Climate change solutions: sceptic opinions wanted

Comparing the efforts to stop climate change to other movements of the past century, the Green movement is failing. The point of this thread is looking for solutions. The people most critical of climate change have the potential to think of the best solutions since they're not just repeating mainline arguments, so for the sake of conversation, pretend you think it's a thing. Suspend your disbelief: what are our best solutions?

I see several reasons why we are so apathetic on climate change.
First of all, the climate change issue has no charismatic figurehead. No Susan B. Anthony, no Martin Luther King, Jr. Sorry, but Al Gore, Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein are all deadly serious, and unable to capture hearts and minds. Elon Musk could be an Andrew Carnegie, using his wealth for the public benefit. Instead, he put a very expensive car in space, an asinine stunt that benefits no one.

Secondly, the message is both dreary and hopeless. The anti smoking movement of my childhood was dreary, but since it was based on individual action, it was not hopeless.

Thirdly, the solutions proposed are mostly policy and government action. This is a huge failing, because the policies proposed are largely partisan, and have intangible results. The carbon tax is a prime example. It's fighting two wars at once: climate change, and left-wing regulations on business.

Here are my solutions:
1. Actions proposed must have tangible results for individuals. Plant milkweed, and you get monarchs in your yard. (Not give up your straws.) In my opinion, trees are a good place to start. They're lovely, and the shade they provide is a very tangible result.

2. The message must not be so damn hopeless. No one wants to fight a hopeless cause. There needs to be more emphasis on the good: Like forests produce aerosols that benefit the climate. Clean oceans, free from oil spills, maintain the fishing economy. We can be the world leaders in renewable energy - another manufacturing boom like after WWII.

3. Government policy needs to respect the goals of both sides. Instead of it being penalty, penalty, penalty, liberal, liberal, liberal, how about tax breaks for green businesses? Especially small business owners? Increased social security benefits or a tax holiday for green industry workers? And with all its funding, the military as a bastion of climate protection? Smarter use of the money we spend, not spending more money.

It was a smart criticism of the carbon tax by infolurker the other day that got me thinking about this. Thanks in advance to any sceptics who suspend disbelief for a minute to add to the list of solutions.

a reply to: Look2theSacredHeart

Pisst....." k" .

I think one of the saddest moves was for certain regions to ban cooking with wood. It has worked since the first cooked foods yet in their infinite smugness they believed it was necessary. Allow people to be themselves and only have logical regulations on stuff. In other words stop going over the top forcing people to do something.

a reply to: Look2theSacredHeart


If (and it still is an if for many of us) Anthropomorphic climate change is real, then...
Tax resource use properly, not by sticking a quid on the price of a gallon of gas so that everyone just scraping by and working their butts off finds life even harder, but, tax Assets.

What does this mean? Well, if you live in a mansion and use, say 50 grand's worth of electricity a year. Own 2 Rolls Royces and a couple of Ferraris, then you should pay for your much greater impact on the environment than the single mum, living in a 2 bed flat and driving a knackered little diesel car that is older than her.


At the moment, you can say, use more money heating the swimming pool in your second house in the Hamptons than the single mum earns, but, proportionately she will pay more in environmental taxes than you do.


Just because you can afford to buy a Tesla or an I8 does not mean you are having a lower impact than someone who is still driving the same car they were twenty years ago..I would bet the environmental impact of manufacturing both cars would actually put the person in the old one ahead in the green scheme


That's what I think, it won't happen though, because the people usually calling for more taxes generally call for more taxes on stuff that they won't be affected by.

a reply to: Look2theSacredHeart

Use capitalism to your benefit.


Have a government-sponsored (or even corporate-sponsored) contest. An actual contest for individuals who can come up with energy-saving, non-polluting concepts.

We have 320 odd million people in the US. A few are pretty danged smart.

Use individual innovation, REWARD individual innovation.

Maybe some guy has an idea for a water-fueled car. Instead of having General Motors/OPEC nab the patent and hide it, promote it, reward it.

Put it out on the web.

Make innovation open and free so the entire planet can benefit.



An honest answer to your question.

Maybe having a viable replacement would help.
We all want a clean planet.

Maybe maui jim could grind us a giant lense to block the normal sun cycles?

a reply to: Look2theSacredHeart

Lots of solutions..... Give me some time to pull a bunch of my old posts on it.

Problem is, it is not a big money scam and trillions will not be made off of them. Doesn't matter if you believe in or the causes of climate change since these solutions solve multiple problems (like fertilizer, liquid fossil fuels, etc.) and radically reduce pollution as well.

a reply to: Look2theSacredHeart

Solution #1

Algae Oil - Carbon Neutral Liquid Fuel. We can easily produce the entire nations liquid fuel needs and power plant electrical generation with Algae Oil.

blogs.wsj.com...

Hydrogen from Algae an Algae oil is an answer to bio generated fuel.. .see this video (estimated 10,000-20,000 gallons per acre per year.... corn and soybeans are in the hundreds (not 10's of thousands per acre) and has to be heavily processed.









Solution #2 - See this post from 2009
www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.newscientist.com...

Your work on atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons led eventually to a global CFC ban that saved us from ozone-layer depletion. Do we have time to do a similar thing with carbon emissions to save ourselves from climate change?

Not a hope in hell. Most of the "green" stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It's not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it'll make a lot of money for a lot of people. - (skip a few questions)

There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast.

Would it make enough of a difference?

Yes. The biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly; we put in only 30 gigatonnes. Ninety-nine per cent of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by consumers like bacteria, nematodes and worms. What we can do is cheat those consumers by getting farmers to burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which the farmer then ploughs into the field. A little CO2 is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon. You get a few per cent of biofuel as a by-product of the combustion process, which the farmer can sell. This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won't do it.

Before solving a problem we would have to agree that a problem actually exists. While the climate changes there is no consensus that it is man made nor thwt we need to do anything about natural earth cycles.

I suggest that if this is important to someone then they should do what they can to change the world without entangling the rest of us in their schemes.

a reply to: TheOne7

That's so interesting. There are some groups in Europe working with Paulownia trees as a renewable energy and lumber source. It matures in 30 years, locks up a huge amount of carbon compared to other species, grows throughout temperate and subtropical regions, and has the same BTUs as black locusts.
You're also right that excessive regulations just turn people off.

originally posted by: Metallicus
Before solving a problem we would have to agree that a problem actually exists. While the climate changes there is no consensus that it is man made nor thwt we need to do anything about natural earth cycles.

I suggest that if this is important to someone then they should do what they can to change the world without entangling the rest of us in their schemes.

Doesn't matter, these solutions also not only reduce pollution but also completely gives us the ultimate renewable fuel source.... and food source, all in one.

Then, other solutions I will list have proof positive benefits as well.... And The Best Thing.... No More Carbon Credit Scam.

a reply to: SprocketUK

Thank you for toying with the if.

So it would work, in effect, like a sales tax. The more you consume, the more you contribute.

a reply to: DBCowboy

This is an AWESOME idea. How has this not happened yet? (Maybe because of the echo chambers our society is split into.)

a reply to: infolurker

Holy cow. Thank you for compiling all that. I'm really gonna enjoy digging into your vids and links tonight.

a reply to: Look2theSacredHeart

Solution #3 Plasma Gasification: Removing Landfills, no more rotting methane

originally posted by: Look2theSacredHeart
a reply to: SprocketUK

Thank you for toying with the if.

So it would work, in effect, like a sales tax. The more you consume, the more you contribute.

sort of but not.
See, the problem with pure sales tax is the regressive nature.
The millionaire pays the same extra 10 per cent on top of a gallon of fuel as the little guy.
If you look at assets though, and factor that in, the effect would be that though Mark Zuckerberg and Joe Schmoe pay the same price at the gas pump, there is an asset tax that means, say, the big, I mean, yuuuge house Zucks spends a few weeks a year in attracts a lot more tax than the little 2 bed thing that Joe rents. So really, Joe shouldn't be taxed any extra on that.

If you think about it in terms of pure resources for stuff, people with private jets, massive and (multiple houses) Enormous, motor yachts etc ought to pay their taxes based on these things.
Maybe a hundred k per year for each million quid's worth of house/yacht/plane/car would do it?
Its a tax that really wouldn't affect anyone without the means to pay it but could generate a lot of dough to maybe pour into research on things like the algae.

Not to sound like a hippy, but show me a plant that can put out the amount of flammable oil in mj, and be grown in 6 weeks.

Corn is a joke compared to it.

It's dripping with oils and easily extracted.

a reply to: Mandroid7

As a gasoline replacement? That's cool! I didn't know its oil had that potential energy.

Plus, hemp clothes are really comfy.

a reply to: Look2theSacredHeart

Solution #4 CO2 Small Modular Reactors - Taking CO2 from the ocean and turning it into fuel.... pair up with wind power and you have a self-sustaining fuel producing platform. Jetfuel from seawater.