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The solutions to Global Warming include. . .


Michaelangelica

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Here's a little motivation for all you go-getters chompin' at the bit to change the world climate. (As if! :hihi: )

 

 

 

Read more >>> Virgin boss offers $25m reward to save Earth | Climate change | Guardian Unlimited Environment

Plant trees, cut them into lumber and plant more trees. Millions and millions of acres every year. Where do I collect my check?

 

Bill

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The quickest, easiest way to lower your carbon footprint (and to put money in your pocket!) is to slightly overinflate your tyres, and change your driving habits to suit your engine's best fuel performance.

 

Overinflating your tyres alone will save you an easy 30-40% on your fuel bill, and driving slower will obviously save you as much proportional to how fast you used to drive before.

 

Not only will you have more money in your pocket at the end of the month, but your emissions will be a lot lower.

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Guest chendoh

What really got my goat was, the fact that Leaders of Nations wanted the Scientist to tone down the report.

And Thankfully they refused, stuck to their guns, and gave an empirical report, instead of one based on computer modeling.

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I still like CFBs. I have heard a number of news programs mention that if everyone in the USA replaced one of their incandescent bulbs with a CFB it would be equivalent to taking 800,000 automobiles of the road (in terms of CO2 added to the atmosphere).

 

I like to over inflating the tires idea too, just don't over-do it:);)

{BANG}

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Remove the U.S.'s government, afterall, our government is full of offiicials that are directly related to petroleum. Maybe if we get people in that are not worried about their pockets then they would provide funding to make H fuel cells and alternative energies much cheaper.

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The quickest, easiest way to lower your carbon footprint (and to put money in your pocket!) is to slightly overinflate your tyres, and change your driving habits to suit your engine's best fuel performance.

 

Overinflating your tyres alone will save you an easy 30-40% on your fuel bill, and driving slower will obviously save you as much proportional to how fast you used to drive before.

 

Not only will you have more money in your pocket at the end of the month, but your emissions will be a lot lower.

 

Actually, driving faster at a constant speed and avoiding stop-and-go traffic will save you fuel, as the faster you go the less fuel you use per mile.

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Actually no. That is not correct. You use more fuel to accelerate the car to a faster speed. In addition, the wind resistance above 60mph starts creating so much drag your gas mileage goes down the further above 60 you are.

 

For most cars, avoiding rush hour will give you better gas mileage. However, for a few, like the Prius, you get better gas mileage in stop and go traffic than on the highway:)

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Actually no. That is not correct. You use more fule to accelerate the car to a faster speed. In addition, the wind resistance above 60mph starts creating so much drag your gas mileage goes down the further above 60 you are.

 

If that's so, then why does every car on the market almost always have higher MPG at highway speeds?

 

You don't spend a lot of fuel accelerating, that only takes a few seconds, it isn't a prolonged action.

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If that's so, then why does every car on the market almost always have higher MPG at highway speeds?

 

You don't spend a lot of fuel accelerating, that only takes a few seconds, it isn't a prolonged action.

Heck. That must be US highway speeds, I guess. Over here, our highway limit is 120km/h in non-built up areas, and 60km/h in suburban areas. Consumption for most vehicles are best at around 80 to 85 km/h in high gear, which means your motor is ticking over very slowly. At legal limit, 120km/h, your car will almost use double per 100km what it would have at 80km/h, for 100km. This is due to higher revs burning more petrol and more stress on the engine due to increased wind resistance. So - quick solution would be for governments worldwide to lower highway limits.

 

Won't help you much with town driving, stop/start is a killer in anybody's books. But there's a lot of things you can still do, like taking your car out of gear when going downhill.

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Heck. That must be US highway speeds, I guess. Over here, our highway limit is 120km/h in non-built up areas, and 60km/h in suburban areas. Consumption for most vehicles are best at around 80 to 85 km/h in high gear, which means your motor is ticking over very slowly. At legal limit, 120km/h, your car will almost use double per 100km what it would have at 80km/h, for 100km. This is due to higher revs burning more petrol and more stress on the engine due to increased wind resistance. So - quick solution would be for governments worldwide to lower highway limits.

 

Won't help you much with town driving, stop/start is a killer in anybody's books. But there's a lot of things you can still do, like taking your car out of gear when going downhill.

In 1974 Rep James J Howard (D-NJ) introduced the bill that changed the maximum highway speed limit to 55 mph. Because speed limits are not under federal authority they enforced this by withholding federal highway dollars from any state that did not comply with the mandated maximum speed. This was supposed to reduce gasoline consumption on the highways by about 17%. In the 90's this legislation was made void by a couple of congressional acts. Now the states set their own speed limits again.

 

For at least a short period of time there was an interstate in Montana with no daytime speed limit, and 75 MPH at night. Many of the western states have 75 MPH limits on the limited access interstates highways, but drop them to 65 MPH in commuter areas with higher traffic. Most eastern states have 65 MPH limits.

 

Nothing brought me greater joy than the day Interstate 195 in NJ got the speed limit posted to 65 MPH. The irony that the James J Howard memorial highway is not at 55 MPH is so sweet.

 

Bill

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What plant life is best for removing CO2 from the atmosphere? If I wanted to create a garden to offset my carbon footprint, what would be best to plant? How much would I need planted to eliminate a ton of carbon? I was thinking of starting an anti-carbon farm where guilty people could pay for offset by the ton. I was wondering what would be the most cost effective way of actually doing this.

 

Bill

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I've had a potential solution for global warming and a host of other problems for years now. In fact, we all have.

 

STOP CLEARCUTTING RAINFORESTS!!!

 

It's rather simple, yet at total odds with economy. In the time it took me to type this, several acres have been lost.

 

Even if the climate change is completely independent of humans, why should we poke the fire? Why should we clearcut archaic forests before even understanding them?

 

Seems simple enough to me anyway...:)

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Exactly! But as long as there's a market for it, it'll be hard to stop deforestation. Almost like rhino poaching. Illegal, but how to stop it?

 

Coming back to Bill's question as to which plants to plant, I guess the quickest-growing plants would be your best bet! Something like bamboo, or even hectares of sunflowers! Best part of sunflowers, is that they grow amazingly fast, and the seeds alone yields between 6 and 10 tons per hectare - the plant matter would be a couple of times heavier. Now this is nothing compared to trees, but this mass (taken mostly from the atmosphere) is attained in less than three months. Trees take much longer. Also, sunflowers grow in the worst kinds of soils with no tending or irrigation. And they look pretty!

 

On the downside, you'll lose easily 20-30% of your yield to birds, depending on the number of birds you have. Remember, no poisoning! We're environmentally responsible! But the good thing about that, is that the birds will poop the nutrients right back into the soil, increasing the quality of your land for next season's crop. So, if you're doing it for cash, budget it in and simply plant 30% more. As easy as that. But the money you make from the seeds is a bonus - you're doing it to take carbon out of the air, right?

 

What I'd do if I were you, would be to go and look for, say, between 20-50 hectares of land lying fallow in your region. Farmers farm the crap out of the land, and let it lie fallow for a couple of seasons, not thinking that sunflowers can grow perfectly well there, in the worst kinds of soils. So, go speak to the farmer, and rent the land from him. Get a guy with a tractor and a planter, and plant away! You do not need to tend it any further than that. Although you'll have to find out when the right times for planting sunflowers are in your valley. I can't help you with that. But in SA terms, on 50 hectares, with sunflowers, let's be conservative and estimate at 5 tons/hectare yield. That'll give you 250 tons. Selling at close to R3,000 a ton, that turns R750,000 for a three-month exercise. Rent would work out to less than R15,000 for three months for fallow land, and planting would probably set you back less than R30,000 total, including seed. You can get someone to harvest on a percentage basis, say, 10% - but then your crop is harvested and delivered to market, costing you R75,000.

 

The Rand trades at around R7 to the dollar, so, if your costs and prices are the same as here, that should be $430/ton, giving you a $107,000 turnover, with cost coming to $10,700 for harvest, and about $6,500 for rent and planting. Leaving you with around $90,000 for a three month exercise, when all you did was drive around, find land, and then do the whole thing from the telephone. Phone the planter, make a date, phone the harvester, make a date. And you took about 250 tons of carbon out of the atmosphere, just the weight of the seed! A sunflower plant weighs easily three times as much as the seeds alone, so that'll be around 1,000 tons for three months, and a handy profit in your pocket.

 

But hey - don't take my word for it!

 

You gotta learn how to chew tobacco first, however.

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An algaefarm could grow ~200 ton/ha per year of biomass. They can double their mass overnight. Since they consume some 3 ton of CO2 per ton grown you are looking at Kyoto credits on 600 tons of co2 per ha. At say $50 per ton on the credit market thats $30000 per ha + around 100 ton/ha of easily made diesel and ethanol. And an equivalent amount of burnable remains.

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