Look, there is no ‘debate’ about whether or not there is global warming and if it is the result of human activity. A whopping 97% of climate scientists agree that there is global warming and humans are the reason. There are a few outliers who are also scientists who argue against it — they usually have a vested interest in being “blind” — but a lack of 100% consensus is NOT a debate. There is no ‘debate’ over whether the Holocaust happened; there are only a few Holocaust deniers. There is no ‘debate’ over the roundness of the earth; there are just some flat earth diehards. There is no ‘debate’ over whether or not aliens built the pyramids rather than the Egyptians ; there are just nutter-butters who watch the so-called Discovery Channel on TV too much. The is no debate on global warming; just oil barons who are greed/bitter and have enough money to buy airtime/politicians.
NASA did everyone a favor and compiled all the clearest, most understandable-to-the-layman evidence together in one handy webpage they titled (handily enough) Climate change: How do we know? It has lots of nifty charts, like this one:
They go into great detail about it all, so I don’t have to. Instead, I’ll focus on what can be done.
There is good news on the rending-fossil-fuels front. For one thing, solar power is rapidly becoming king. Even the International Business Times knows fossil fuels are dying out an solar power is taking over. is a “report released late last year by German think tank Agora Energiewende, predicted solar energy would become the cheapest source of electricity in many parts of the world within the next 10 years … Solar energy is good for the planet, but not for the fossil fuel industry.” Forbes, the bastion of fossil fuel lovers and businessmen, warns that solar is ready to give fossil fuels a drubbing. These are not eco-friendly hippie sites; these are publications by and for Big Oil and Big Business.
The bad news is that even if we stop CO2 emissions overnight to zero, it could still “take as long as 1,000 years after a complete halt of greenhouse gas emissions for environmental measures like sea level and ocean surface temperature to return to pre-industrial levels”. It isn’t enough to stop the emissions. We have GOT to get the CO2 down as fast as possible by actively removing it. But how?
Well, we might just be able to do it if we emulate botany via artificial photosynthesis. Scientists have tentatively come up with “a hybrid system of bacteria and nanowires that mimics the way plants use the energy in sunlight to synthesize carbohydrates from CO2 and water, i.e. photosynthesis … the CO2 is converted into valuable chemical products, including liquid fuels, pharmaceutical medications and biodegradable plastics – using solar energy.”
YAY!
However, the government would have to get whole-heartedly behind this with funding and implementation … but what do you think the odds are of the politicians in thrall to the Big Oil Barons – AKA the Koch Brothers allowing that to happen?