• Question: What do you think about Global Warming and how to stop it?

    Asked by cheesyscience to Andrew, Emma, Marianne on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by jb19tg27bk4.
    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Hi cheeseyscience,

      From what we can tell, the Earth’s atmosphere is warming up, humans are almost definitely contributing to this, and this warming will lead to changes in weather and climate that could have devastating impacts on people around the world. Irrespective of how much humans are contributing to this, I think we have a responsibility to minimize our impact, and to find ways to stop people being badly affected by global warming.

      We can certainly slow global warming down by using less energy, and by using more renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, as well as doing more to remove greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from the air.

      Some people are even talking about huge engineering projects that would help cool the Earth by throwing huge clouds of droplets high into the atmosphere, or encouraging more carbon dioxide-absorbing algae to grow in the oceans by sprinkling them with iron particles. This is often called geoengineering. It’s a bit controversial, as no-one knows what the effects of trying to control the Earth’s climate will be.

      What do you think – do you think it’s a good or bad idea to try and stop global warming by engineering the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans?

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Another cheesy individual. We did quite a long post on this before so if you don’t mind I’ll link you to it. Bear in mind i got a row for using long words but the others were good and I tried to explain myself later. see what you think. If you have comments post them here and we can chat about it.

      /siliconj10-zone/2010/06/do-you-think-the-world-will-end-in-2012

      nice to make your acquaintance.
      PS Do you know anything about the science of cheese? especially fancy cheese. I love fancy cheese.

    • Photo: Marianne Baker

      Marianne Baker answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Well well cheesyscience… another global warming Q!
      I wonder if we have any climate scientists on the site.

      Anyway, I don’t think we can *stop* global warming; it’s a natural process, we’ve just been negatively affecting it for some time now, to the point where it’s become damaging. More for other species than for us.

      I heard at a conference recently, that at the current rate of emissions, we’ve only 6 years until we reach an amount that means the temperature increase will be “only” 2 degrees – 450 parts per million (a measurement of gas concentration in the atmosphere).

      So it’s not a question of how can we stop it, but how can we limit the damage.

      This requires the co-operation of whole countries, governments, businesses and all the way down to individuals just going about their daily business.

      It’s so hard to change habits; we’re very spoiled here in rich countries and people don’t like being told what to do.

      Unfortuantely, for the sake of our planet and all the brilliant things on it, we really need to – and honestly, I don’t know the best way to get that to happen. I just really hope we can do it.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Hi cheesyscience…..good question, as I am an environmental scientist (that studied climate change) this is a question we ask ourselves in my profession all the time.

      According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), yes global warming or climate change is happening. However, the IPCC have been criticised in the past for only looking at climate change data over a relatively short period of time when compared to the life of this planet.

      Some climate change scientists argue that this planet has been going through some form of cyclical global warming for it’s entire life and therefore what the IPCC is looking at is only a snapshot in the life of this planet. If you look at much older data, they say that what we are currently experiencing is normal but our human impact has speeded up the process significantly than would have been predicted.

      Right……so in summary, there are 2 opinions but the IPCC is currently holding greater influence in the political circles. However, both could be right and personally, there is probably an element of truth in both theories I have described to you. My advice is, to read around the subject as widely as you can and then form your own opinion!

      How can we stop it? Everyone can contribute to stopping global warming form the multinational companies to you and your school. Essentially, reducing our carbon dioxide emission is the main driver so to you and school that would mean walking more or using public transport, switch those lights off, get a more fuel efficient boiler and re-use and recycle more (although recycling can use quite a lot of energy for some waste streams). Hope that answers your question.:)

Comments