Hackers, Deniers and Real Solutions to Global Warming

Recently there has been a controversy about hackers who hacked into the UN site dealing with climate change and found some data fudging and sloppy research. Some have used that to claim global warming to be a fraud. There is a problem with that. The UN body is just one out of many bodies, academic, governmental, business, and private, that have conclusive evidence of global warming. And if some fools at UN have cut some corners, says nothing about the reality of global warming, which has far more credible evidence behind it than what was provided by that body.

These people are now claiming global warming to be a fraud. Tell that to the people of Malawi and Kiribati, whose countries are sinking into the sea as a result of the melting glaciers. Tell that to the people of New Orleans. Tell that to the people who died in Europe's heat waves and Australian forest fires. Tell that to the people in cities as big as Jakarta, that are now constantly being flooded as ocean waters rise.

There are some who see these events as not being related to carbon emissions and postulate other explanations, such as natural weather cycles. There is nothing cyclical about there being the highest amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in 450,000 years. There is nothing natural about ocean water becoming acidic and killing all the fish. When one cuts down the forests and raises carbon emissions, the carbon dioxide has only two places to go to. One is the oceans, where it makes the water acidic and no longer life-supporting. The other is the atmosphere, where it reflects sun's rays from reflecting off the earth's surface and into the outer space and bounces them back to the earth's surface, causing it to become hot. On planet Venus, whose atmosphere is largely carbon dioxide, this greenhouse effect is so bad that its surface temperatures are 500 degrees. And if this is not addressed now, then that's the direction in which we are going.

As for the people who are eagerly awaiting the Armageddon, I have hard news. Burning down the planet will not get you to heaven or anywhere near heaven. These people should not be eagerly awaiting the Armageddon; they should be terrified of it. They want to do away with their children's future and their children's right to a livable world in order that they could themselves have their selfish salvation. No god would look kindly on such a thing.

In 20AD, a Roman named Hero of Alexandria invented the steam engine. The Romans thought that the slave labor was cheap enough, and that there was no need for this invention. If they thought ahead, they would have been able to industrialize 1800 years early, abolish slavery, and create military machines that would have made mincemeat of any invading army, and the world would be speaking Latin to this day. Instead they kept the horrible institution of slavery that was the rightful source of resentment and hatred against Roman Empire as well as the world, and Roman Empire went down to flaming ruin. There are now technologies available to meet all of humanity's energy and water requirements in processes that are totally non-polluting. In choosing to embrace these technologies, or to keep the status quo, humanity faces similar choice but on a much larger scale.

There are real solutions to global warming. And I do not mean going to subsistence agriculture any more than I mean positive thinking or asking Jesus or aliens to save us. I mean real, technically and economically viable, technological solutions that will allow people to keep all that they have while drastically reducing the burden on the planet. What solutions are these?

Much has been written about solar power, wind power, nuclear power, and biofuels; but there is a technology that is superior to them all. It has not been in the news, but it should be. What if I were to tell you that there is a technology that will provide both the energy and the water needs of humanity, abundant, clean, round-the-clock, on-demand, and unlimited, using a process that only requires the sun and the ocean water and produces at the consumer end only clean energy and clean water to be recycled back into the environment?

What if I were to tell you that this mechanism will have twice the energy efficiency of the electric grid; will end the burden on lakes, rivers and ground water resources; will replace two systems with one system, realizing huge economic benefit; and will allow oil resources to last longer and be used for more profitable higher-end goods?

What if I were to tell you that this technology has been reviewed and found to be economically and technically feasible, and to be a vast improvement over the status quo?

There is in fact such technology. It is called the Hydrogen Transmission Network. In Hydrogen Transmission Network, solar power will drive electrolysis of ocean water, breaking it down into Hydrogen and Oxygen. Oxygen will be released into the air; hydrogen will be sent through pipes to houses, offices, farms, and places of industry and commerce, to be reacted using fuel cells with oxygen in the air to create clean energy and clean water at once. Hydrogen also will be piped to fueling stations to power hydrogen-based vehicles. All of humanity's water and energy needs can be met through a process that takes nothing that can't be replaced and creates nothing that is in any way harmful. And since transmitting hydrogen through pipes is almost loss-free, this mechanism will have energy efficiency over twice that of the electric grid.

There are other parts to solution that aren't discussed much, but should be. Sahara is a vast desert where no human or animal lives except in oases. It is not ecological anything; it is a manmade creation, put in place by Berbers who used slash-and-burn agriculture in what was then rainforest, much like the Brazilians are using slash-and-burn agriculture in the rainforest now. Right now, Sahara is the most empty, most worthless, most barren, stretch of land on the planet. What if it were converted into forests and farmland? How much CO2 would be taken out of the atmosphere, and how much food would be produced to feed the African people then?

How much CO2 would be taken out of the atmosphere, and how much human benefit would be realized, if the same is done to the deserts of Arabia, Mongolia, Rajasthan, Australian Outback, and the parts of the American Southwest that were deforested by the Anasazi?

These solutions not only realize benefit by reducing global warming. These solutions realize economic, technical, and environmental benefit in themselves. Even if there are other ways to address global warming, these solutions are beneficial both to humanity and to the environment.  It is not faith that saves humanity; it is intelligence that saves humanity. And with application of real intelligence, a viable future for humanity and the planet can be on its way.

The solution to global warming is not denying it or misrepresenting it any more than it is doing away with the economy or the civilization. The real solution to global warming is using better technologies in place of the outdated technologies that have created the disaster in the first place. One stands to fear nothing from these solutions and has much to hope for from them.

It is time to put into place real solutions for global warming.