Can humans actually STOP climate change?

Question

Can humans actually STOP climate change?

Answer 1

Humans can never 'stop' climate change - climate change itself is a natural cycle.

Humans CAN alter the rate and magnitude of it though (although the relative effects are debatable and constantly being researched), and prepare itself better for the dangers that climate change bring about.

Answer 2

No and i wish politicians would stop acting like it the biggest and most important subject sometimes, gee let nature take its course. I mean we could help by being greener but if its going to happen its going to happen.

Answer 3

Natural cycles of weather change I am afraid the pc brigade are trying to frighten us with green issues in our pockets

Answer 4

www.babythingsnetwork.org

Answer 5

No.

But we can stop exacerbating the process by not buggering up nature's fine balance by removing carbon from the earth and chucking it up into the atmosphere and we can stop destroying the carbon sinks of the rainforests.

Answer 6

Read the following about climate change. Follow the links.

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.ph...

The National Center for Policy Analysis

Global Warming Primer

http://www.ncpa.org/globalwarming/

U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007

Senate Report Debunks "Consensus"

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?F...

"A liberal media outlet has acknowledged that global warming may have "taken a breather."



National Public Radio reports instead of warming up over the past four or five years, oceans have actually been cooling slightly. According to NPR, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments that can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the "Argo" system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans, but rather "slight cooling."



Marc Morano with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee says the cooling trend runs contrary to the claims of people promoting manmade global warming fears. But NPR -- which he describes as "an entrenched, liberal, mainstream institution" -- would rather question NASA's data, showing no ocean warming, instead of questioning the models that are predicting catastrophic sea level rise due to supposed global warming, he notes."

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Defau...

The Sky Is Not Falling

Holly Fretwell, an economist by training, has done her best to bring some needed critical thinking to the global-warming debate by writing “The Sky’s Not  Falling! -- Why It’s OK to Chill About Global Warming.” Aimed at 8- to 12-year-olds and their parents, it is a good, reasoned, 115-page antidote to the Chicken Little hysteria and propaganda found in the mainstream media and in places like Laurie David’s kids book “The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming.” Fretwell is a research fellow who focuses on natural-resource issues and public-lands management at the free-market Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Mont.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BillS...

The obsession that liberals have with global warming has gotten so out of hand that they sound like a bunch of mental patients in an asylum.

Consider for a moment what a clever strategy this is: it’s too cold outside, must be global warming. Too hot? Global warming. Hurricanes? Tornadoes? Floods? Global warming all.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MikeG...

Answer 7

If we stop making trumps we can (we cant so NO)

Answer 8

No we can't, it's a natural cycle that's irreversible.

What actually changed the climate when we had the ice age? Nothing, there were no humans to contribute, it was a natural cycle of the Earths weather pattern.

Answer 9

absolutely NOT

Answer 10

Yes if I turn around grab my ankles and start producing methane it should counteract the damage.

Answer 11

The IPCC and other scientists say by acting now we can slow down climate change and the effects will spread over time. Instead of a rapid increase in temperature, the earth's temperature should increase slowly

Like instead of having a flood, you can have heavy rainfall for a few month, with the same amount of water. But the first effect is more devestating.

However without a global effort, it is pointless because you can reduce your CO2 emissions in the west and then someone in China or India, can then increase their emissions.

It is not weather, weather is short term effects. Climate is the average conditions for a year.

Some humans can stop climate change such as the multibillionaires who have large companies.

Answer 12

Not in the long run.  See Greenland ice core data at http://www.exploratorium.edu/climate/cry...

Answer 13

Probably not, but we can reassure ourselves with our efforts

Answer 14

No, but nobody's suggesting that we can or should.

The next paragraph is a quick little science lesson, I apologise if it sounds patronising:

Climate change is a natural cycle of change for the earth, mostly recognised from the change in the earth's temperature - that's where the phrase "global warming" comes from and how things like Ice Ages occur. However, recent evidence (i.e. facts from the last 30-40 years) suggests that the lifestyles of the majority of humans are speeding up the process of climate change. When we produce things like carbon dioxide and methane - greenhouse gases - they are added to the layer of those gases around the earth. This makes them thicker, and when heat from the sun warms the earth and tries to bounce out again, the thickening of these layers mean that more of the heat is trapped inside the earth's atmosphere (much like a greenhouse keeps heat in, hence the name).

As we have started using more and more energy, and producing more of these greenhouse gases, the rate at which the layers thicken has increased, which means that we are trapping more heat on the earth faster than before. This is leading to an increase in the speed of climate change, and this can be stopped by more efficient uses of energy (e.g. less waste, therefore less use).

Climate Change is a naturally occuring state, this can't be stopped, but we can stop humans increasing the rate at which it happens. In the widest scheme of things it's no great problem if we don't, the world will always have ways to protect itself, but if we carry on acting in the way we have recently the world may protect itself by having an early Ice Age making humans extinct.

Answer 15

No global warming is a scam. Man cannot even stop crime nor can he stop wars let alone control the weather. There's a lot more things to worry about than the global warming scam.

Answer 16

No, its too natural.

Answer 17

no no no.

but the goverment say we can.

and this is how.

by TAX TAX TAXING us all

on things like cars. big cars. 4+4s

if there was any truth in it why do MPs still drive around in 4.2ltr jags.

its a case of do as i say and not as i do.

but you will pay for it cus we tell you to.

Answer 18

In a simple answer, No, however we can decrease the amount we damage the environment with un-environmentally friendly practices. For example, what good could possibly come of filling the earth with our own rubbish in landfills? There is nothing good about this, and theres no reason not to use recycleable materials. Climate change will happen in the end anyway, however, if we stopped pumping out all this CO2 into the atmospere, it would certainly improve out quality of air.

Answer 19

Only politicians and morons think we can, oh wait, they are one in the same.

Answer 20

Yes, as far as man's contribution to it.  

The IPCC scientists think we can alleviate the worst effects by acting now, before we reach a tipping point where it may be too late.

We have the technology to move forward on this, and the technology is only going to get better, and will very quickly with more investment in research and development.

All we need is the political will.

Here's one proposal to move boldly in that direction.  

Scientific American  A Solar Grand Plan

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-so...

And this link to Green Wombat has a bunch of stories about solar power plants being built in California and Arizona.

http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/

And these companies have the technology to achieve it.

http://www.ausra.com

http://www.infiniacorp.com/main.php

http://www.skyfuel.com/

http://www.solucar.es/sites/solar/en/ind...

http://www.esolar.com/

http://www.brightsourceenergy.com/

"America's needs for electric power – the entire US grid, night and day – can be generated with Ausra's current technology using a square parcel of land 92 miles on a side. For comparison, this is less than 1% of America's deserts, less land than currently in use in the U.S. for coal mines."

"Solar thermal power plants such as Ausra's generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Ausra's solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, and produce electricity at prices directly competitive with gas- and coal-fired electric power."

Wind is inexpensive and also has huge potential.

Some places in Europe have 40% wind energy.

Biomass to methane for energy has big potential also.   Methane can be used in some fuel cells to produce power. Or it can be burned.

A biomass to methane example:

from Environmental Power

http://www.environmentalpower.com/

"Wild Rose Dairy in Webster Township, WI is home to an innovative renewable energy facility powered by cow manure and other organic waste. The farm is home to 900 dairy cows, and an on-site anaerobic digester creates methane-rich biogas from their waste, which is used to generate 750 kilowatts of electricity per hour—enough to power 600 local homes 24/7."

they slightly modify the gas and send it into natural gas pipelines.

"Environmental Power’s Huckabay Ridge is the largest renewable natural gas plant in North America, if not the world. Huckabay Ridge generates methane-rich biogas from manure and other agricultural waste, conditions it to natural gas standards and distributes it through a commercial pipeline. The purified biogas, called RNG®, is generated by Environmental Power’s subsidiary, Microgy, and is a branded, renewable, pipeline quality methane product."

"The gas produced by Huckabay will be shipped via the Enterprise natural gas pipeline to the Lower Colorado River Authority, which has agreed to purchase the RNG® output of up to 2,000 mmbtu per day through September 2008, pursuant to a purchase agreement. Beginning October 2008, the plant output will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric under a 10 year agreement."

Answer 21

I personally think we cannot stop climate change....

but i think we are contributing to it in some ways..

anyways even if we are not.. using greenie energy is best for everything.. cleaner air to breath.. not using all the fossil fuels up etc. etc.

Answer 22

Hello,

(ANS) Good question and the answer is HUMANS HAVEN'T GOT A HOPE IN h**l !! of stopping climate change.

why? humans beings have been polluting the earth in an intensive way for the last 200 years, since the industrial revolution, since the invention of the internal combustion engine (cars), since mass production by machines in large factories, since we dump stuff in the seas world wide, since the invention of the jet engine and so forth.

Do you really think even x2 decades of zero man made pollution will REALLY be enough to reverse climate change, come on lets NOT be so naive here.

**Politicians are wringing their hands and tinkering at the edges whilst Rome Burns around them. Its all FAR too little to late in my opinion. Probably we are NOW today at the critical tipping point.

**The earth itself as a planet has ALWAYS under gone constant climatic change the only difference now is the existence of humans.  The earth will go on existing long long after the human race in my opinion.

THE EARTH ITSELF DOESN'T NEED HUMANS, ITS HUMANS THAT NEED THE EARTH. But we have no respect left for the mother earth sadly.

Ivan

Answer 23

I think its naive to think we can stop it, & very arrogant of them to tell us we caused it.

Long after we've gone will the planet survive, with lifeforms of some sort.

Answer 24

We have now had ten years of cooling or stable temperatures

http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Mon...

Despite the fact that carbon dioxide has been increasing.

This indicates that the role of CO2 in our atmosphere has been substantially over-estimated, it is a factor but only one in many.

Global climate is a dynamic process and, as such, is always in a state of change, with or without humans. The one thing it never is, is static, so the idea that we can stop climate change is simply nonsense.

We need to use our resources carefully and clean up after ourselves, but this demonising of CO2 only distracts from the real problems.

Answer 25

I dont think so. Change is constant since the beginning of our civilization. Our planet changes constantly too. Lets just hope its for the better and not for the worst. Due to our negligence to our environment climate changes now from bad to worst..... We cannot stop it but we slow it down though....act now...