So what should we actually _do_ about gobal warming?

This merits a new thread, as I'd like to keep it focused on _doing_ something about climate change, rather than blame games and who's at fault (For the record, climate change, sure. But I don't think humans are more than a fragment of the cause.)

Laying global warming at the feet of one problem is shortsighted and naive. We don't understand the climate system at large well at all. But all the whining isn't doing much but running the clock.
However no one wants to do anything drastic due to "environmental concerns", Discovery's Project Earth is a good example. No one wants to do anything major because it'll effect something else. But even doing nothing is a choice.

I say we blitz deep sea windmills (and put turbines on the shafts to help harness the waves), solar power on _every_ building roof, and quit f*cking Female Doggoing about it "being an eyesore". I'd MUCH rather have a windmill in my backyard than a f*cking coal plant. That should get us through until we nail fusion or another alt. energy source. We spread out the energy grab, it should help reduce the impact on any one thing.

I like the idea of windmills in the clouds, too.

Besides, then there's the whole problem of earth's climate change being good, bad, indifferent, or just a natural change. Obviously earth's climate has been changing for long before we got here, and it will continue long after we're gone. It's like trying to contain a hurricane. So it _WILL_ change. I think we need to adapt. Learn to swim rather than building a dam.

Hell, I'm amazed hydroponics hasn't rocketed off. I'm not the best gardener ever, and I can easily build and maintain a hyrdoponic system for ~20$ (In fact, I'll be planting some herbs later once I get it built again) I'm curious as to the kind of density we could get with grow lights, well done hydroponics and solar power. I'm thinking something along the lines of an acre of warehouse, 4 stories tall, with 4 floors of hydroponic equipment. You could get compltete environment control, even. They could probably even be built underground if it works. That'd work better, most likely. Find some nice solid rock, and instead of terracing, build tunnels. I'm unsure of the structural requirements, and you likely wouldn't want to do it in a seismically unstable area, but manmade caves are already being done.

You could also do the CO2 capturing plan, and funnel it into sealed greenhouses (build them in a valley, as CO2 is heavier than air, and a leak would keep it contained). CO2 + renewable energy -> Food and O2. Win? Or combine the two (Plants do better with more CO2, to a point.). With electric-powered farm equipment (emissions in a closed space would be bad.) and rebreathers, you could likely get a pretty good haul.

That would also go a long way towards helping the food shortage, too. Say if you got a third more land efficacy (or a third more farming, or whatever), that'd be enough to make a _serious_ dent in world hunger, if not deal it a critical hit. Especially as technology and efficiency improves.

We also need better battery technology. Has anyone seen numbers on the efficiency of batteries vs. electricity+water -> hydrogen/oxygen -> back to electricity?

Because honestly, just swapping out lightbulbs and recycling won't save the world. Neither will driving less, or reducing pollution. We really need to do something drastic. Because the climate _will_ change.

Besides, it's damned good practice for settling Mars.

Which brings me to a more far-fetched and amusing idea. (I know, impractical, but nice to think about). What if we just moved the worst CO2 emitting industry to Mars? I heard that the CO2 could help with the terraforming of mars.

Now, it's not practical now. But, what if we also focused on cheaper spaceflight? It could well fix a few problems. We could massively ramp up the use of nuclear power, and fling the waste into the sun. Once in orbit, you could build something like http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/02/15/the-... in orbit around Earth and Mars. Two artificial satellites to push ships between the two. Dunno how you could _get_ into orbit cheaply though.

1. Admit that 6.7 billion people living on the planet ARE in fact having an effect.

2. Stop trying to turn it into a political issue.

3. Start acting like responsible humans and take steps to limit pollution.

It's really not that complicated.

Bear wrote:

1. Admit that 6.7 billion people living on the planet ARE in fact having an effect.

2. Stop trying to turn it into a political issue.

3. Start acting like responsible humans and take steps to limit pollution.

It's really not that complicated.

Actually, it's the first and last that do make it an issue. (2, however, I couldn't possibly agree more, even unqualified.)

We have 6.7 billion people, who all need food and energy. This generates pollution. So we need some way to take care of people without creating more pollution. Thus: need for something novel.

With current pollution-heavy "cheap" things, there's still massive poverty and hunger. So if what we're doing now isn't working, we need to do something else. Something massive in additon to your list. Though it's a good start. I even agree we're having an impact, I don't think we're anywhere near solely responsible. Earth's climate changes. It's what it does. So planning for when it does up and change on us can't hurt. And reducing pollution is just generically good, climate change or not.

Right, #1's the killer. Basically, people are starving, and with current technology we need more to starve. It's a tough stance to take planet-wide.

Basically, people are starving, and with current technology we need more to starve. It's a tough stance to take planet-wide.

Are you advocating letting people starve? Tell me I'm tired and misinterpreting what your going for here.

Kannon wrote:

This merits a new thread, as I'd like to keep it focused on _doing_ something about climate change, rather than blame games and who's at fault (For the record, climate change, sure. But I don't think humans are more than a fragment of the cause.)

I agree, I find it very likely that human polution is just one of many reasons for the climate changes.
However, I still fail to see the conclusions many people draw from this.
Even if we assume we arent the cause, why does it mean we shouldnt try to stop something that will harm us.
It like saying "oh, people die of cancer, but we didn't create cancer, so why should we care".
Sure, if we aren't the sole cause, it also limit what we can do to slow down the climate changes, but even some might be worth it.

I however also very much agree about personal efforts of saving power at home etc really dont make a huge difference. Its about corporations mostly. I still dont get it when i walk past industrial buildings, or even shops in a city at night, and they are all lighted up inside. Just a small example, but one of total waste for no apparent reason (other than the small value of making your company noticeable in the middle of the night). More can be saved in actual industrial production of course.

Beside that its probably just about focusing more on renewable energy. I dont have much faith in going for some of the more crazy ideas, we should start with what we know is working. Build more windmills, 'watermills', solar power etc. We can't just sit back and wait for better solutions to be invented.

I hate listening to Bjorn Lomborg arguing we dont have money to do everything and that we have to choose which problems to work on (thus arguing we shouldn't focus on climate changes).
Of course he is right we cant fix everything, but what he miss is that we do so little abut pretty much all the issues in the world he talks about, that we could easily do more on pretty much all of them. This isn't about moving our effort from one area to another, but actually starting to do an effort in the first place.

MaverickDago wrote:
Basically, people are starving, and with current technology we need more to starve. It's a tough stance to take planet-wide.

Are you advocating letting people starve? Tell me I'm tired and misinterpreting what your going for here.

Staats is not advocating anything but rather delineating the situation. And just because one alternative is "let people starve" does not mean "we can't let people starve, therefore there's no problem to fix."

I think we should nuke the people we don't like, this should cover about 80% of the human polution problem. Of course this will have a spike of bad stuff for a few years but after that we can have forest's and small animals running around our combines as we shares our farming tools and wives.

If we can't do that, I suggest a new line of beach clothes so we can all look good while having a good time at the beach.

Pharacon wrote:

I think we should nuke the people we don't like, this should cover about 80% of the human polution problem. Of course this will have a spike of bad stuff for a few years but after that we can have forest's and small animals running around our combines as we shares our farming tools and wives.

If we can't do that, I suggest a new line of beach clothes so we can all look good while having a good time at the beach. :)

I could really do without the sarcasm.

Switch to electric vehicles and build enough nuke plants to take over power generation from fossil fuels. Use integral fast reactors to eliminate the problems of nuclear waste. In developing countries, use solar power for rural households that don't have large power demands or infrastructure.

I think we should nuke the people we don't like, this should cover about 80% of the human polution problem. Of course this will have a spike of bad stuff for a few years but after that we can have forest's and small animals running around our combines as we shares our farming tools and wives.

I've been pushing for this policy for years, but now that I can tie into the Al Gore crowd, I think it will pick up steam!

I think we should ban fun cars, no one needs them, we should ban large cattle farms, to much methane, and we shouldn't allow developing nations any fossil fuel power plants, if they want power, they better be lucky enough to be able to afford solar panels! o, if their a nice nation they can develop nuclear power.

I got a smaller vehicle, converted all my incandescents to compact flourescents, keep the thermostat at ranges that keep the bill down, plan trips with my vehicle more, and separate out my trash.

They aren't huge sacrfices, but I don't think we need to make huge ones to make a huge collective difference.

LobsterMobster wrote:
MaverickDago wrote:
Basically, people are starving, and with current technology we need more to starve. It's a tough stance to take planet-wide.

Are you advocating letting people starve? Tell me I'm tired and misinterpreting what your going for here.

Staats is not advocating anything but rather delineating the situation. And just because one alternative is "let people starve" does not mean "we can't let people starve, therefore there's no problem to fix."

Right. To really tackle the problem, we'll probably need to switch energy sources, which will almost certainly reduce our energy output. People will die.

Pharacon wrote:

I think we should nuke the people we don't like, this should cover about 80% of the human polution problem. Of course this will have a spike of bad stuff for a few years but after that we can have forest's and small animals running around our combines as we shares our farming tools and wives.

Nukes would easily be the worst choice as: 1) they damage the territory itself and 2) they're really, really, really obvious. Better to work on making an especially nasty avian flu variant and setting it loose among those 'people you don't like'. Since it's more plausibly natural, you can also use it against those dirty hippie commie libs in your own country as well. Throw in some sacrifices to Odin and Jesus to protect your own family and Bob's your uncle.

IMAGE(http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/6604/themoreyouknowbk5.jpg)

deftly wrote:

Switch to electric vehicles and build enough nuke plants to take over power generation from fossil fuels. Use integral fast reactors to eliminate the problems of nuclear waste. In developing countries, use solar power for rural households that don't have large power demands or infrastructure.

Seconded!

The best way to reduce the population? Education. The more educated a society is, the fewer children they have. This is the single strongest correlation with birthrate, and it works for every society, from poor to rich. Note that the wealthiest/best-educated countries in the world all have very low birthrates; in many cases, the populations are actually declining.

We should be pushing education, education, education, as part of our climate change agenda. Most of the things we'll be doing are working on a 50-year-plus timetable, and education starts making a difference immediately. The more years of education a population has, on average, the lower the birthrate, and it drops pretty linearly.

Renewable energy will be critical, but it's not something we can do immediately. We should be focusing intensely on replacing coal plants with nuclear ones. Nuclear power has been amazingly safe and clean for us. We know how to measure damage from it, and we know precisely how to clean it up. We've never really understood what the true costs of coal and oil are.

If we screw up with nuclear power, we're the only ones that really pay for it; most plants and animals are far more rad-resistant than we are. Short of blanketing the planet in cobalt-60 bombs, no nuclear accident we'd ever have would have a significant negative effect on the environment. If anything, it would be positive, because it'll drive humans out of an area, preserving it for wildlife. Chernobyl is apparently full of critters now, and Bikini Atoll is a tropical paradise. (Just don't eat the bananas!)

We're going to have to accept lower living standards, but that doesn't mean we can't be comfortable.

Over the long term, we need to go fully to renewable energy. Nuclear is just like coal and oil, in that we're living off stored power. We need to get ourselves off the chemical (and atomic) batteries and actually pay for what we use. But that will be a long and painful process.

deftly wrote:

Switch to electric vehicles and build enough nuke plants to take over power generation from fossil fuels. Use integral fast reactors to eliminate the problems of nuclear waste. In developing countries, use solar power for rural households that don't have large power demands or infrastructure.

There are some problems with nuclear power. First, as with any highly politicized technology, the truth seems to lie in the gray area. Nuclear power plants are not nuclear bombs waiting to go off and they do not cause three-eyed mutant fish, but some studies indicate that they are not as safe and clean as we like to think. A while back I posted a link to some beautiful watercolor sketches of insects found in areas around nuclear power plants that had severe mutations. The researcher who did the study lost all funding upon reporting these findings. Just as we don't trust studies funded by oil companies, we need to remember that nuclear power has lobbyists too.

Second, there's the huge problem of a lack of a true fail safe system. If society were to collapse or something else were to happen so that we could no longer maintain a traditional coal or gas power plant, it would simply shut down. Most nuclear power plants will automatically shut off as well, but recently spent nuclear material is stored in a cooling facility until it's safe for long-term storage. The material is stored in metallic containers within a pool of constantly circulated, cooled water. While in this facility, it requires CLOSE monitoring and a constant power source. Left alone, the water boils away, the containers overheat, and the pressure within the facility builds until it explodes, sending out huge clouds of highly radioactive dust.

When we change how our infrastructure works, we must be well aware that eventually, inevitably, something is going to go REALLY REALLY wrong.

Most of the storage problems can be reduced by changing our reactor designs to those that produce less waste with a far shorter half-life.

Staats wrote:

Most of the storage problems can be reduced by changing our reactor designs to those that produce less waste with a far shorter half-life.

I had heard a lot about this, but I'd never been able to dig up anything on it (My google-fu is notoriously weak)

I was always curious as you why we couldn't just stack power sources in the same area. Windmills and solar farms in the same land, I mean. It'd be a fairly small percentage of the solar panels in the shade, and it'd help with the sun not shining or the wind not blowing.

I'm also curious about the idea of the titanic array of solar panels in orbit and microwaving the power down.

Kannon wrote:

I'm also curious about the idea of the titanic array of solar panels in orbit and microwaving the power down.

It's a good idea but there are some huge logistical problems in getting the array up there, keeping it up there, and keeping it functional. Also, a giant beam of microwave energy coming down from the sky. I think it might be easier and more efficient to put such an array on the moon.

Some basic things that are relatively easy to do.

1. Ask for paper bags instead of plastic. If possible, bring a durable canvas bag.
2. Reduce the frequency of take-out dining.
3. Make smart investment on computer hardware that last. If you do need upgrading, donate the old parts to school, public facilities, and organizations for the underprivileged. The point is to get as much use as possible out of computer hardware.
4. Recycle.
5. Reduce energy usage in your house.
6. Carpool if you can. Plan your trips and errands to reduce unnecessary time spent on the road. There was also a thread in the forum a while ago on gas-efficient driving techniques.
7. For us gamers, try to buy games in electronic format. You don't need that disc if you have alternatives.

Energy policy is all well and good, but if each of us can't get the basics down, their effect will only go so far.

Problem there, Lobster, is the inverse-square law. Geosynchronous orbit is about 25,000 miles away. The moon is about 250,000, and it's not fixed in place. Being 10 times further away, you'll get 1/100th of the power output, and have to focus it on a target that's moving quite quickly.

Plus, you have to move all the building materials through two gravity wells without destroying them, which is a lot more expensive than boosting it partially out of one. You have your original material, the fuel needed to slow it down as it approaches the Moon, and then the fuel needed to lift both the material AND the fuel for the Moon segment of the journey. Makes it enormously more expensive. It's like fifty million dollars a pound to land stuff on the Moon.

Theirs also the issue of say, money. Countries struggle to power themselves, yet we want to impose some sort of restrictions on third world nations? I don't see Somalia being able to build windmills or solar arrays off a human skull based economy.

Well I don't want any kind of power generating going on the moon. They will then declare Independence from Earth and demand crap from us or they start chucking rocks! You guys read Heinlein right?

Also Lobster if society fails so horribly that we can not man the Nuke plants I don't think people will mind much if a few reactors go off and have radioactive plumes. I live in Texas so I got my gun and my high powered off road vehicle ready to pillage what is left of civilization.

Pharacon wrote:

Well I don't want any kind of power generating going on the moon. They will then declare Independence from Earth and demand crap from us or they start chucking rocks! You guys read Heinlein right?

Some of us also watch the Gundam series, so no, that prospect didn't escape us.

I don't know, but if the sun spots don't kick up soon I'm really worried about this global cooling trend we have going on...

Yeah all those advertising dollars wasted!! I was so convinced man could jack-up something as large as earth too.

6. Carpool if you can. Plan your trips and errands to reduce unnecessary time spent on the road. There was also a thread in the forum a while ago on gas-efficient driving techniques.

f*ck that, I wanna play some White Snake while I vary the throttle of my inefficient 1970's V8. If I have to give that up, this earth isn't worth saving.

LobsterMobster wrote:

There are some problems with nuclear power. First, as with any highly politicized technology, the truth seems to lie in the gray area. Nuclear power plants are not nuclear bombs waiting to go off and they do not cause three-eyed mutant fish, but some studies indicate that they are not as safe and clean as we like to think. A while back I posted a link to some beautiful watercolor sketches of insects found in areas around nuclear power plants that had severe mutations. The researcher who did the study lost all funding upon reporting these findings. Just as we don't trust studies funded by oil companies, we need to remember that nuclear power has lobbyists too.

I haven't seen the link, so I can't comment on it, but I've never seen anything like that around Harris Lake here while fishing or disc golfing.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Second, there's the huge problem of a lack of a true fail safe system. If society were to collapse or something else were to happen so that we could no longer maintain a traditional coal or gas power plant, it would simply shut down. Most nuclear power plants will automatically shut off as well, but recently spent nuclear material is stored in a cooling facility until it's safe for long-term storage. The material is stored in metallic containers within a pool of constantly circulated, cooled water. While in this facility, it requires CLOSE monitoring and a constant power source. Left alone, the water boils away, the containers overheat, and the pressure within the facility builds until it explodes, sending out huge clouds of highly radioactive dust.

When we change how our infrastructure works, we must be well aware that eventually, inevitably, something is going to go REALLY REALLY wrong.

Reactors in the US use water as a coolant and a neutron moderator. In our reactors, loss of coolant can can cause a meltdown from decay heat, but it won't cause an explosion. Explosions come from reactors like Chernobyl that use graphite (which is combustible) as a neutron moderator.

Kannon wrote:
Staats wrote:

Most of the storage problems can be reduced by changing our reactor designs to those that produce less waste with a far shorter half-life.

I had heard a lot about this, but I'd never been able to dig up anything on it (My google-fu is notoriously weak)

Those would be the integral fast reactors I referred to. Their fuel cycle produces two types of waste: material with an extremely short half life, which decays to safe levels quickly, and material with an extremely long half life, that emits less radiation than natural uranium ore. For fuel, you can use waste from the light water reactors we have now, as well as nuclear medical waste, the bits of radioactive materials from your smoke detector, pretty much anything. IFRs aren't in use because congress was led to believe that their fuel cycle was more likely to produce material that could be used in a bomb than conventional LWRs.

Plus, they've got a bunch of new designs for reactors that default to a stable state, and have to be modified to give off power. Pebble-bed reactors, for instance, will shut down if their coolant flow stops, although I don't remember exactly why or how that works anymore. They just can't go critical, from what I understand. They can get pretty hot, but they won't melt.

As a guess, I suspect the coolant must be a part of the reaction, and will vaporize if the flow stops, so the reaction will stop as well.

I hadn't heard about the fast reactors before. Sounds like good stuff.

Re: wind turbines--http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=wind-turbines-kill-bats
Turns out that the low-pressure region behind wind turbines (about 5-10% lower than the front) can kill bats by internal hemorrhaging.