Guys, if you wanna read this, make sure you are mentally read this question to avoid unnecessary lash out...?

Question

How can we lessen the bad effects of global warming?

Answer 1

Absolutely nothing.  This is the equivalent of asking, "How can we get rid of that boogie man in our closet...?"  The problem is, just like the Boogie Man, global warming does not exist.  Scientists have theorized about climate change for as long as modern science has existed.  Take the ice ages, for example, which scientists place as occuring either before man, or during the time of primitave man.  Imagine the confused look old Caveman Igor would have given you if you could travel back in time and tell him he can't cook Wooly Mammoths anymore because the smoke from his campfire was melting the glaciers worldwide.  He'd undoubtedly whack you with the stereotypical club he used to carry, and drag you back to his cave by the hair.  

Another example is how the dinosaurs died out.  Was it a meteor hitting earth, blocking out the warming rays of the sun as proposed by one group of "scientists"?  Or was it the ice ages as proposed by another group of "scientists".  Either way, the theory has to do again with global climate change.  Or maybe we could propose some equally hairbrained theory of T-Rex farted too much, creating mtethane gas that caused global warming and killed all of the big lizards off.  I'd be inclined to believe this theory over global warming.

In short, I believe the only thing that would satisfy Al Gore and Friends is if there were no more humans left at all.  This is the only way humans could have any effect on global warming.  Of course, if there were no humans, no one would care about the earth's temperature anyways.

Please, don't believe all the hype.  It just makes you bitter.

Answer 2

We cannot lessen the bad effects of global warming. But we can certainly lessen the global warming itself. This is possible by planting more trees, avoiding fire, less use of fuels, less use of electricity, use of CFL lamps etc.

Answer 3

Every answer in the limelight today does not consider the speed at which the methods have to be deployed. Currently Technology has not answered the question, where is the energy coming from? The only sources we have that do not in anyway contribute to greenhouse gasses are people power, animal power, nuclear, wind, solar and hydro. All of the previous mentioned methods have an extremely high cost/efficiency ratio. That doesn't mean we can't use them, however the roll out time is also excessive for all these methods. Nuclear remains the only proven technology that research is not necessary for.

Electric cars solve nothing. Most green house gasses are spewed out by vehicles. If we make them electric all we have done is shift the majority of the pollution from exhaust to coal fired steam plants. Where is the benefit? Outlets charging cars are only going to shift the pollution to the electrical outlet. If we are to meet the climate change goals we must make the shift to something that does not pollute.

Solar panels are inherently inefficient  less than 8% of sunlight gets converted to usable energy.

Windmills are efficient but what do you do when the wind doesn't blow for long periods of time. Only a few places on earth are usable as a windmill base. In addition roll out times are excessively long. All the wind mill producers are operating at full capacity. Many people also object to having noisy windmills on their doorstep. Can we base a power grid on a windmill? In addition the average wind mill produces about 1.5 megawatts of power. This is due to the physical limits of size. 1.5 megawatts is enough for 3 average households. There is not enough land to deploy enough windmills within physical transmission distance of the northeast U.S. We can never expect them to produce more than a small percentage of power. Remember that it is foolish to take up agricultural land to produce energy and again there is that roll out time.

Which beings us to alcohol as a fuel. Alcohol, ethanol (CH3CH2OH) will add 2 carbon dioxide molecules per molecule burned. It still contributes to the CO2 emissions. Though it is assumed the plant takes up this molecule. Currently most estimates believe that production of ethanol uses twice the energy it produces more or less. These numbers can get better if we go to Cellulosic ethanol. It is also true that the current production from corn is reducing the world food supply. Not a good thing. Also currently cars cannot operate on 100% alcohol if they could the gas milage is less than half what it is with gasoline. Even adding 10% reduces milage considerably. Alcohol in it's current state is not viable replacement for gasoline.

Hydrogen is currently produced by the electrolyzing of water. Or the hydrolyzing of natural gas with steam releasing one Carbon dioxide molecule for every three hydrogen molecules. Not much reduction of Greenhouse gasses. Using electric current to produce hydrogen is little more efficient than storing electricity in batteries. While there is a lot of talk about hydrogen it takes as much polluting from coal fired steam plants or from natural gas wells to produce it as to charge an automobile battery. Where is the benefit?

There is considerable energy to be harvested from the sea. but environmental effects have been little studied. Plus there is the problem of barnacle removal to keep any technology efficient. Then there is that problem of technology development and roll out. How long will it take and how much effort will be made on technologies that don't work and take to long.

That leaves us with animal power and human and nuclear. Most of us don't want to go back to peddling a cart or bicycle on long trips it is impossible and way to slow. Should we go back to the 19th century and use animals and carts, absurd.

The only option that has a roll out possibility to save us from global warming seems to be nuclear. Despite the fact it has been maligned by environmentalists for years we have yet to see any visible damage from nuclear. The only disaster that produced an environmental nightmare was Chernobyl. In my estimation that was an exercise in stupidity. The Russian were trying to use a power production method deemed to be unsafe in the 1940's everywhere else. Run the reactor in a unsafe mode 10-15% output. The reactor was directly cooled. Little of anything done at Chernobyl has ever been attempted anywhere else in the world except Russia.  

Nuclear power has been basically safe everywhere else used. I challange that there have been no deaths directly from a nuclear power plant anywhere else than Russia. The U.S. Nuclear program has been very safe. The two worst disasters Three Mile Island and Browns ferry did not have one casualty. No measurable release. No environmental impact. Nuclear plants are safer than ever because of these two incidents.

Looking at world power production 435 power plants in 30 countries produce nuclear electric power with the safest record in the industry. Much safer than coal deaths from coal mining and coal fired plants numbering in the thousands if not more.  Lithuania produces 80% of it's power from nuclear France 78%. These countries have cancer and other death rates that could be linked to nuclear no larger than other industrialized countries. No death outside an nuclear plant in the U.S. has ever been linked to the nuclear industry. Even the famed "accidents" from the U.S. produced no deaths.

In my opinion the only way we will ever meet the global warming deadline is through nuclear energy. That is assuming we have any influence in the first place.♦