Global Warming Doesn't Exist

[StrykerFSU]

There are a couple of removal ideas that have been thrown around, all with serious drawbacks. The idea was presented to seed relatively unproductive areas of the ocean (specifically the Southern Ocean) to stimulate phytoplankton growth. Phytoplankton would use dissolved CO2 for photosynthesis causing the ocean to absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere. Some of this carbon would then be transported to the ocean bottom when the plankton die, thus sequestering it. Long story short, even by removing all nutrient limitations and assuming 100% efficiency this method would only increase productivity by 15% and would have no measurable impact on CO2 in the atmosphere.

Another idea was to liquify CO2 and inject it into the deep waters of the ocean. There are two major flaws in this. First, the ocean circulation system works like a giant conveyor belt that moves water around the globe. What is currently deep water will eventually return to the surface so there is no effective was to "bury" CO2 in the deep waters of the ocean indefinitely. Second, as I have stated before CO2 in the aqueous form makes the water more acidic and would have unknown ramifications on deep sea life.

There has also been the idea of injecting CO2 into empty oil chambers in the earth's crust. I'm not as familiar with this but from what I understand it would be very costly and subject to the same risks inherent in burying anything underground.

It is my opinion, better stated by Gregg Easterbrook, that American industry holds the best hope for innovation in this area but we must make CO2 remediation a profitable enterprise. A combination of reduced energy consumption and remediation would do wonders in the effort to reduce atmospheric CO2.

One of the best resources for information on this topic can be found at http://www.ipcc.ch/index.html

[OAKS]

There's a great CO2 removal system already in place - plants, trees, etc.

How about we concentrate on keeping more of them around while we reduce our current CO2 output? Reducing cookie-cutter suburbia, fixing the logging practices of the current administration (and most before, although it's particularly bad right now), saving the good ol' rain forest, requiring rooftop parks and gardens in major cities. Other suggestions?

[cjwilhelmi]

requiring rooftop parks and gardens in major cities. Other suggestions?

Doesn't China require this?

[lil lady lax fan]

Getting Congress to cut back on their hot air emissions might also do a world of good...oh and maybe help cut CO2 levels in the process!

[michlaxref]

OK, we are going to have too much water and not enough trees. So we irrigate the deserts and plant trees. I know the humidity in the Phoenix area has changed over the years due to all the people moving in and growing lawns. Can we create new rainforests in southwest North America and the other deserts of the world? Start shipping those ice bergs to Tucson!

I did look at the link on mitigation and someone has done some serious thinking on how to gather and store CO2. But it does look like someone has been very simplistic in thinking, "we have too much CO2, lets hide it somewhere," instead of thinking of an elegant solution where there is some benefit.

I still think maybe someone needs to talk to Gates about some money....