how can we stop global warming?

Answer 1

There are several things that can be done including reducing dependency on fossil fuels, recycling, becoming more energy efficient, offsetting carbon emissions and using technology to combat global warming.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY AT HOME
● When replacing appliances buy energy efficient ones.

● Turn off electrical appliances when not in use, don’t use the standby option.

● Use energy efficient light bulbs and switch off lights when not in use.

● Fit individual thermostats to radiators and don't heat rooms that aren't used.

● Insulate walls, lofts, hot water tanks and pipes.

● Turn your heating and air conditioning down, a small difference will be barely noticeable.

● Similarly, turn down water heating by a few degrees.

● Sign up to a green energy supplier, one that produces energy from renewable sources.

● Turn off heating and air-conditioning when the house is unoccupied.

● Wash full loads of clothes at a lower temperature; modern machines and detergents are just as effective at lower temperatures.

● Dry your clothes outdoors instead of in a tumble drier.

● Wash full loads in the dishwasher.

● Insulate your home and block draughts around doors and windows. In Europe this is free to many people.

● Consider installing a renewable energy system such as solar panels or a home wind turbine.

● Use rechargeable batteries; don’t leave rechargers on for longer than is needed (including mobile / cell-phones).

● Boil only as much water in the kettle as you need.

● Buy locally produced organic food where possible, there's less transportation and the farming methods are more environmentally friendly.

● Look where goods were manufactured and avoid buying those that have been flown or shipped long distances.

● Recycle and reuse as much as possible. Sign up with mail preferential services to stop junk mail.

● Avoid buying products with excessive packaging.

● Don’t have your fridge or freezer set lower than need to be, regularly defrost freezers, don’t put hot food into your fridge or freezer.

● If your fridge or freezer is over 15 years old then consider replacing it (check with local authority regarding disposal of old one).

● Work from home where possible.

● Eat less meat and dairy produce, farming produces large quantities of greenhouse gases.

ENERGY EFFICIENT TRAVELLING
For many people a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved by driving a more fuel-efficient vehicle. Each gallon of gasoline burned produces 10kg (20 pounds) of carbon dioxide. A motorist driving 15,000 miles a year in a vehicle that delivers 30mpg will produce 5000kg of carbon emissions whereas a vehicle returning 50mpg will produce 3000kg.

● Drive a fuel-efficient vehicle, if you have more than one vehicle then use the most economical one more often.

● Consider walking or cycling when going to work or taking the kids to schools, if you have to drive then consider car sharing.

● Use public transport where possible and consider taking a coach or train instead of using domestic flights.

● When replacing your vehicle look at diesel and liquid petroleum gas models.

● Combine multiple journeys into one and do your weekly shopping in a single trip.

● Stagger journeys where possible to avoid rush hour traffic and hold ups.

FUEL SAVING TIPS FOR DRIVERS
By driving carefully and keeping your vehicle in good condition you can save up to 30% on your fuel bills and cut greenhouse gas emissions at the same time. Below are some tips for increasing fuel efficiency.

● Avoid harsh braking, accelerate gently and drive at a steady speed.

● Keep tyres inflated to the correct pressure.

● Remove bike and ski racks when not in use, also remove detachable roof racks, luggage boxes etc.

● Carrying unnecessary weight wastes fuel, declutter your vehicle.

● Use the correct gear and use cruise control if your vehicle has it.

● Keep your vehicle regularly services.

● Turn the engine off when stopped or waiting.

MORE ENERGY SAVING TIPS
Natural Resource Defense Council - http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/genergy.asp
Energy Saving Trust - http://www.est.org.uk/myhome/
Carbon Footprint - http://www.carbonfootprint.com/index.html
Carbon Trust - http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/energy
Energy Quest - http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/saving_energy/index.html
US Government - http://www.energy.gov/energyefficiency/index.htm
Alliance to Save Energy - http://www.ase.org/
UK Government - http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Environmentandgreenerliving/Energyandwatersaving/DG_064371
Rough Guides - http://www.roughguides.com/savingenergy/
Salt River Project - http://www.srpnet.com/menu/energy.aspx

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CARBON OFFSETTING

Each of us leaves behind what is commonly referred to as a 'carbon footprint'. This is a measure of the environmental impact in terms of the amount of greenhouses gases produced; it is measured as the equivalent number of units of carbon dioxide. The global average is 5 tons per person per year, in developed nations the average is 11 tons and in the US it is 19 tons.

Carbon Offsetting is one way to reduce or eliminate your carbon footprint; in most cases this involves calculating your greenhouse gas emissions and planting trees so as to absorb an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. Some websites where you can calculate your carbon footprint and purchase offsetting are:
The Woodland Trust - http://www.carbonbalanced.org/
Carbon Footprint - http://www.carbonfootprint.com/USA/calculator.html
The Carbon Neutral Company - http://www.carbonneutral.com/pinfo/carbonoffsetting.asp
My Climate - http://www.myclimate.org/index.php?lang=en
Atmosfair - http://www.atmosfair.de/index.php?id=9&L=3

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GEOENGINEERING (CLIMATE ENGINEERING)
Ambitious schemes have been proposed that would manipulate our climate through geoengineering. These contentious schemes include constructing a giant sunscreen to block out some of the sun’s heat and artificial trees to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If these schemes are successful they could prevent global warming from getting worse and may be reverse the warming trend.

● Human Volcano
Volcanic eruptions emit large quantities of sulphur dioxide that 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 nor 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 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 seawater 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 About These Schemes
Some of these ideas formed part of a BBC documentary 'Five Ways To Save The World' you can read more about them on the BBC Website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/6298507.stm watch the programme trailer http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6360000/newsid_6364700/6364731.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm or watch the programme in full from Google Video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=286000425078890061

Answer 2

Answer: We can't.
First of all, in the bible, it says that the Sun will rob the earth one day. It is going to happen. What ever it say in the bible will happen. The Earth is near the end and so is the Sun. God has created this world for only a matter of time. One day everyone will rise to the sky and go to The New World God is making for us...only the people who know God and love Him. So why is everyone going on about global warming? Its all in the devils work.
Sooo, my point exactly...We can't do anything about global warming..,.(unless some people like recycling.) cos what's happening is a natural thing and we can't stop whats written in the Bible....Floods, Tornados, Fires, Tsunami's etc. If you don't believe me you should read the Bible! I know what you're thinking...yes, it is good to learn new things!!

Answer 3

I do not consider that we can stop global warming. I understand we can possibly slow down some of the adverse effects of global warming on mankind. Not all but some of the effects that will impact on us, mankind, eventually.

I have no basis in science but I have read the reports. In my opinion, which may be flawed or wrong, to slow down global warming we should do three things: Ethically reduce populations (by responsible choice not force), Manage our human impact, using natural systems and products such as housebuilding from timber rather than reinforced concrete, planting and managing natural mixed woodlands etc and thirdly LIMIT your own consumption of everything.

Simple, feel good solutions, but then the best ones always are.

Answer 4

It's sort of hard to just stop global warming. But we could reduce the amount of gases we use. Global warming has been increasing for the past years..and the sad part is that we did it. HUMANS!! So if we use less gases and stop killing animals tha could help.The animal slaughter houses have a huge roll in global warming.. So if you want to help global warming...becoming a vegetarian is a big part..Not only does it save our innocent animals but it also helps with global warming..read the website i attached...you'll learn more..

Answer 5

The biggest thing we can do to stop global warming is to kick the oil habit cold turkey, we have the technologies to be able to meet energy, transportation needs, etc. around the world w/o polluting the environment. We've had the technologies for a while now to be able to not pollute the environment but, unfortunately a lot of people are slower than snails to change.

Answer 6

Use less energy. You've got a lot of good advice and lists here. I wrapped my water heaters, replaced all the light bulbs, bought a new effecient washer and freezer and I've saved about $35.00 a month on my electric bill. It's not how much I spent, but the energy I'm saving. I drive slower and get 3-5 more miles to the gallon.
Do the best you can and help get others to do the same.

Answer 7

Why not reverse our current trends that scientists are claiming caused Global warming in the first place! Can we design a plant that generates electricity and replaces the ozone layer at the same time? I think that it's fascinating that the very things like methane, that scientists claim is polluting the planet, are also sources of energy, if we learn how to utilize them. Do we need to pay more attention to the byproducts that come from waste, and learn how to exploit them?

I know that we have a limitless supply of energy that radiates down upon us every day. We have no efficient way to store it yet, and dense cloud cover scan make it less efficient to collect, but the same sun that provides the light and heat we need to sustain life, gives us more than enough energy for our day to day needs if we learn how to keep it around.

We don't want to stop global warming by the way. That would be as catastrophic as allowing it to expand at it's present rate. What we really want to do is to gain a holistic understanding of the planet, much int he way that an engineer would, so we can achieve and maintain a balance in which we can thrive. This may not even be possible in our foreseeable lifetimes. We are talking about literally changing the world, and we don't even really understand it yet. there is no argument that we are not doing enough in the areas that we do understand however. Mercury does not belong in the sea. Thick brown clouds are not healthy for city dwellers to breath. We know that Alaska used to have Tropical forests and that those forests were wiped out very quickly by an ice age, and there are theories as to how that happened. (massive earthquake, steroid hitting the earth with such force that enough raw material was expelled from the planet to create a moon etc.) Why are we having a similar effect to what a natural disaster would do to our environment? This is disturbing and wrong.

There are any number of things we can do to have a positive effect on our environment, but the simplest one is to plant a tree. If every person on the planet deliberately planted, tended and cared for enough trees to erase their own carbon footprint, we would see a remarkable change in the planet within twenty years! the other thing we can do as an economy is to stop using trees as our major source of pulp and building materials. We can use fibrous plants like Hemp or cane, which are much easier and faster to produce, and yield harvests that foresters never dream of. Oddly enough, The United States still outlaws Hemp because it is in the same plant family as the marijuana plant. This is like saying that we should outlaw tomatoes because they are in the same plant family as deadly nightshade! (This was actually held to be true for centuries by the way, and an attempt was made on our first President's life by his chef, when he served Mr. Washington a dish made with the deadly tomato!)

The largest contributer to global warming is the multi national corporation by the way. Maybe we should force companies to exist within their own borders, to encourage them to be better National citizens, so we can encourage countries to be better Global Citizens. That would not be popular with the lobbyists, but nothing that is actually good for the planet seems to be popular with them anyway!

My guess is that as we try to influence the world, as young people have always done, we need to learn to change ourselves, as the mature generations have been less and less willing to do. Our family is actually taking those bags that Yahoo sent us to the grocery store. One of them (Albertsons) gives us a five cent discount for every bag of our own that we bring in! That is a real incentive for us to shop at Albertsons! We put that lovely fluorescent light bulb that Yahoo sent us, into a lamp that provides ambient light. With the right shading, it is just as warm and inviting as the incandescent bulb that sat there a month ago. There is a pattern here, and I genuinely hope that you see it. If you truly want to influence any nation or community to use energy more efficiently, and use resources more efficiently, make it economically attractive to them! Maybe the way to clean up the planet and positively influence the environment, (remember, we have already agreed that stopping global warming entirely would turn the planet into a big popsickle) is to make it cheaper to go green than to pollute! Just a thought.

Answer 8

Nobody wants to hear it, but we have 2 options. Engineer our way out of it, or cease and desist immediately. The latter option may not truly be available anymore anyway, and the former option has had ambiguous results for centuries. After all, the chief cause of problems is solutions. Call me a doomsayer, but I believe pretty firmly that we're all going to be killing each other for extremely limited resources pretty soon. I believe, even more firmly, that the planet will be better off without our modern influence. Gaia will survive anything short of the sun burning out or going nova, but her ability and willingness to support the teeming masses of humanity is wearing thin.

Answer 9

Well, first of all, we can't stop the sun's rays from coming in. Yet, we can still stop the hole in the ozone layer from expanding. So, we have to learn how to use green energy. And, since in Y!A there's a whole section on Green Living, I am not going to explain. But, I guess you can understand, since it's simple!

Answer 10

--Destroy the World by exploding it into millions of pieces.

--Put out the Sun so their is no heat, turning the world into a big piece of ice with no life.

--Say stop the scamming, look at the science, and realise that the earth has warmed and cooled many many times in the existence of the world. "Going Green" and all the other scams isn't going to change Mother Nature's way, and that is heating, cooling, freezing, and thawing. That is the way it has always been, always will be.

Answer 11

Its just impossible! And the peoples that told you to reduce CO2 are just morons or brainwashed, either ways, its completely utopic to think that our planet never changes and that we can do something to avoid it! Actually the weather we experience today is much cooler than it was a few thousands years ago, or even million years ago! So, do not expect the Earth from stoping functioning only because we feel a little bit cooked, and elements are going against us! Mother nature is still and will still remained our boss for a few thousands years!