Biology 20 - global warming theory question, see details?

Question

Imagine that you have been hired by the United Nations to halt the increased global warming and save the planet! To accomplish this job, you must bring the levels of each greenhouse gas back to normal. Outline the order and methods you would employ to be successful at this task. Consider methane, CFCs, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen oxides (not necessarily in this order) in your answer.

Answer 1

Ok, that's easy. If I was given enough money anyway. Here it goes. I don't know all of the gases and what they mean and all, but I'll just write what I think I'd do if I had enough money. I'd buy everyone a small, afordable, hybrid car. I would put a limit on the amount of electricity someone could use, and bain people from buying their own computers. They would have to use the ones at the libraries and have only a limited amount of time. I would have the power plants turn their power making process into something that emits less polution and that isn't as much strain on the environment. I would do several different things. But I can't type them all down right now!

Answer 2

The question is based on three completely false premises. One is that the UN could hire someone to engineer the planet's climate. The second is that there is not only global warming but "increased global warming". The third is that there is some kind of "normal" level of greenhouse gasses.

In order to make these three premises true, which is necessary for the question to be meaningful, you'd have to change so much about how the world works that no reasoning is possible. It's like asking, "if two plus two was five instead of four, what day of the month would Christmas fall on"?

Answer 3

First of all, I would let the UN know that it is not in their charter to suggest such things.  Second of all it is not practical and not cost effective.  The solution is probably worse than the problem.  To get rid of excess CO2, begin heavy iron salting of the southern oceans. This would create huge plankton plumes.  It could be used as a food source as well as potential fuel.  There is no way to prevent methane formation.  To minimize human emissions, you could kill all cows and try to utilize more methane  gathering in land fills.  It would be a bad idea.  CFCs have already been minimized.  CO2 and nitrogen oxides would be reduced if we lowered energy consumption.  Since energy is needed to sustain our way of life, it seems like a bad idea.  Your best bet is to let the market adjust to increased prices.

Answer 4

First I need to assume anthropogenic global warming is real and that it's a problem if the world gets warmer than it is now. This is just an exercise so I can do that.

The first goal is to stop the warming which can be easily done by causing cooling to offset that warming. Based on the IPCC reports, dimming caused by aerosol pollutants, known by most people as air pollution, is offsetting much of the predicted warming. So initially I'd encourage air pollution to block more of the sunlight that gets "trapped" by greenhouse gases before it even gets here.

We don't want dirty air so you need to decide if your goal is worth the cost of temporarily polluting the air.

Next, I'd raise money...no wait, I have the UN resources so I'd insist that various member governments plant trees to absorb all that nasty CO2. Trees do that for free while they're growing. I'd also mandate that commonsense be used in managing these new forests such as removing underbrush and allowing dead trees to be removed to reduce the chance and severity of forest fires. If the new trees burn, they will release that CO2 after all.

The amount of methane that trees emit is negligible but only growing trees absorb methane. Once they're mature, if more CO2 needs to be removed I'd have those trees cut down and stored, ideally as part of dwellings and buildings. Then new trees would be planted to remove more CO2. But don't go too far, before CO2 began to rise we weren't very far above the suffocation level for plants and killing off all plant life on Earth might be unwise in the long run <sarcasm off>.

There are high-tech ways to do this as well but I wouldn't advise anything that isn't quickly reversible in case we're acting too hastily and want that CO2 in the atmosphere again. Such as the return of the ice age which could happen at any time.

What I would not do is mandate that CO2 levels be cut back to a fraction of the 1990 levels. That is a curious year, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union and all it's economies, which makes them an ideal seller of carbon credits, which seems pretty convenient since they don't produce nearly as much CO2 as they did in 1990. And causing untold harm to millions in a rush to reduce CO2 to deal with a problem which may be non-existent is bad policy. Which is why the UN is in favor of it I suppose.

We don't know that a warmer world would be bad, it wasn't the last few times it got warmer in human history. Nor do we know how great an impact policies like Kyoto could have on CO2 levels or how much impact they have on global temp. The IPCC has to continually revise their models since they can't accurately predict that impact other than to say there is one.

I'll post some citations if you'd like.

Answer 5

Xas,

If there was such a thing as global warming due to green house gases, your question would be an excellent one.

There would be a measure of what “normal” levels of methane, CFCs, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen oxides are.  Also, this topic would be in a science section.

So do not take it personally, if you get no useful answers here.

Answer 6

Simple, wait a few years and the climate naturally will cool. Nothing we can do will effect the climate.