Ways to stop/fight Global Warming.

Ok, we all know global warming exists.
This thread is not meant to be a slugfest on what or whom's
responsible for global warming.

There are two main points to this thread.
A. Come up with ways to fight stop and possibly reverse
global warming on the large scale.
B. Come up with ways the average person I.E. us, can
help to prevent global warming from getting any worse.



Now, after seeing numerous proposed ways to prevent global
warming and get rid of CO2 in the atmosphere, I've come up
with my own possible solution.

Now, this is'nt a solution that could be implemented tomorrow,
or even next year, the technology, while it does exist, is still
not developed enough to actually be used.

The technology I'm talking about is Nano/Micro technology.
Here's my idea;
We develop solar powered MicroMachines, that float through
the atmosphere and clean it. Now, these MicroScrubbers,
for lack of a term, would'nt be permanent.

Each one would clean the air by removing the molecules from the air
and storing them. When one was full, it would go to a preprogrammed
collection point where it would than enter and become a storage
container for the comtaniments it had removed.
Each of these MicroScrubbers would be about half the size of a mosquito.


My second idea would use filters.
Now, to actually clean the atmosphere totally we'd need an
extremely large, and uneconomic amount of filters, which would cost
alot of money to buy the property for and to build.

So basically we do this, instead of building big huge filters, we put smaller
filters on top of existing buildings.
And require all new skyscrapers to incorporate atleast one floor entirely
devoted to filtering.

Now, this would'nt totally solve the problem,
but it definately would help considerably.



So, what are your thoughts and ideas?

[edit on 8/9/2006 by iori_komei]

Your ideas are stupidly handsome. If you pitched these ideas to a major corporation, what do you think would happen?

Your first idea is:
a) ill-defined
and
b) sounds like it does not exist and will not exist for a very long time

Your second idea is:
a) not going to work because Americans do not want to turn their homes and places of business into eyesores
and
b) sounds ineffecient

[edit on 8-8-2006 by nogirt]

Trying to build small containers for all the vast quantities of carbon dioxide, methane and greenhouse gases in general and storing the gas in these containers sounds enormously expensive. I bet planting forests would be far more cost effective and probably have a bigger impact as well. While you're trying, I don't believe the ideas you're talking about would be very practical at all.

Who knows, maybe we already have a solution on the way. We just need a small or a series of small asteroids or comets to impact the Earth and throw up some dust clouds and the global warming problem will be solved for several years. Of course then we may face other problems such as crops not growing well due to lack of sunlight. There might be famine and mass starvation as well. Economies might collapse. There seems to be a few minor problems with whatever solution we think of. However if we look at our alternatives below

1. do nothing, let the ice caps melt and flood all coastal areas and let weather patterns get altered where normally good crop growing areas become very dry or too wet, weather going haywire at times, or

2. spend money on curbing greenhouse gases and experiment with possible solutions trying to decrease the amount of greenhouse gases in the air, or

3. someone invents a method of making big money on removing greenhouse gases from Earth's atmosphere. I'm not sure how this would happen though.

I still like the idea of dumping iron powder into the ocean but possibly spread it out in many thousands of mini doses so that no area gets too much plankton growing in it. The oceans cover 2/3 of the planet. The material used is cheap and cost effective. The only question I see is could we do it without harming sea life too much? Sea life such as coral reefs are already being harmed by the changes in the atmosphere. The oceans are currently absorbing CO2 from the air but they may reach a point where they can't absorb as much. I'm speculating but I thought I heard that.

Originally posted by nogirt
Your ideas are stupidly handsome. If you pitched these ideas to a major corporation, what do you think would happen?

Your first idea is:
a) ill-defined
and
b) sounds like it does not exist and will not exist for a very long time

Your second idea is:
a) not going to work because Americans do not want to turn their homes and places of business into eyesores
and
b) sounds ineffecient

[edit on 8-8-2006 by nogirt]

The basic technology for it exists today, it just requires nore R&D,
it's not meant to be something that stops global warming anyways,
just help in getting rid of it.

I did'nt mean to be added on peoples houses, though they would be
on apartment complexes.
They would'nt have to be unattractive additions.
They could be almost invisible, that being you'd just think it's a normal
part of the building.

Trying to build small containers for all the vast quantities of carbon dioxide, methane and greenhouse gases in general and storing the gas in these containers sounds enormously expensive. I bet planting forests would be far more cost effective and probably have a bigger impact as well. While you're trying, I don't believe the ideas you're talking about would be very practical at all.

They would'nt be very expensive, and with swarms of millions, they'd be effective.
Though I honestly don't know what would be done with them after.
Planting forests would be a good idea, but seeing as there is'nt a huge amount of land to use to plant forests on, and people won't want to give up cities for plants, and seeing as cities will continue to expand, theres not alot of room to do that, though that is actually the better idea.


Anyways, I'd like to hear everyone elses ideas.

We can't stop global warming, and we shouldn't. It is a natural fluctuation in the earth's climate that is being increased by human activities. But global warming would continue (albeit at a slightly slower rate) even if we could completely eliminate all human contribution (impossible, but still a pipe dream for the eco-ignorant).

Climate fluctuation is as natural as the tides. We are adding to the rate of change, but we are not the root cause.

Originally posted by dave_54
We can't stop global warming, and we shouldn't. It is a natural fluctuation in the earth's climate that is being increased by human activities. But global warming would continue (albeit at a slightly slower rate) even if we could completely eliminate all human contribution (impossible, but still a pipe dream for the eco-ignorant).

Climate fluctuation is as natural as the tides. We are adding to the rate of change, but we are not the root cause.

Of course we can stop it.

As I said this is'nt a thread on what/who causes global warming,
so I'm not going to argue with you.
However, regardless of what causes it, it's not a positive thing,
and if we can stop it, or even reverse it, than we should.

Before going further with the nanotechnology approach, have you had a chance yet to read the novel Prey, by Michael Crichton (paperback published by HarperCollins)? It focuses on the unique problems and risks posed by nanotechnology, particularly that which is self-powered.

I will try to track down a report I saw online somewhere about the surprising efficiency of algae ponds, of all things, to trap atmospheric carbon. If I can find it, I'll post it in this thread.

Originally posted by FutureLibrarian
Before going further with the nanotechnology approach, have you had a chance yet to read the novel Prey, by Michael Crichton (paperback published by HarperCollins)? It focuses on the unique problems and risks posed by nanotechnology, particularly that which is self-powered.

I will try to track down a report I saw online somewhere about the surprising efficiency of algae ponds, of all things, to trap atmospheric carbon. If I can find it, I'll post it in this thread.

I'm aware of the potential dangers nanotech can have.
Especially the so named "Grey Goo" scenario.

That's why it would be programmed to not be able to cause
such problems.
Also, they would'nt be self reproducing, and would have a
limited life span.

It is a good point to bring up though.

I will try to track down a report I saw online somewhere about the surprising efficiency of algae ponds, of all things, to trap atmospheric carbon. If I can find it, I'll post it in this thread.

I've heard algae is very good at cleaning pollutants from the air.

Do you think that algae ponds are something the average person
could build to do there part, or is it more something the govs.
should do, with huge algae lakes?

[edit on 8/9/2006 by iori_komei]

Originally posted by iori_komeiit just requires nore R&D

Your idea sounds good for a book, but not for any practical use. How much more R&D would it take? Billions? Hundreds of billions? Ten Years? Ten Decades?

I think you will also be hard pressed to find chemists working on this kind of technology, let alone any company or government.

Originally posted by nogirt

Originally posted by iori_komeiit just requires nore R&D

Your idea sounds good for a book, but not for any practical use. How much more R&D would it take? Billions? Hundreds of billions? Ten Years? Ten Decades?

I think you will also be hard pressed to find chemists working on this kind of technology, let alone any company or government.

Well a decade at the most to get it to the required basic level.

Nanotechnology is a very large field with hundreds of scientists just here in the U.S.


The united states spends over a billion dollars a year on nanotechnology R&D many major companies spend millions of dollars doing R&D.

We have alot of basic nanotech around us.

nanotech=chemistry

I find it hard to believe that in a decade, researchers will be able to program a single molecule or ionic compound.

Originally posted by nogirt
nanotech=chemistry

I find it hard to believe that in a decade, researchers will be able to program a single molecule or ionic compound.

Nanotech=Very small machines.

I'm not talking about making the devices on the molecular level,
they'd be MicroMachines anyways, half the size of a moquito.

Originally posted by iori_komei
However, regardless of what causes it, it's not a positive thing,
and if we can stop it, or even reverse it, than we should.

That is a philosophical viewpoint, not a statement of fact.

Environmental change is neither good nor bad. Those are subjective human values from a purely human point of view. Nature will adjust regardless the degree of climate change. GW will produce as many winners as losers on a global scale.

If you are a desert farmer or herdsman trying scratch out enough food to survive then the projected increase in rainfall in your area is a positive thing. If your growing season is only a few weeks long, like in the higher lattitudes/altitudes, then a longer growing season is a positive. If you are a coastal plain dweller then rising sea levels is a negative. Whether GW is good or bad depends entirely upon your personal situation.

The same for wildlife species. The same decreasing snow pack that negatively impacts the snowshoe hare is a boon to the lynx that feeds on the hare. Lowering montane lake levels that harms trout benefits amphibians that are eaten by trout. Every perceived negative impact is a positive in another context.

Since scientists worldwide agree GW has a partial natural component (how much is natural and how much is human is in debate. That a natural component exists at some level is not), then attempting to completely stop global warming can be construed as altering natural cycles, which environmental philosophy defines as bad.

The debate is a philosophical argument, not a scientific one, and must be resolved in the public policy arena. Scientists are the least qualified to enter that discussion.

Many ATS threads get a little off-topic for various reasons; the topic of this thread may be best enhanced by asking ATS members to include citations of scientific sources of continued skepticism about the reality of global warming, rather than just posting dissenting opinions. This tactic is especially helpful with so much fast-breaking news on this topic. We all want to keep up with the latest info.

This summer's documentary movie "An Inconvenient Truth" includes a graph from a scientific review of all the recent scientific literature on climate change. Those scientists doing this meta-analysis found that while there were no peer-reviewed scientific articles skeptical of global warming, there were many skeptical articles published in the popular press during that same time period. Thus, the public debate on climate change has been hindered by articles that are unsupported by scientifically verifiable data.

A news item in an online religious discussion forum just yesterday points out a financial conflict of interest (Exxon funding) found in many signers of a recent religious coalition's declaration against the reality of climate change:

www.ethicsdaily.com...

Examples of ongoing reports of the overwhelming scientific consensus on the realities of global climate change are available at the Scientific American web site; some are free, some are fee-only:

www.scientificamerican.com...

Keep in mind that public libraries in many countries maintain online databases, including Scientific American magazine, which are free to library users who have a (free) library card. These databases can then be conveniently accessed from your home.

The connection between algae and global warming is discussed in various online articles such as:

msn.com.com...

A variety of experiments, included some sponsored by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) are underway to test the feasibility of algae as a biodiesel source of energy. Three questions occur to me about this so far:

1) Is it feasible to store the carbon captured in this process?

2) Is it economically affordable (and if so, on what scale) to capture this carbon?

3) What are the costs of mosquito abatement in these ponds, if we all start to create Victory Ponds in our backyards?

For example, in warmer climate zones, the risks of Yellow Fever are guaranteed unless mosquito abatement is conducted. The history of New Orleans includes a number of Yellow Fever epidemics until mosquito abatement programs began. That reminds me, the last time I visited an aquarium store, I asked about mosquito fish (mosquito larvae eaters), but the store owner told me he had didn't have any just then because he was having difficulty keeping up with the customer demand. So maybe some of our ATS members may want to consider getting into the mosquito fish supply business.

[edit on 11-8-2006 by FutureLibrarian]