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Let us assume something for a moment: in the future we are doing fairly well at reducing our green house emissions, everyone is involved and everything, but global warming is worse than we ever thought, we find out that what we are doing isn't enough to prevent catastrophe.
What radical solutions could we use to stave us catastrophic warming?
All radical solutions welcome, but remember that we will discuss them and how cost effective they would be, etc...
Here is one possible solution.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/6354759.stm
edit: this one involves increasing the amount of sunlight reflected back into space from the tops of thin, low-level clouds.
Originally posted by Bad wolfThere are plans, of course no hardware yet but the idea is you have thousands of mirrors in orbit windmill shaped where you either concentrate light on cold spots or block light from hot spots, a simple way would be to launch ultra thin mylar plastic strips into a low orbit like chaff from an electonics warfare plane, which lowers the amount of sun getting to the ground. Nice thing about that is, the chaff will fall out of orbit and burn up so it wouldn't be a permenent threat, just a temporary drop in sunlight.
Let us assume something for a moment: in the future we are doing fairly well at reducing our green house emissions, everyone is involved and everything, but global warming is worse than we ever thought, we find out that what we are doing isn't enough to prevent catastrophe.
What radical solutions could we use to stave us catastrophic warming?
All radica ...[text shortened]... asing the amount of sunlight reflected back into space from the tops of thin, low-level clouds.
Originally posted by sonhouseWill any of these technologies be able to work on Venus?
There are plans, of course no hardware yet but the idea is you have thousands of mirrors in orbit windmill shaped where you either concentrate light on cold spots or block light from hot spots, a simple way would be to launch ultra thin mylar plastic strips into a low orbit like chaff from an electonics warfare plane, which lowers the amount of sun getting ...[text shortened]... t of orbit and burn up so it wouldn't be a permenent threat, just a temporary drop in sunlight.
What is the latest on nanotechnologies and atmosphere conversions?
Originally posted by Bad wolfThere wasn't a program on the environment!
On BBC 2, at 21:00 there will be a program on the television about this.
It is called: 'Five ways to save the earth'
The two things I mentioned will be talked about on the program.
You lied.
That hurts. :'(
I read a magazine that talked about taking CO2, liquifying it, and storing it in containers either underground or in a warehouse. I don't necessarily think it's the best plan, but if push came to shove...
In the same magazine, which listed 6 different, relatively radical solutions, it talked about creating a giant solar "mirror" to deflect some of the sun's rays. Again, I don't know how feasible that would be.
A third (radical suggestion): dump iron into the oceans. Why? Because, according to the magazine, it would tremendously increase the algae population, which produces more than 50% of the world's oxygen (therefore also significantly decreasing the CO2 levels). Again, very radical and possibly dangerous because it may quickly decrease CO2 but may also disrupt the aquatic food chain (by creating an unbalanced, unchecked number of algae) in the more distant future.
Originally posted by wittywonkaI don't think the first solution will work because the problem CO2 is too high up and does not really mix much with the CO2 we can easily access at ground level. At least I remember something like that about a similar topic.
I read a magazine that talked about taking CO2, liquifying it, and storing it in containers either underground or in a warehouse. I don't necessarily think it's the best plan, but if push came to shove...
In the same magazine, which listed 6 different, relatively radical solutions, it talked about creating a giant solar "mirror" to deflect some of the chain (by creating an unbalanced, unchecked number of algae) in the more distant future.