What to do about global warming

Yeah, doesn't seem practical...think of all the miles of road. Trade peak oil for peak minerals.

At least it is another idea.

We don't need any ideas, we need good ideas. Ingenuity, not anything goes.

Ok, here is an idea that is different. For example Is the land Canada is on really worth all the resources needed to support 33 million people living there permanently. I am just referring to the Earth, not politics or countries. Would it be better for the world if all people except for miners oilmen, lumbermen etc. were to live say below the 55th parallel, (all population centers in the world). Definatly a wild premise, but what if we had a chance to repopulate the world properly. Would it help slow down global warming could it possibly reverse it?

Myself - i prepared - a 98 % furnace for the winter and a 2 stage AC unit for the summer - I have achived balance on the creation of GG.

What does proper repopulation entail?

Henrik Svensmark has proposed that galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) could exert significant influence over global temperatures (--). The theory goes that the solar magnetic field deflects GCRs, which are capable of seeding cloud formation on Earth. So if the solar magnetic field were to increase, fewer GCRs would reach Earth, seeding fewer low-level clouds, which are strongly reflective. Thus an increased solar magnetic field can indirectly decrease the Earth's albedo (reflectivity), causing the planet to warm. Therefore, in order for this theory to be plausible, all four of the following requirements must be true.

1. Solar magnetic field must have a long-term positive trend.
2. Galactic cosmic ray flux on Earth must have a long-term negative trend.
3. Cosmic rays must successfully seed low-level clouds.
4. Low-level cloud cover must have a long-term negative trend.

Fortunately we have empirical observations against which we can test these requirements.
Solar magnetic field

Solar magnetic field strength correlates strongly with other solar activity, such as solar irradiance and sunspot number. As is the case with these other solar attributes, solar magnetic field has not changed appreciably over the past three decades (--).


Figure 1: Solar Magnetic Flux from 1967 to 2009 (Vieira and Solanki 2010)

Galactic Cosmic Ray Flux

Cosmic ray flux on Earth has been monitored since the mid-20th century, and has shown no significant trend over that period.


Figure 2: Cosmic Ray Intensity (blue) and Sunspot Number (green) from 1951 to 2006 (--)
In fact cosmic ray flux has lagged behind the global temperature change since approximately 1970 (--.

"between 1970 and 1985 the cosmic ray flux, although still behaving similarly to the temperature, in fact lags it and cannot be the cause of its rise. Thus changes in the cosmic ray flux cannot be responsible for more than 15% of the temperature increase"

Figure 3: Reconstructed cosmic radiation (solid line before 1952) and directly observed cosmic radiation (solid line after 1952) compared to global temperature (dotted line). All curves have been smoothed by an 11 year running mean (--.
And since 1990, galactic cosmic ray flux on Earth has increased - "the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures" (--). In fact, cosmic ray on flux recently reached record levels. According to Richard Mewaldt of Caltech, "In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we've seen in the past 50 years."


Figure 4: Record cosmic ray flux observed in 2009 by the Advanced Composition Explorer (NASA)

Despite this record high GCR flux which we would expect to increase cloud cover and cause cooling, 2009 was tied for the second-hottest year on record, and the 12-month running mean global surface temperature record was broken 3 times in 2010 (NASA GISS).
GCR Cloud Seeding

In order for GCRs to successfully seed clouds, they must achieve the following three steps.

1. GCRs must induce aerosol formation
2. These newly-formed aerosols must grow sufficiently (through the condesation of gases in the atmosphere) to form cloud-condensation nuclei (CCN)
3. The CCN must lead to increased cloud formation.

The first step is not controversial, and is being investigated by the --. However, the second step is often glossed over by those espousing the GCR warming theory. Freshly nucleated particles must grow by approximately a factor of 100,000 in mass before they can effectively scatter solar radiation or be activated into a cloud droplet (--). -- investigated this second step by using a a general circulation model with online aerosol microphysics in order to evaluate the growth rate of aerosols from changes in cosmic ray flux, and found that they are far too small to play a significant role in cloud formation or climate change.

"In our simulations, changes in CCN from changes in cosmic rays during a solar cycle are two orders of magnitude too small to account for the observed changes in cloud properties; consequently, we conclude that the hypothesized effect is too small to play a significant role in current climate change."

Numerous studies have also investigated the effectiveness of GCRs in cloud formation (the third step). --:

"the variation of ionization by galactic cosmic rays over the decadal solar cycle does not entail a response...that would explain observed variations in global cloud cover."

Sloan and Wolfendale (200 found:

"we estimate that less than 23%, at the 95% confidence level, of the 11-year cycle changes in the globally averaged cloud cover observed in solar cycle 22 is due to the change in the rate of ionization from the solar modulation of cosmic rays."

Kristjansson et al. (200 found:

"no statistically significant correlations were found between any of the four cloud parameters and GCR"

Calogovic et al. (2010) found:

"no response of global cloud cover to Forbush decreases at any altitude and latitude."

-- also found

"galactic cosmic rays appear to play a minor role for atmospheric aerosol formation events, and so for the connected aerosol-climate effects as well."

Although there was a correlation between GCRs and low-level cloud cover until about 1991, after that point the correlation broke down (--) and cloud cover began to lag GCR trends by over 6 months, while cloud formation should occur within several days (--).

Figure 5: Low cloud cover (blue line) versus cosmic ray intensity (red line) (--).
Low-Level Cloud Cover

Unfortunately observational low-level cloud cover data is somewhat lacking and even yields contradictory results. -- found

"Global mean time series of surface- and satellite-observed low-level and total cloud cover exhibit very large discrepancies, however, implying that artifacts exist in one or both data sets....The surface-observed low-level cloud cover time series averaged over the global ocean appears suspicious because it reports a very large 5%-sky-cover increase between 1952 and 1997. Unless low-level cloud albedo substantially decreased during this time period, the reduced solar absorption caused by the reported enhancement of cloud cover would have resulted in cooling of the climate system that is inconsistent with the observed temperature record."

So the jury is still out regarding whether or not there's a long-term trend in low-level cloud cover.
Inability to explain other observations

In addition to these multiple lines of empirical evidence which contradict the GCR warming theory, the galactic cosmic ray theory -- a number of observed --, such as the cooling of the upper atmosphere and greater warming at night than day.
Additionally, because cosmic radiation shows greater variation in high latitudes, we expect larger changes in cloud cover in polar regions if GCRs are succesfully influencing cloud cover. This is not observed. Furthermore, examining the nuclear reactor accident at Chernobyl, ionization from the radioactivity would be expected to have produced an increase in cloud cover. There is no evident increase in cloud cover following the accident (--).
Galactic cosmic rays can't explain global warming

In summary, studies have shown that GCRs exert a minor influence over low-level cloud cover, solar magnetic field has not increased in recent decades, nor has GCR flux on Earth decreased. In fact, if GCRs did have a significant impact on global temperatures, they would have had a cooling effect over the past 20 years.

Nothing sinister, just moving people to more effecient places to live, by that I mean energy and resource effecient for the Earth.

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If you liked the story of --, building wind turbines in Malawi, or the post about a --, you’ll love this -- at the --, working on a solar solution for third world problems.

As a child in Mali, Abdrahamane Traoré often did his homework by the sooty, dim light of a kerosene lamp.
As an adult in Michigan, he sometimes has a tough time reaching his family back home. Traoré’s mother must walk to a neighboring village to keep a cell phone charged.
Electricity isn’t always a plug away in much of the developing world. That’s why Traoré and University of Michigan engineering student Md. Shanhoor Amin teamed up to develop the Emerald, a personal solar panel the size of a paperback.
The young engineers are the founders of June Energy, an award-winning start-up spending its second semester in the TechArb student business incubator. The company recently received more than $500,000 in venture capital, and it’s about to ship its first 40 domestic orders. Amin and Traoré, along with chief technical officer Allan Taylor, are planning a trip to Kenya and Mali later this semester to test their prototype with the people it was primarily designed for.
The company’s goal is to get the price under $20 for its customers in the developing world.

Part 2

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IBM Europe describes the planning process for Smart Grids in Europe, especially optimizing electric cars as power storage units.

Right on. A power grid that is tied to a floating useage rate set daily like all commodities. We could have it like the UK where they drop pound coins into meter boxes to cook and heat their home for a few minutes.

Pennies for Research on renewable energy.
Trillions for this.

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As the video here explains, one practical, and easy to understand, way to store excess electrical energy is the simple flywheel. High tech mag-lev technology makes it easier to cut friction and drag which kill efficiency, and new superstrong materials like carbon fiber increase the strength and durability, but basically, what you have is a spinning wheel. (think about the playground merry go round that keeps spinning long after you’ve stopped pushing and jumped on..)

But flywheels are just one piece of a huge mosaic of energy storage devices…





One of the most reliable and time tested methods of energy storage is pumped storage, like -- In this technique, water is pumped up a hillside to an artificial lake during times of low electrical demand, usually at night. At times of high demand, the water is allowed to fall, and working like a hydro electrical dam, the pumped storage plant captures and generates electrical power from the falling water – freeing stored energy as electricity.

Now this plant’s owners are planning an --, to provide even more storage for a contemplated future in which renewable energy, primarily wind, will play a much larger role in the midwestern electrical grid.
According to --:

The plant currently produces enough to power a community of 1.4 million people. The upgrade will enable the facility to meet the electric demand of a community of 1.65 million, while the increased water pumping efficiency will further decrease the plant’s operating costs.

The maintenance and efficiency upgrade will increase the generating capacity of the plant from its current level of 1,872 megawatts to approximately 2,172 MW. The Ludington plant plays an increasingly important role as a storage facility for renewable energy produced during off-peak periods, making renewable energy more affordable and reliable.
As more wind generation is added in the Midwest region, the Ludington plant can be used at night and during other periods when demand for electricity is low to “store” the clean energy until it’s needed by electric customers. The Ludington plant addresses a key challenge of wind energy which is produced intermittently and cannot be stored, with the exception of special facilities like Ludington.

Why don't we just continue to burn clean renewable inorganic hydro carbons? They're going to keep seeping up to the surface anyway. We're going to have to burn it off eventually. AGW is scientific fraud.

There's two ideas abiotic and biotic, the one requires dead things in ten cubic kilometer compressed chunks the other supposes that everything required to cook hydrocarbons including the raw materials is already in the rocks deep in the planet where the heat and pressure needed to produce hydrocarbons works twenty four seven eon after eon. (Water comes from there as well.) That's what I burn in my car if the dead compressed fish story turns your crank yer welcome to it. You can't prove that you have dead reptiles in your tank. So lack of proof is no impediment to your progress.

But you have to make sure that you are burning hydrocarbons (or turning them into plastics) at a lower rate than they are being created, no matter how they are being created. What is your plan for that? At what rate are they being created?

Well I don't know when or if that production can be exceeded. We will know when and if it ever stops seeping to the suface I guess. If that happens I suppose there will have to be rationing. Since evey bit of hydro carbon on the planet is produced this way and we haven't exhausted the near surface collections yet I'm inclined to think it is inexhaustable by mere human consumption. And seeing as how I'm a conspiracy theorist I'm also inclined to suspect that peak oil is a manufactured crisis created to maximize every drop of profit from the sale of abundent oil reserves. My twisted logic says to me it's a lot easier to keep your hand on the supply valve and thereby inflate the price than it is to introduce new supplies in a competative environment and therby drive the returns to the producer down on a barrel by barrel basis. Whatever the case hydrocarbons have been positively proven to be the product of heat and pressure on deep rock formations and have nothing whatever to do with dead schools of fish. I'm surprized no one bit on the water comment yet. The space snowball proponents have all gone dumb perhaps.

I am Peter the Roman responding to a search for others who use the name of my vicarage.

Greetings in the Resurrected Christ!

Deep six him, Shadow!