Environmental Visionaries: The Big Gun

The IPCC says that "more GHGs results in more warming" (AR4, WG1, Ch1, p116) and yet when the GHG water vapor triples to 100% when it rains, the temperature does NOT go up, the greenhouse effect temperature does not triple. The IPCC science logic is false.
When the sun rises in the morning and the number of photons required for the Greenhouse effect increases, then the GHE temperature increases as more of the excess CO2 and water vapor GHGs in the air are used, in spite of the IPCC insisting that you need more man generated GHGs and CO2 to get more warming. Likewise, when the sun goes down, the GHE decreases in spite of the man generated CO2 still increasing.
It is the number of nature made photons, not the number of man made GHGs that dictates how much greenhouse warming we get. The IPCC and computer models are incorrect. Controlling emissions or CO2 does nothing to the temperature. It just costs money.
(For an alternate explanation of climate change see a paper at www.scribd.com called Gravity causes Climate Changes. http://www.scribd.com/doc/27343303/Gravity-Causes-Climate-Change )

There is only one tiny little problem with reducing sunlight by adding sulphate particulates. It reduces the sunlight which wipes out the crops and food supply for the world.

JDoddsGW must have a lot of stock, or work for, some oil or coal company, or work for a company that produces products dependent upon excessive consumption of such fuels, to attack every article on global warming.

Everyone who has studied up on the subject with a open mind knows that there is 3 known reasons for global warming: increased solar activity, closer planet orbit to the Sun, and / or increased atmosphere thickness. Burning fuel dug, released by drilling, or pumped out of the ground increases CO2, SO2, H2O, CO, NO, and heavy metals in the air we breath. The thicker the air, the more trapped heat when the Sun's rays, AKA photons, hit the air and the spent photons are absorbed as by the gas particles, as well as surface materials: life forms, rocks, soil, water and ice, as heat energy.

A couple of problems. First, where do you get all the sodium hydroxide and lime to do enough of this to treat the whole world, and how much energy does it take to produce and deliver it?

O.K., it says the NaOH is recycled, but how about the lime? Then, what do you do with all the calcium carbonate that is produced? (If I don't misremember, CaCO3 is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs moisture from the atmosphere. Maybe we could put it on crops all over the world, and compensate for water shortages.

If it's practical, we should require plants that emit CO2 to build these towers all around the plant, equal to the amount of CO2 they emit. Coal power plants would use a lot of them.

An industry could be created by building them and selling the credits to people who wanted to be energy hogs at a distance.

As alluded to by genedoug, we need to know more about the full lifecycle costs of the inputs and outputs to really assess this technology. What are the embodied energies of the input materials and the infrastructure? What are the energy costs of storing and monitoring the stored carbon, assuming that geological storage is even feasible? There also appears to be missing information about converting CO2 to gasoline: doesn't that require some hydrogen from somewhere else? And then there are the transactional costs such as land costs, infrastructure tie-ins, permitting, etc.

There is much more to evaluating a new technology than the mere technical feasibility of the process and I would urge Dr. Keith to start by completing a full techno-economic feasibility study covering all of the bases (if not already done). Then we in the general public could actually begin comparing apple to apple options.

In order for the informed citizen to make sense of this or any environmental technology, we need to have more complete information so it would be nice if PopSci would follow up on a statement such as "Keith has proven this process..." with a citation to the study reporting the proof. There, we might find the above information, or maybe not. So how about it PopSci could you cite the details?

...experimenting with the whole planet is not the way to go...
Ivan Malagurski

Yes please make radical changes to the globe basses on political schemes and no real scientific data. Oh and try to make some $$ for your start-up while youre at it.

You know what else sequesters carbon?...Trees. One acre of forest sequesters just over the amount of CO2 produced by the average American. Couldn't we just (hypothetically) legislate on an international level that each country maintain enough forrest to cover their CO2 emissions? It seems much less complicated than building massive fan edifices, the construction and operation of which would consume wopping amounts of energy and resources producing more CO2. This is one of the most backward ideas I've ever heard.

The true instigator in all this human effect on earths diminishing resources and excessive pollutions growth is the human population growth factor. Just check the population growth trend and you will see, that cutting back on emissions of any kind will have no effect, as long as the world population continues to grow. And it seems the poorer or less educated country you come from, the higher population growth exist. Once a human is born, his first primary purpose in life will be to survival and reproduce. Humans are the smartest, bugs on the planet and it will be our population growth that will lead the planet earth and the human population to its ultimate doom. Cut back on the overall human population growth and then you will see pollutions caused humans drop too. We can clean the air in USA, but if we do nothing in Africa, China, South America, etc., other countries, for the rest of the world, we really have made no postivie effect.

We should be preparing for climate change and reducing pollution because pollution sucks and climate change is inevitable. The climate never stops changing. We are pretty much powerless to do anything but pick up and move when water levels rise.

Pollutions is not spontaneously created and oops, the human is just standing next to the cow. No, we raise the cow to eat and the cow makes methane in the air. The human population grows, we raise more cows and the cycle continues and because we humans are so smart, our population just grows more and so goes the pollution in the whole process. We do not live with the environment in a balance. We humans dominate the environment and over run it, to its death.

Now people will say, we need to raise less cows, because they make methane and are polluting the air. And that is like asking the man next to you, to not eat. He will think your nuts or crazy. If you are current alive, all humankind demands the right to live, so its stupid to reduce the cow. So what is the real source of the problem and the real source to the solution. It is a gentle, down ward trend in population growth, reverse, with an increase in efficiency in food production and cleaner environment. It is the only solution for a human dominate specifies on planet earth. Any other solution just ends in death and doom.

But, sadly, imagine everyone jumps on board to my way of thinking. Well, I live in USA. So my little opinion will only effect us in good old USA. ( Actually, my opinion here will not really effect anyone. ) I have had no impact on the rest of the human earth. Everyone has their own view and so in the big picture, I think we are all doom, simple because in the world, we do not over all cooperate together to make a solution happen..

I may die young. I may die old. It is a fact I will eventually die. I will live my life with a goal to grow internally and mature. I wish to learn to be a better person. For me, I praise God first in my life. Also in my process of life, I will die caring for others too. When I die, I choose to die a caring person, not a violent or angry person.

Bubba be careful with the population growth remarks... You may find that if you say that to many times suddenly your posts stop posting.

what is wrong with letting the place heat up? More heat means more evaporation and convection, so less deserts and more rain forests. More heat means a navigable north west passage and Canadian farmland. Your too scared to change to see the good it would do.

@moon born
While I agree with you, lots of people will die in the process. And while I don't care, lots of other people seem to go into a fit about it. So what to do?

I have to agree though, the main root of the problems is the rampant, uncontrolled population growth.

We can attempt, to curb individual usage and increase efficiency. But the strain on resource due to the outrageous growth rate far exceeds the benefits of these endeavors.

Growth rate of industrialized nations is only about replacement + a tiny percentage. Only in third world countries does growth rate exceed replacement by a large amount. The only reason US, Euro nations, Canada, Australia seem to exceed that is almost unrelenting immigration. (I don't want to start a debate on immigration).

You won't control the third world nations population. And they are the ones who will increasingly use those resources now as they become industrialized. So population control aimed at first world countries is misplaced and more than a little suspicious.

It's like trying to fix the window that's not broken while studiously ignoring the window that is. Why do that? With a reason I have no doubt. But what is that reason?

You know bubba has it right , with his population control theory. Maybe as society trying to beat death with our healthcare systems and victimless crime laws just isnt the answer. Even if we figure out a way to provide solutions to our eco problems now, with constant population growth we humans will just over consume thier host. Look at it from a general homeostasis view. There must be a belance to maintain normals if either or become too great the host will die. Our host the earth will become overwhelmed with demands from its resource to maintain its life because the life on it is consuming its resources faster than it can produce them. It would be like going back to the early 1900's style of living but at least we will give a new generation to consider what we are doing what it did to us and how they can make it work out for the following generations to come. As advanced as we become, we have fallen victim to our aoutmation, comforts and easy access to items that should take some type of personal enrgy to obtain vs. swiping your ATM for a GO LArGE combo. We are just doomed with economy driving sciences and the world at that, we have no chance for recovery. There just isn't enough of us concerned right now when we need to be. By the time the general population becomes concerned it will be too late and the earth will be on it's way to total destruction. Everybody wants to be a pharoh no one wants to a slave, so you develop a society of many kings and queens and reduce you number of slaves now we have an advanced society that expects to be serviced and catered to. As advanced as we think we we still can't understand the harmony of "every action will create an equal or opposite reaction" Newtons 3rd law. As long ago as he came up with our so called geniuses can't figure that one out i think they just feel that way about literal physics but it is a general rule and fundamental of life.

only you can prevent global melt down!!
Sincerley,
Son Of Atoms

THIS IS A SCAM!!!!!!!

This is enviro-nazism at it finest!

Mmm, thats really, really interesting !!!

www.tendances-de-mode.com/2007/09/02/345-zara