OT: I know how to solve global warming

[TerranC]

Renegade 13 said:
Build a massive metallic framework around the entire world, out in space a couple hundred kilometers. Around this framework contruct a thin structure about 511,185,932 square kilometers in area, constructed to completely envelop the Earth.

A better use for your lattice, instead of using it to cover the world and turn it into a one big snowball, would be to convert it into a series of solar power satellites; that way, you would be able to furnish the entire globe with nearly limitless power, and solve the root problem of both global warming and global dimming, that is the use of hydrocarbons to generate energy for the economies of the world.

[Gozra]

According to everything I can get my hands on and reading about Global warming:
The most likely cause is the Sun heating us up. The amount of green house gas that humans contribute in miniscule.
Carbon Dioxide is less that 3 percent of all green house gases and our contribution to that 3 percent is really small way less than 10 percent as I recall.
As far as the vulcanism in the artic I have not heard that one BUT The Greenlandic Ice cap has begun melting in the last 100 years and the trend is accelerating.
This in turn is causing the salinity of the water to become lower. Which in turn is causing less of the gulf stream to reach England and Europe lowering the temperature of the water up there which in turn can cause winters to be colder and longer. Since 1965 the amount of warm water moving north has been reduced by 30%
Some Scientist postulate that this could be a trigger into another ice Age.
The Space sun shade is a neat idea and it can be implemented fairly cheaply but I really think that our efforts should be concentrated in three areas.
1 Clean up our planet and research technologies that help recycle and cleanup our planet
2 Cheap energy
3 Get off this planet and have self-sufficient colonies other than this earth.
4 Promote a society that we are all in this together and we all own earth and everything we do affects everyone else.

If we don't then there will never be a human space empire

[StarShadow]

Actually, the Sphereworld is (or least seems to be) based on the concept of a Dyson Sphere. The 'metal shell' encompasses at least one planet and the sun. The idea is that all of the sun's energy will be trapped by the 'shell' and be availible for use by the planet(s).

[Phoenix-D]

Gozra: the sun hasn't increased its output noticably. And while the amount of CO2 we've added is small in proportion to the entire atmosphere, that doesn't mean it doesn't have an effect. All we've done is strengthen the already existing greenhouse effect by a few degrees- a very small part of the overall effect, more or less in proportion to the amount of gas we've added.

Problem is that few degrees can have fairly major implications.

And yeah, global warming probably will lead to a mini ice age for Europe. Climate's weird like that.

AT: from everything I've read the planet should get *colder* internally as it gets older, eventually ceasing tectonic activity altogether (though by the time that happens the human race will likely be long extinct).

[Atrocities]

When I was a kid we used to have snow each winter, at least 4 ft for a week or two each year. When my mother was young, some 45 years ago, the Columbia river would often freeze during winter and the average snow fall was about 6 feet. The last time we had any snow here was in 96 and it was only about a foot or so deep. We have had a couple of nasty ice stormes though, all of which crept up on us without warning.

It used to rain all summer, now we get record temps each year, this year even a couple over 100 degrees which until 77 was very rare. Since 77 I can honestly say that the weather here has changed dramatically. Thats just about 30 years. If the weather has changed so much in 30 years, image what it will be like in another 30 years.

Many people feel that there is something happening, something that we don't yet understand and I fear we will not until its way too late.

The world is changing, fast, and the question is, are we to blame, or is this mother nature. Hell could this even be end of days or notice of Gods return? I don't want to speculate but the evidence is clear, our world is changing, its getting hotter in areas, glaciers are melting and the season are out of phase as summer starts later, last longer, and winters are either colder or warmer depending upon where you live. Somthing is definately happening and its happening very fast.

[AngleWyrm]

An article that summarizes global temperature changes, from 1977 to 2002.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

AngleWyrm said:
An article that summarizes global temperature changes, from 1977 to 2002.

That chart is marked in .1 of a degree. Not exactly a large change.

[Raapys]

It doesn't take all that much to start melting the poles, though, and the temperature doesn't appear to stop rising anytime soon.

[Suicide Junkie]

Averaged over an entire planet, that's a lot.

[Gozra]

Yes the sun has an 11 year cycle and the geological record indicates thatour temps have been hotter and colder and the last sunspot cycle has been the greatest output we have measured and the upcoming cycle is promising to be even bigger. globa warming is not a man induced problem it is a man exercabated(sic) problem. And it is just one alarm bell amoung many that we need to think about. Jared diamond's book 'Collapse' indicates the problems we really need to think about. For the forseeable future climate change is going to be with mankind. Learning to deal with it in a scientific manner would be in everyones best interest. The sun shade artifact is a possible place to start it does two things gets u into space in a big way and possibly gives us a simple mechanical sloution to a growing problem and if we start turning into an icecube it will allow us to have a sloution in place to help that also. Current information that I have found indicates that the output of the sun and disturbences in the High altitude ice crystals seem to have had the greatest impact on global warming. The geological record indicates that large amounts of carbon dioxide appear after the warming has occured whichis consistant with current findings showing the methane and co2 trapped in artic bogs is being released in greater amounts as we speak and what followed was a horrific Ice ages. Us putting Co2 in the atmosphere may modify this effect. And all this can happen in one decade. We live in interesting times.