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 M¢25  Funded By Mahalo ? |  November 05, 2009 02:39 PM

Can climate change be prevented? What can we do to lessen its effects?

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November 06, 2009 04:00 AM
Although it is true that there are still numerous uncertainties regarding the mechanisms by which the CO2 emitted by human activities may or may not be affecting the earth's climate, groups of highly dedicated people such as the IPCC have given us pretty convincing evidence that "climate change" is already happening. In fact, from looking at the mechanisms behind the formation of the vastly different atmospheres of our neighboring planets - Mars and Venus (see the reference to the book "Vision 2050" given below) - there is little question in my mind that climate change is a reality.

So, the quick answer is that climate change cannot be prevented - it is already happening. Plus, once the CO2 in the atmosphere builds up, it can take a long time to return to normal - remember that we are talking about a possible doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Measures to deal with climate change are often divided into two types: "mitigation" measures to prevent CO2 from accumulating in the atmosphere or to reduce or remove CO2 already in the atmosphere, and "adaptation" measures to lessen the adverse effects of a large accumulation of CO2. Deep sea CO2 sequestration, along with energy conservation and CO2 neutral energy technologies, are examples of the first type. Geoengineering, as well as smaller scale measures such as building sea walls and developing technologies like reverse-osmosis for desalinating sea water, are examples of the latter - measures to lessen the effects of climate change.

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) Working Group II Report "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability" gives a detailed analysis of the things that can be done to lessen the wide range of predicted effects of climate change, by sector (water resources, ecosystems, human settlements in coastal and island regions, etc.) and by region. The full report is rather long (chapter 17 is the one to read). Pages 19 and 20 of the Summary for Policymakers lists several ways to lessen the effects of climate change that are or could be taken.
Source(s):
Vision 2050 - chapter 1 pages 22-24
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g5518444wp0n62lh/fulltext.pdf

Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessmen...

Summary for Policymakers
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-spm.pdf

Asker's Rating:
• good explanation. but how can we explain it in a simple way that could be understood even by the uneducated population?


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Helpful: brian san

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November 06, 2009 05:17 PM
First, thanks for choosing my answer! Second, I am sorry for making my answer so complex - I had actually intended to give a simple and clear answer, but one tends to get carried away... :)

Here is another shot at giving a simple explanation.

One is that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". The sooner we get to work on mitigation measures to prevent climate change from getting worse, the less costly the "adaptation" measures will be.

Another is that "small is beautiful" - lots of small scale projects that are well tailored to the regional and cultural characteristics of the target community are likely to be more effective and less costly in the long term than "one size fits all" silver bullets that try to solve the problem through brute force.

Hope this helps!

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November 05, 2009 03:13 PM
If you're concerned about your affect on the environment, it's a great idea to start walking more often, it's healthy for you and has a zero carbon footprint.

HOWEVER::

The debate on whether or not humans are even affecting global climate is still up in the air. Depending on when you start your statistical calculations, we may be in a cooling phase, or we may be in a warming phase.

Physicist Howard Hayden recently sent a letter to the EPA saying since there are different models still being discussed, we're not certain exactly what we're doing to the environment. It is still scientifically possible that the CO2 we're putting in the air is being absorbed by plants and feeding them, allowing the world to be more full of life.

This chart says we've only changed our temperature by 1.0 degrees celcius in the past 140 years. It is altogether possible the environmental changes we've been seeing are just the way earth will naturally move.

Source(s):
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/041453.html


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