming is at the fore front because politicians found how to use a new platform to get re-elected. The world leaders use it because they found ways to make money at it. This is a made up problem just like Global Cooling in the 1970's. Wake up people. I agree we need to be more efficient with our resources, and we should fine and jail companies who are dumping into our rivers maliciously. I want to stop the raiforest destruction, but to say that global warming is a serious man made issue and we need to destroy the American economy and bow down to the rest of the world certainly does not float my boat. Follow the money on this one and you will see that it is all for political gain and grant money for those scientists who profit off of the government if global warming stays at the front of the issues. Look deep into the Keoto (sp?) Treaty, first of all they took jets to a non-central resort location. Not very environmentally concious. THen in the parameters of the treaty they have a clause that makes it so you can buy or sell polution credits. This is all about shifting wealth and breaking down the United States. This is painfully obvious, just look at peoples agenda. The earth's mean temperature has risen .6 degrees C in the past 125 years. Greenland's icecaps have gotten colder in the past 10 years. The Scientists who do not gain anything on their posisition will tell you that the earth has a natural progression and this is what we are seeing. The UN report is made up of POLITICIANS not a good spread of scientists. THere are as many or more scientists who believe that man in NOT the reason and it is over hyped, but their voice is not heard in the LIberal Mainstream Media. This issue is 99% political, and an attempt to make the USA a socialist nation, and eventually communisim. WAKE UP AMERICA, IT IS TIME TO BE AMERICANS. FOR THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE. STOP THE LIES

Answer 3

Since, you have determined "global warming" is a problem, let's fix the main problem most people say is causing all the warming CO2.

First, let's cut down all of the forests of the world especially the Amazon Rain forest; all that plant life is a HUGE source of CO2. Also, without trees, there will be less CO2 from forest fires.

Second, let's replace ALL coal and gas fired power plants with NUCLEAR POWER. Nuclear power produces only steam; oops, wait a minute, steam which is the largest green house gas. And all greenhouse gas is bad isn't it?

Third, let's kill all cattle; their burps product all kinds of methane and other carbon based gases.

When you are ready to consider some facts, please review the data in the link below.

Answer 4

Almost nothing. Even if Kyoto were fully implemented by the U.S. and all nations of the world, it would not make any important difference in the amount of CO2 in the air. And anyway, no nation on Earth will even come close to meeting their Kyoto goals. It is simply impossible without drastically cutting all energy use, and that would plunge the world into poverty. I mean real poverty, with starvation and disease and all. Our modern life is only possible with lots of energy, and our 6 billion population is already far higher than can be supported on Earth without all the energy driven technology we have. There is not enough farm land with natural rain fall, and irrigation pumps take power. Trucks delivering food to cities emit CO2, tractors that work the fields emit CO2. If all 6 billion people in the world abandoned the cities and moved to small farms that they worked by hand, like the Amish, that would still not remove the need to irrigate, and their houses would cover much of the very farm land need to grow crops. And anyway, would you be willing to do that? Would every person in the world? That is the kind of drastic action it would take to REALLY reduce the amount of CO2 in the air. Our population has simply outstripped the ability of planet Earth to support it in a natural state.

Answer 5

None of the above will do anything about global warming. Its not something humans can control and I don't understand why any sane reasonalbe person would think they can control when they can't even control the streets of many cities. How do they think they can control big events like global warming.

Answer 6

global warming cannot be stopped but we can stop helping it becoming faster,and being friendlier to our Environment cannot be bad

these are Al gores sites
http://events.stepitup2007.org/............
http://www.stepitup2007.org/

http://events.stepitup2007.org/............

POSITIVE ACTIONS
if you want to help the planet ,plant a tree every week ,if everyone on the planet did we we would be able to slowdown 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

here are a 100 more ways

http://www.eco-gaia.net/forum-pt/index.p...

Answer 7

WE ONLY HAVE 8 MORE YEARS BEFORE THE CHANGE IS IRREVERSIBLE!!!!
Just thought people might want to know....