Flash scheme: One of the ideas involves placing giant mirrors in space to reflect the Sun's rays away from Earth.
Credit: iStockphoto
Some of the stranger schemes proposed to tackle global warming were knocked down by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change when it met in Thailand, last year (see, Oddball global warming schemes rejected).
Due to slow political progress, though, and panic about the pace and scale of warming now being reported, some of these quick fixes may soon be back in favour (see, Wacky climate solutions back on table).
Here, we share seven bold and unconventional solutions put forward to solve the climate change conundrum.
GIGANTIC MIRRORS: Six enormous tilting mirrors, each up to 2,000-kilometres-wide, or tens of thousands of foil-covered 'flying saucers' could be launched into space; either way experts at the University of Arizona in Tuscon, U.S., estimate we could deflect two per cent of the Sun's rays. That's enough to mitigate a year's worth of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions — and at just U.S.$3 trillion, it's a steal.
SYNTHETIC TREES: Not so much trees as 30-metre-tall, metal, carbon dioxide guzzlers, they would devour 90,000 tonnes of the greenhouse gas each year. Devised by scientists at Columbia University, New York, they work by reacting the gas with sodium hydroxide before converting it to liquid to be stored underground. They may be uglier than real trees, but the real challenge is finding a way to power them without generating yet more greenhouse gases.
ORBITING DUST SHIELD: Dust would be sent into orbit around the Earth by strategically vaporising a comet, perhaps using a nuclear detonation. Proposed by researchers at Iowa State University in Ames, the dust cloud would eclipse the Sun for several hours each month, filtering out about one per cent of solar radiation. Blowing up comets is a risky business though, in anyone's books, especially when done relatively close to the Earth.
ARTIFICIAL VOLCANOES: When Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted violently in 1991, it pumped millions of tons of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, which reduced global temperatures by 0.5°C the next year. Drawing upon that as inspiration, chemists at the Max Planck Institute in Mainz, Germany, suggest replicating the effect by 'seeding' the atmosphere with sulphates to reflect light. Then again, it might also cause a flood of acid rain (see, Fake volcanoes could combat global warming).
Why would there be an agenda of suggesting all ways are wacky?
Contact between air and powder made from very abundant silicate rocks such as peridotite and dunite removes CO2 from air. A coal-fired electricity plant built on top of land that is made of peridotite or dunite, and dedicated to powdering it and dispersing it, would make itself and about seven other coal plants carbon-neutral.
Of course the power plant need not be coal-fired; it could be nuclear, and compensate for eight coal plants.
A demonstrated instance of large-scale artificial sequestration by such a method: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUFM.B33A1014W
--- G.R.L. Cowan ('How fire can be tamed')
nature does a good job with carbon sequestration
Why build a synthetic machine to deal with global warming when mother nature already has all the ways? Industrial Hemp can capture a lot of CO2... and maybe it can even work as a biofuel. But we have to cut carbon dioxide emissions completely anyway... it will be cleaner that way!
Veganism
How about something much simpler, less costly, and a lot more tasty like VEGANISM ??? Together, we can heal the planet in as few as sixty days, ladies and gentlemen.
Not so easy
Good idea - it would lead to a massive reduction in acreage used to feed cattle and the methane production from animals. But these animals we'd have to eat all of cattle and animals farmed for meat first; just letting them die off would trigger a massive spike in carbon into the air as their bodies decomposed.
One last meaty meal, anyone?
Don't put away the barbie just yet
A properly grazed pasture, using rotational grazing, actually increases the carbon content of the soil. If we stop corn production, improperly used for finishing cows and ethanol production here in the US, and convert all that we(USA) currently use for corn production into properly grazed pasture, we would save the world's co2 problem and have enough beef to feed all of Africa..
Do VEGANS actualy taste
Do VEGANS actualy taste good?
reflector
GIGANTIC MIRRORS: Six enormous tilting mirrors, each up to 2,000-kilometres-wide, or tens of thousands of foil-covered 'flying saucers' could be launched into space; either way experts at the University of Arizona in Tuscon, U.S., estimate we could deflect two per cent of the Sun's rays. That's enough to mitigate a year's worth of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions — and at just U.S.$3 trillion, it's a steal.
My car sun reflector is inside the windscreen and works well.
The tilting mirrors could be inside the atmosphere and work almost as well for a much smaller cost.
Build in the desert only 3 meters above the ground,horizontal during the day,vertical at night.
The ground would become so cold that water would condense from the night time air.People and plants could live there.Maintenance would be easier and cheaper than in space.Crops would earn money on the inexpensive desert land.
Global Warming?
Are you people serious? Now in its most recent period, the Earth has been warming for at least 12,500 years prior to our industrial age -- since the coldest point of the last ice age, to be precise.
GET OFF IT!
You have to teach the children and/or morons
First you have to use all the hair-brained Ideas and make our atmosphere about 22%oxygen. If you remove that much co2, most will see that it isn't working. Then you can show them how to think versus "I feel like it would help the planet."
Bring back Black and White
How about ceasing the whole process of colour printing for packaging and advertising, bring back black and white and some real artistic talent. How many resources would be freed up to go to areas that really need them, especially the water and electricity that is used to create the RUBBISH that just goes in the rubbish.
Kara Nina