Global warming can be eased

[Karlis]

LONDON:

Global warming

can be eased only if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions begin to fall within the next two decades and eventually decrease to zero.

The research focuses on the scale of carbon emission reduction needed to keep future global warming at no more than two degrees Celsius over average temperatures prior to the

Industrial Revolution

.

This target is now almost universally accepted as a safe limit. The team examined the extent to which

carbon emissions

should be reduced, how steep this reduction needs to be and how soon we should begin, the journal Nature Climate Change reports. ... (snip) ...

Source

COMMENTS and Questions to UM posters:

How likely is that world output of atmospheric pollution will be reduced in the next two decades, as required according to the above article?

Consider developing industrial countries such as China and India (for example), in context with the above proposition.

Conservative estimates are that China is building new coal-fired power stations at the rate of about one every week. On a higher estimate...:

... The most commonly repeated--and my personal "favorite"--is that China is completing the construction of new coal-fired power plants at a rate of 2-3 per week, ...

Source

-=-=-

India's environmental problems are exacerbated by its heavy reliance on coal for power generation. "More than 80 per cent of energy is produced from coal, a fuel that emits a high amount of carbon and greenhouse gases." ...

Andhra Pradesh, the coastal state of eastern India is experiencing a coal-plant construction boom, including the 4,000-MW Krishnapatnam Ultra Mega Power Project, one of nine such massive projects in planning or under construction across the country. ...

Vehicle emissions

are responsible for 70% of the country's air pollution. The major problem with government efforts to safeguard the environment has been enforcement at the local level, not with a lack of laws. Air pollution from vehicle exhaust and industry is a worsening problem for India. Exhaust from vehicles has increased eight-fold over levels of twenty years ago; industrial pollution has risen four times over the same period. The economy has grown two and a half times over the past two decades but pollution control and civil services have not kept pace. Air quality is worst in big cities like

Kolkata

,

Delhi

,

Mumbai

, Chennai, etc.

According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, India's auto production has doubled from 7 million units in fiscal year 2004 to over 14 million units in year 2010 largely on the back of a buoyant domestic market. ... (snip) ...

>>> more on pollution in India,

Source

[Von Bismarck]

COMMENTS and Questions to UM posters:

How likely is that world output of atmospheric pollution will be reduced in the next two decades, as required according to the above article?

Not very likely with our current solutions.

[Guest]

Not very likely with our current solutions.

You mean the current will.

Br Cornelius

[Von Bismarck]

You mean the current will.

Br Cornelius

[Bavarian Raven]

Not very likely with our current solutions.

You mean the current will.

well, unless you want to start slaughtering people...(or just let them starve) we dont have the technology to remove all emissions. simple as that.

[Guest]

well, unless you want to start slaughtering people...(or just let them starve) we dont have the technology to remove all emissions. simple as that.

So do nothing and let the **** hit the fan. Thats a much better solution .

Br Cornelius

[Michelle]

Manufacturing windmills, solar panels, electric cars and recycling causes emissions.

[Guest]

Manufacturing windmills, solar panels, electric cars and recycling causes emissions.

Then its kill the people time is it since you have no other useful suggestions.

Br Cornelius

[Michelle]

Then its kill the people time is it since you have no other useful suggestions.

Br Cornelius

Polite as always I see....

Anyone that thinks zero emissions is feasible doesn't have a clue.

[Beckys_Mom]

Manufacturing windmills, solar panels, electric cars and recycling causes emissions.

Interesting statement Michelle.. As I am not clued in to all of this environmental stuff therefore I cannot disagree with your statement but I would like to hear more from you on that.. If you get a chance can you share more info on this? Thanks

[questionmark]

As long as Texaco, Chevron, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and the rest of the petro-gangsters and coal diggers have the ear of the governments instead of solid science there will be no reduction. Place your hopes on the time when it will be too expensive to use mineral oils as combustible... if it is not too late by then.

[Bavarian Raven]

So do nothing and let the **** hit the fan. Thats a much better solution .

Br Cornelius

well then let's hear your brilliant solution

[Guest]

well then let's hear your brilliant solution

Invest in sustainables, research better sustainables (ie push on off shore tidals), invest in improving the housing stock. Change the economic incentives away from been focused on growth. Recycle a 100% of all metals and at least 50% of all plastics. Fine companies who build in obsolescence.

Whilst ever population keeps growing these are only going to ease pressure - but they are certainly better than nothing.

Br Cornelius

[Dougal]

Invest in sustainables, research better sustainables (ie push on off shore tidals), invest in improving the housing stock. Change the economic incentives away from been focused on growth. Recycle a 100% of all metals and at least 50% of all plastics. Fine companies who build in obsolescence.

Whilst ever population keeps growing these are only going to ease pressure - but they are certainly better than nothing.

Br Cornelius

but still doesn't give 0 emissions, might as well kill people as follow your ideas eh.

See what I did there?

[Von Bismarck]

Recycle a 100% of all metals

Is that even possible? I thought that tin foil with oily food couldn't be recycled.

[Karlis]

Is that even possible? I thought that tin foil with oily food couldn't be recycled.

Foiled again! How can we win?

[skookum]

The problem is environmentalists have us believe that any action we perform knackers the planet. Baring us all standing still, not breathing, not working, not eating and kill off all the cattle the climate will continue to warm.

If this is the case then maybe humankind will have to accept that the planet is indeed dying and that humans may only have a few hundred years before extinction.

[Karlis]

The problem is environmentalists have us believe that any action we perform knackers the planet. Baring us all standing still, not breathing, not working, not eating and kill off all the cattle the climate will continue to warm.

If this is the case then maybe humankind will have to accept that the planet is indeed dying and that humans may only have a few hundred years before extinction.

On the other hand, perhaps climate change is a normal, on-going event, and Mankind will continue to adapt to the changes.

[questionmark]

Is that even possible? I thought that tin foil with oily food couldn't be recycled.

Quite wrong, aluminum can be recycled with all kinds of pollution on it...just not in every plant.

[questionmark]

On the other hand, perhaps climate change is a normal, on-going event, and Mankind will continue to adapt to the changes.

Mankind will adapt to the changes at the expense of a few billion hunger dead. But don't let that worry anybody...

[Mac E]

There's a lot of "all or nothing" comments on this thread. I think that type of thinking is narrow minded. We need to get a plan in place to reduce with the intent on eliminating emissions. It's not something that's going to happen over night and it certainly won't be easy. I think a lot of people look at it as hard work and instantly give up saying lets all just die.

[Von Bismarck]

Quite wrong, aluminum can be recycled with all kinds of pollution on it...just not in every plant.

Ohh

May i ask which?

There's a lot of "all or nothing" comments on this thread. I think that type of thinking is narrow minded. We need to get a plan in place to reduce with the intent on eliminating emissions. It's not something that's going to happen over night and it certainly won't be easy. I think a lot of people look at it as hard work and instantly give up saying lets all just die.

Really hard to do anything when the solutions given by the environmental scientists doesn't fit the current worlds politic.

[Karlis]

Mankind will adapt to the changes ~~~ at the expense of a few billion hunger dead. But don't let that worry anybody...

What I have not been able to resolve in my lay-man's, unscientific mind, is why Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is the cause of climate change, which Earth is now experiencing.

[questionmark]

What I have not been able to resolve in my lay-man's, unscientific mind, is why Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is the cause of climate change, which Earth is now experiencing.

As posted some threads back, there is a simple Junior High Chemistry experiment that shows that CO₂ accumulates heat the "normal" atmosphere does not (as any other greenhouse gas). All matter has also the property to radiate heat if it is hotter than its surroundings to its surroundings. The higher the concentration of carbon dioxide the bigger that heat accumulation. The bigger the heat accumulation in carbon dioxide the higher the "heat contamination" of its surroundings.

Under normal circumstances it would not matter what accumulates the sun's heat, were it not for the little fact that greenhouse gases also convert infrared radiation that would have been returned to space into heat. (Take for example water vapor: in winter while it is overcast the temperatures are higher then when the stars twinkle. That is because water vapor (in this case clouds) as a greenhouse gas absorbs part of the heat radiated back into space and radiates it back to earth and into space.

Same thing with carbon dioxide, methane, butane and any other number of greenhouse gases.

Now, if you can point out any other possible source of inhibited heat radiation that changed proportional to the temperature but carbon dioxide you might have another culprit.

As far as carbon dioxide, we have a correlation:

[Karlis]

As posted some threads back, there is a simple Junior High Chemistry experiment that shows that CO₂ accumulates heat the "normal" atmosphere does not (as any other greenhouse gas). ...

However, carbon dioxide on its own -- increasing in the atmosphere -- seems to be a long bow-stretch *to prove* world-wide climate change.