How do we slow down global warming?

[ObiWan377]

I've been thinking today (and it hurt). With all this controversy on global warming, how do we slow it down? I know we can't stop it, but how do we slow it down? Does recycling really help, or is it something bigger than that? Please educate me.

P.S.- Sorry if this was discussed somewhere else. I probably missed it somewhere.

[§rv]

Sorry to get all political but isn't America not agreeing to cut down on its gas emissions? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
But I think that if the world reduces the amount of gas emissions..global warming would slow down

[Musashi]

Are you refering to the Kyoto Treaty? There is a reason the USA, the Soviet union, and most other right thinking nations refused to sign it.

[Jack Higgins]

And this reason is...?

(No really)

[Musashi]

It was poorly written.

[pi is exactly 3]

And this reason is...?

(No really)

They want more money and won't waste it on saving the planet.

[Archer17]

I'm with Musashi here. If you're going to draft a resolution to address the environment, do it right. The Kyoto accords were a rather transparent attempt at leveling the playing field between the established industrialized countries and those that want to catch up. Kyoto would put curbs on the U.S. for instance, but exempt other major polluters like Brazil, India, and China. If the world wants to get serious about the environment, everyone has to play along .. no freebies.

[Zamboni]

How to stop global warming? Easy. From now on everyone just breath carbon dioxide instead of oxygen... Problem solved.

[DreadCthulhu]

First off, reducing CO2 emissions enough to seriously slow global warming would be very expensive. That and one of the easier ways to reduce CO2 production - switching coal power plants to nuclear, would tend to give the greens into a hissy fit, means other, cheaper options must be explored.

Well, we all know that when volcanoes go off the dust they kick up into the atmosphere reduces the amount of sunlight hitting the earth, reducing the temperature. So all we have to do is figure out how to make volcanoes explode on demand. Or there is that whole nuclear winter thing - simply start setting off nukes until there is enough dust in the atmosphere to reduce the temperature. (IIRC though, the effects of nuclear winter have been widely overstated in th past though - can someone clarify this?)

On a more seriouse note, I have heard of proposals involving spraying reflective particles(made of aluminium) into the upper atmosphere to slightly reduce the amount of light hitting the earth, counteracting global warming - this offers a fairly high degree of control as to how much light is hitting the surface, and where, and supposably would actually cost much less to do than cutting emissions. Though right now all the google searches I am doing on the subject keep coming up with chemtrail sites. #-o

[Archer17]

First off, reducing CO2 emissions enough to seriously slow global warming would be very expensive. That and one of the easier ways to reduce CO2 production - switching coal power plants to nuclear, would tend to give the greens into a hissy fit, means other, cheaper options must be explored.

This is probably my hang-over talking but screw the greens! Nuclear power is the way to go. Those tree-huggers would have us living in caves if they had their way! Greens? They whine about nuclear power and whine about the alternatives to nuclear power .. basically they whine.

[N C More]

As someone who frequently deals with "greenies" I can see where the frustration comes from! They don't deal well with reality.

That said, we do need to stop chopping down every bit of forest that we come upon. Zamboni said that we should "Breathe carbon dioxide"...well plants do just that!

Nuclear power is cleaner and despite any risks it does seem to be a far better choice than going on as we are.

Question: I recall some researcher saying that global warming may not be as bad as we originally thought...anyone know anything about this?

[dgruss23]

On a more seriouse note, I have heard of proposals involving spraying reflective particles(made of aluminium) into the upper atmosphere to slightly reduce the amount of light hitting the earth, counteracting global warming - this offers a fairly high degree of control as to how much light is hitting the surface, and where, and supposably would actually cost much less to do than cutting emissions.

These kinds of proposals really worry me. I remember reading in Earth magazine back when that was in print that some researchers were toying with the idea of seeding the oceans with iron to cause the plankton increase and draw more CO2 from the atmosphere. Everybody needs to take a deep breath (and the greens figure if none of us exhale the problem is solved).

Do we really know what is going to happen? If you look at an environmental science textbook you find that they take evidence of CO2 increases as evidence of global warming and they take computer models as evidence of global warming. They never actually present evidence of global warming as evidence of global warming - at least the texts I've seen don't.

Ronald Baily made an exceptional point in is book Ecoscam. What he pointed out was that if the computer models then in use were fed the 1960's climate data and run to the early 90's predicted temperatures about 5-10 degrees warmer than the actual 1990's climate. So why on Earth would we trust those things when they say that in 50 years its going to be 5-10 degrees warmer? Show me a climate model that can reasonably accurately predict the present climate from past data and you'll have my interest. If you can't do that then its irresponsible to go seeding the atmosphere and oceans with these supposed fixes. The end result might be worse than if things are left alone.

One thing that still needs to be assessed is just how much influence the Sun actually has in the climate changes. We discussed this in this thread . The Sun's output changes with its magnetic activity cycle. Changes in solar output can be tracked back at least 100,000 years with Beryllium-10 isotope records because the increase in magnetic activity during the sunspot cycle leads to a reduction in Be-10 production in the Earth's atmosphere. I linked to some studies in the other thread that discuss the results of comparisons between Earth's climate and solar activity.

Link added: Here is a paper that you can download which takes a look at evidence for an influence of solar activity on the wheat market during the Middle Ages. I remember reading somewhere once that William Herschel found wheat prices were correlated with Sunspot numbers.

[dgruss23]

First off, reducing CO2 emissions enough to seriously slow global warming would be very expensive. That and one of the easier ways to reduce CO2 production - switching coal power plants to nuclear, would tend to give the greens into a hissy fit, means other, cheaper options must be explored.

This is probably my hang-over talking but screw the greens! Nuclear power is the way to go. Those tree-huggers would have us living in caves if they had their way! Greens? They whine about nuclear power and whine about the alternatives to nuclear power .. basically they whine.

And you have to wonder how much of the science of global warming is being driven by politics when you see nonsense like this . Are they really interested in finding out what's actually happening or just in hammering away at free economies.

Link added: Here is an article on the same site that talks about the reliability of climate models. It is written by Dr. Willie Soon who is one of the researchers looking into the Sun's influence on climate change.

[CharlesEGrant]

... but exempt other major polluters like Brazil, India, and China. If the world wants to get serious about the environment, everyone has to play along .. no freebies.

But if you accept that the restrictions needed to lower CO2 emisions are going to have an economic cost, this raises the fear that countries like Brazil, India, and China will forever be stuck with 19th century economic bases. To draw a homely analogy, it's like splitting the lunch check evenly when most folks only had salad and iced tea but a few had filet migion and wine.

[Musashi]

Yes, but the Kyoto accords are like makig the guys who had the salad pay for the filet. (not a perfect analogy on my part, but we don't need to cripple our economy while we let other countries "catch up.") If there is a global warming problem, then it is aproblem for everyone, not just the USA. That means it's a bit absurd to say America and a few others need to play by these extremely strict rules, but Brazil and others, pollute away!.

[CharlesEGrant]

Do we really know what is going to happen? If you look at an environmental science textbook you find that they take evidence of CO2 increases as evidence of global warming and they take computer models as evidence of global warming. They never actually present evidence of global warming as evidence of global warming - at least the texts I've seen don't.

While I believe there are a few folks who still dispute whether the increase is linked to human activity, I think the evidence for an increase in atmospheric CO2 is unambiguous and not in dispute. This would make it more suitable for a textbook then actual measurements of global warming which tend to be fraught with sophisticated technical arguments and statistical minutae. Of course this doesn't explain why they talk about the computer models, since they are the subject of much technical argument as well.

That said, I find it hard to believe that you haven't seen any articles on evidence of global warming. The newspapers I read have had numerous articles on the melting of permafrost and the increase in open ocean area in the arctic, and the collapse of major ice shelves in the antarctic. There was even some coverage of the arguments over NASA's microwave study of earth's temperature: http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/head...d06oct97_1.htm.

My own opinion is that cirumstantial evidence indicates some global warming is taking place, but becaue of the natural variability of the earth's climate there will never be indisputable proof that it is due to human activity. However, we do know that CO2 does play an important role in the thermal properties of the atmosphere, so it seems to me imprudent to assume that we can dump gigatons of formerlly sequestered C02 into the atmosphere every year with impunity.

The American Geophysical Union has again issued a policy paper http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/cl..._position.html, affirming that global warming is occurring, and human activities are contributing. They did this once before in 1998 and were taken to task by critics for procedural and scientific errors http://www.sepp.org/controv/AGUstatement.html. I think it is significant that John Christy is now one of the signatories. He was one of the authors of the NASA study I linked to above, and a skeptic about global warming.

[George]

Bigger satellites?

[Archer17]

Yes, but the Kyoto accords are like makig the guys who had the salad pay for the filet. (not a perfect analogy on my part, but we don't need to cripple our economy while we let other countries "catch up.") If there is a global warming problem, then it is aproblem for everyone, not just the USA. That means it's a bit absurd to say America and a few others need to play by these extremely strict rules, but Brazil and others, pollute away!.

You took the words out of my mouth Musashi and I think your analogy is more apt. If the issue is really about reducing C02 emissions then it has to include all countries. That should be a no-brainer. The three countries alone that I mentioned in my prior post are not exactly "small potatoes" when it comes to emissions and no one should be exempt just because they happen to be less economically developed. Like Musashi said in an earlier post, the US wasn't the only country that nixed these accords, and for good reason. By all means clean up the air, but everyone has to play. Sounds fair to me if pollution is the real issue.

[Alex W.]

Surely the best way to get everyone to join in would be for the major developed countries to set a good example?

Hmm?

[CharlesEGrant]

I think what we have here is an example of the conjugation of irregular adjectives, e.g. "I am firm, you are stubborn, he (she, they) are pigheaded". Your point of view is:

... but we don't need to cripple our economy while we let other countries "catch up.

I suspect that Brazil, China, and India would characterize it as

the industrial west needs to curb is voracious consumption of luxury goods while we establish basic 20th century living standards.

Since for the last few decades the US has been consuming about 1/5 of the world's energy with only 1/15 of the world population (see for example http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/energy/sta...ml#CONSUMPTION) I can see some fairness in other countries saying "Hey, you've been hogging the fossil fuel slurpee for the last 60 years, give someone else a turn!"

[dgruss23]

CharlesEGrant:That said, I find it hard to believe that you haven't seen any articles on evidence of global warming. The newspapers I read have had numerous articles on the melting of permafrost and the increase in open ocean area in the arctic, and the collapse of major ice shelves in the antarctic. There was even some coverage of the arguments over NASA's microwave study of earth's temperature: http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/head...d06oct97_1.htm.

Here is the EPA Global Warming website. There is scant evidence that any significant climate change is occurring and great uncertainty as to how much of the about 1 degree in the last century is due to the Sun increasing in energy output.

Stories about antarctic ice sheets breaking and thawing of permafrost are not rigorous evidence that humans are causing drastic climate change. Don't these phenomenon occur naturally? The NASA study you linked to in fact found a cooling of the Earth's temperature.

The problem here is there is a huge gap between what Global Warming supporters think will happen and evidence that any of their disaster scenarious actually are happening. What you typically get is:

1. CO2 is increasing. No problem there.
2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. No problem there.
3. Computer models say this is what will happen. But these models are very unreliable as I noted above.
4.
5. Here's what we need to be doing to fix the problem.

Notice that I wrote nothing for number 4. That is because number 4 is where the evidence that any of the disaster is actually happening is supposed to be presented. Its conspicuously absent in GW discussions. The computer models are substituted for evidence. And there is absolutely no discussion from these global warming advocates about the evidence for the Sun's influence. This has to be accounted for before you can estimate how much human influence there is. There is plenty in the links I provided on the other thread to give people a good idea where the evidence for the Sun's role stands.

But we're being pressured to take steps that will flatten our economy to save the Earth from a threat for which there is scant evidence that it will happen and scant reliability of the computer models that try to predict what might happen if the Earth was to warm. To sign Kyoto under these circumstances would be reckless and foolish.

[Archer17]

Surely the best way to get everyone to join in would be for the major developed countries to set a good example?

Hmm?

I think all countries have a responsibility for cleaning up the air. I can't see Brazil stopping the burning of the Amazon just because we did something here in the States. I don't thing "setting an example" always works .. I don't see China totally renouncing their backward communist-based economy despite the examples of Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea around them.

[Alex W.]

Well, having the US cooperating would be better than having the US not cooperating.

It'd buy us a little time, at least.

[Archer17]

..I suspect that Brazil, China, and India would characterize it as ..the industrial west needs to curb is voracious consumption of luxury goods while we establish basic 20th century living standards.

I still don't think this justifies their exemption from C02 controls. Pollution is pollution.

[dgruss23]

the industrial west needs to curb is voracious consumption of luxury goods while we establish basic 20th century living standards.

Our consumption of goods has not inhibited these countries from developing. In fact if anything its helped because we buy a great many things with little "Made in China" signs on them.

Since for the last few decades the US has been consuming about 1/5 of the world's energy with only 1/15 of the world population (see for example http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/energy/sta...ml#CONSUMPTION) I can see some fairness in other countries saying "Hey, you've been hogging the fossil fuel slurpee for the last 60 years, give someone else a turn!"

That's not a legitimate comparison. We produce tremendous amounts of goods, develop new technologies, produce advances in medicine, and help other nations around the world. You can't just look at how much we use without also considering how much we produce.

And we're debating all this when the most solid evidence at this time is the evidence for the Sun-climate connection.

[aurora]

And we're debating all this when the most solid evidence at this time is the evidence for the Sun-climate connection.

So you don't think Carbon Dioxide affects climate?

[Musashi]

So, the USA and otherindustrally advanced countries should cripple their economies then? Because, regardless of the semantics of the issue, that is what would happen. If the USA tries to pull all of the struggling countries up, they are only going to end up pulling themselves down. The USA is already having economic problems. If we reduce ourselves to the standard of living of the peasant farmers of South America, we are not going to be helping anyone. Certainly, we can reduce our emisions. I feel that is a laudable goal. I see no reason to hamstring ourselves in the process. So, if someone can come up with a realistic method, I would support it, but the Kyoto accords are not that method. The Kyoto accords are not an option. Luckily, there is no dichotomy here. Just because I do not support the Kyoto accords does not mean I think we should keep billowing out pollutants. Find realistic options. We can keep coming up with stupid ideas like electric or hydrogen cars so we can claim we are eliminating pollution (even though we aren't, just moving it), and the greens and 3rd world countries can have fantasies about ideas like the Kyoto accords, but neither of those paths offer solutions.

[CharlesEGrant]

Sounds fair to me if pollution is the real issue.

CO2 emissions are an issue, but it is not the only issue (nothing ever is). Curbing CO2 emissions will have an effect on national economies which will in turn affect standards of living. Everyone has to juggle the cost of global warming versus the cost of avoiding global warming. Countries that are struggling to provide basic ammenities to their citizens are less likely (and I think less able) to reallocate resources to avoiding global warming then are countries that devote a substantial portion of their economies to luxury goods. I think the Kyoto formulas are a recognition of this political reality.

[Alex W.]

Stating the obvious, perhaps, but it's got to happen some time. Might as well do it now while you've got some flexibility in the resources available to you.

[Musashi]

Well, how about birthrate caps? If we could lower the global population we could begin to have an even greatr affect on global ecology. Of course, this negatively impacts third world countries in ways that it doesnt affect 1st and 2nd world countries... is that ok?