I have been partially convinced on global warming. I looked up some of the IPCC's reports, and I learned a few things.
The most important thing I learned, really, is that I don't understand it. I got about 20 pages into one report before it got over my head. 20 out of 1000 pages, and that was just one of four reports from the IPCC for that year. And they release new reports every year. I'm never going to get through all of that well enough to know what it says. It's largely technical, which was good since I was looking for something hard with no spin, but it was also impossible to read unless you have a solid background in chemistry, physics, and reading scientific jargon. I don't have the last one at all.
That said, the huge number of people who write and contribute to the reports tells me there's something there. These aren't just professors looking for funding either, or Al Gore types trying to get attention, but serious and respected academics who know what they're talking about. I looked a few of them up and they're by and large not people who would just slap their names and reputations on something just to look important or go along with the crowd. They believe the information is accurate and they sure know enough to say better than I do.
I didn't even get far enough into it to really tackle the issue of whether or not we're causing the problem. There was something called 'radiative forcing' I was just getting to when I sort of got lost. It had to do with how the presence of certain gases in the atmosphere affected the temperature. Some increase it and some decrease it, and I'm still not really sure how, but their data say that humans are responsible for most of it, and that burning fossil fuels contributes more than agriculture, and those two are most of the positive radiative forcing, the ones that increase the temperature. Aerosols are in the column that decrease it, which makes it sound like banning them has contributed to the problem more than other things, but I don't know well enough to argue it.
On the topic of "Why isn't the sea level rising?" I finally did get my answer - it is, but so far it's only risen about 50 mm around the globe, which is measurable but not really noticeable to the average person. But it's quite likely to continue rising, and by the time it's really noticeable it'll be too late to do anything about it. So that was answered at least.
Anyway, even though my comprehension of our role in global warming isn't clear, I think it's pretty obvious that we can do things to combat the problems. What I can understand is that we need to decrease the carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases in the atmosphere, and that there's a lot of possibility for reflecting light back into space that will help too. So I've come up with four ideas that I think are economical, effective, and on a scale we can do right now. They're all things we have to build and maintain, so they will cost some money, but they will also create jobs and infrastructure, including new areas of study and new careers we don't currently have. So they will cause a temporary reduction in the economy, followed by a sustainable and significant increase. Also of importance is that none of these solutions require the average person to change their lives, and aren't in a position to rob power and money from oil, coal, and other energy interests, so they won't face the fierce opposition that a carbon tax and other such ideas have right now.
For each idea, I'll give a general description, the benefits I think it will have, and the potential problems I can see.
1. Dome Screens for Major Cities.
I figured I should jump right in with the most radical idea first. This one is the most complicated and the most unusual from the way we do things now. What I'm thinking of is a large structure that covers over a city, either partially or completely. It would reflect light the area of the city back into space, as well as collecting rising gases in changeable air filters. It should be made of adjustable panels, which ideally should be able to go from transparent to opaque, and also pivot from open to closed. I think the structure should be open on the sides and only cover up the top, more like an awning than a tent. I know this is a really radical idea, but remember there was a time when sewer systems were a radical idea, and aqueducts before that. Both of them were created to solve an environmental and resource problem, and both revolutionized the lives of the people in the cities where they were first installed, and they're now commonplace. So just because they've never existed before doesn't mean we shouldn't build them now.
Benefits - Lots of jobs, both in construction and maintenance. Thinking about the local city that could use one of these the most, I kept coming back to New Orleans. The adjustable panels would allow them to divert rain out of the areas prone to flooding and block quite a bit of damaging winds, and the air filters would pretty well eliminate smog and other air pollutants from the city. There would also be a huge crime-fighting potential because you could put lights and even cameras on the underside of the support structure, enabling people to light up the whole city even in the darkest nights if they needed to, and record everything that moved. Businesses could pay to advertise on the supports as well. A giant hanging banner over your business would let everybody know where you were and what you had to sell. You could also use it for some civic pride. New Orleans as my example could have a giant fleur de lis on display to the world.
Potential problems - Obviously any time you build something above something else, there's a risk part of it could break off and fall. We've handled that pretty well up to now, though, and I'm sure it could be built as safely as anything else. I think more objections will be raised about how it will change the look of a place. People objected to the Eiffel Tower when it was first built for that reason. You couldn't avoid that it would alter the light coming into the city as well, so everything under it would look different from how it always had. There would be other complications with putting a roof on a city just in terms of things like satellite images - you'd just see the dome. I'm not sure if GPS would work inside. Of course, you could put things into the structure so that GPS, WiFi, cell phones, etc. would be amplified rather than suppressed. All the crud filtered out of the air has to be put somewhere as well, and there's no knowing how that might affect landfills, or what other environmental thing might suffer for the gain. There's also no telling how things like birds nesting or bats roosting or other animals might affect the panels, and if a motor responsible for moving a panel broke, somebody would have to climb up and fix it. Lastly, the potential for a terrorist attack would be pretty high since collapsing the structure would do massive damage to the whole city.
2. Artificial Polar Caps
Pretty straightforward - undo some of the damage by freezing sea ice into massive blocks and tow it back to the poles.
Benefits - This one is probably the easiest in terms of method. We'd need facilities for the process, but it's pretty easy to make ice. It's pretty easy to ship it too. If the ice is frozen to a sufficiently low temperature, once it's dropped back in the polar waters it'll freeze up the water around it too.
Potential Problems - Problems of scale. This has never been attempted before, and there's no telling how many people, ships, and resources it would take to do it. Also, arctic and Antarctic travel is always dangerous. Even if the caps are melting it's still dangerously cold. There are potential diplomatic problems with forming new shipping lanes, although they're surmountable. The most serious problem is that it's not going to address any of the other aspects of global warming - just the melting ice.
3. Dry Ice Oceanic Ice Cubes
Sort of a combination aspects of 1 and 2. Filter carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases out of the air, and freeze them into giant blocks of dry ice. One problem with the ocean absorbing the increased levels of CO2 at the moment is that it raises the acidity levels, so the dry ice would need to be sealed up in containers that would take hundreds of years to corrode. Then haul the sealed ice to the center of the ocean and sink it to the depths, or tow it by submarine underneath the arctic pole.
Benefits - Clears CO2 out of the air, reintroducing it slowly and much later into the ocean depths where is can be safely reabsorbed. Also cools the ocean water around the dry ice containers. It treats both the causes and the symptoms and would reverse massive damage in a short period.
Potential Problems - Similar to the above idea. It would be a massive operation, requiring international cooperation and there's no telling how much it would cost to run, or what environmental impact it would have.
4. Giant Solar Mirror and/or Algae Farm
People usually think of trees when they think of plants that turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. Only the green parts of trees perform photosynthesis. Algae is much more efficient, because it's single-celled and only photosynthesizes. We build a giant reservoir, out in the desert, or in the plains of the Midwest, or somewhere else similar. It would only need a few inches of water in it, and enough algae on the surface to start it up. It will spread until it covers the whole thing, and will become an enormous carbon sink, sucking up CO2 and throwing out oxygen. The uncovered parts of the reservoir will reflect light, especially if the water is clear and the bottom is polished enough to shine. It should get covered over by the end of the summer, at which point you drain the pond and let it work as a mirror until spring.
Benefits - Intensive maintenance will employ hundred of people, and they won't need much education or specialized skills. The more of these we build, the better for the economy and the environment. It will treat the major causes of global warming and heal some of the damage already done. There would be a lot of options for funding, and it would be much easier to get corporate sponsors than some of the other ideas. Oil companies could be persuaded to send in money in exchange for the bragging rights about how they're cleaning up everything.
Potential Problems - Construction expense is the biggest. Also needs to be tested on a smaller scale first. I don't know what the relationship is - if you had 150 square miles of algae, how much CO2 would that absorb? Can we possibly make one big enough? Once again, massively changing existing landscape will have other environmental impacts as well, and we can't always know what they will be in advance.
These are the best ideas I've had so far. I don't know if any of them will work, but I think they're probably all worth trying.
