Would planting simple crops/plants atop buildings help reduce the progression of global warming?

by: CharlaIf every building in the US were required to maintain plants on their rootops, perhaps CO2 emissions could be reduced. To get buy in from building owners, the plants would have to be easy and inexpensive to maintain. They should be as self-sufficient as possible–requiring little/no extra water and local climate, full-sun, and wind hardy.

Here’s a link to a photo of sweet potatoes being grown on rooftops in Japan to cut down on urban heat: http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstPhotos/index.php?photoid=16097.

Questions: Would it work? What plants would work best? How would the plan be implemented? How would it be enforced? Could new buildings be required and old ones be retro fitted? What happens when the plants die? Will that release even more CO2? Why not try it? How could it be tested? What would be the impacts, positive and negative? What other considerations are there?

stopglobalwarmingtogether.com

Al Gore: If global warming is caused by human fossil fuel use, why are the caps on mars melting as well?

by: thatguy2007I want to hear an answer from you liberals concerning this fact. You libs claim that our caps are melting b/c of CO2 emissions via humans. Then is Mars warming b/c of humans as well? Think about it – just another reason to dispel your Al Gore myths. Did you ever think that we are just going through a warming phase or that the warming might have something to do with the sun (independent of our actions)?

Re-Ren

How much trillions of tons of Carbon Dioxide emissions could be eliminated if carbonated drinks were banned ?

by: carbonateddrinkspollutetheairMost soft drinks are carbonated with Carbon Dioxide, which contributes to global warming. Restaurants and bars also use Carbon Dioxide to “push” the concentrated syrup from the “bag in the box” to the soda dispenser, where a check valve releases the CO2 into the atmosphere.

We focus on other sources of CO2 emissions, but world wide, the amount of CO2 purposely produced and released into our atmosphere via carbonated drinks must add up to a lot of emissions also ?

John Eddy

Heal global warming and produce energy at the same time?

by: dolphinparty13Heal global warming and produce energy at the same time?

I am not a chemist or anything but I had in idea when I woke up this morning. The two elements in primary question are ozone (O3) and carbon dioxide (co2). The problem is that we have too much co2 not enough ozone, partly because of various chemical pollutants that destroy the volatile ozone molecule. So here is my idea.

Take the 2 elements, we have 1 carbon and 2 oxygen make up Co2, then in water we have 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen. What we could do is device someway to harvest CO2 emissions, and combine them with water (h2o) on a molecular basis. Break down the 2 molecules, leaving 3 oxygen atoms, 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 carbon.
Take the 3 oxygen out and use electrolysis to turn them into ozone (O3) and take the byproduct of 1 carbon and 2 hydrogen and make the base compound for cyclopropane, which is an anesthetic not comely used. However, it is a type of fuel that could be used, stored, or just plane expelled into space. The third byproduct of the process is raw energy.

Another part of the issue I was thinking about this morning was the relative oxygen in relation to carbon emissions. I am wondering if we are actually decreasing the oxygen available. For instance molecules of chlorine literally destroy oxygen, and they are in every household city water system.
We have deforestation, but the biggest impact on our oxygen output is the algae, which are starting to become diseased as we can see from black and red algae blooms. The algae makes 70% of our oxygen, if we cut the oxygen production levels of our planet the relative difference would appear that we are having an increase of GHG’s, maybe what we have is a decrease in oxygen.
AS far as disperssing the ozone, as it is toxic at our level, we could send it up in hemp balloons mixed with helium (or other light appropriate gas) and set them to release at the right altitude. Think about taking the residual smoke from a fossil fuel burning plant, mixing it with a little water, creating ozone to patch and cool the atmosphere while creating cyclopropane which is a clean burning fuel source that could be used for heating. On cars that have emmisions a device could be mounted to the muffler outlet and a storage tank could be installed for ozone and the cyclopropane could be routed somehow to the fuel system. The ozone could be dumped off at gas stations, that could be sent to central releasing stations in the antarctic. The transport alone would create millions of jobs worldwide, and it would be something we could all contribute to with assurance that the right thing is being done.
There was a comment from one of the questioners about patent and money. What I am trying to do here is give someone with the capabilities and means the idea so that they can do something good. Money is a byproduct to me.

Zekcy

Does anyone know how Australia could possibly be the world’s 2nd CO2 emitter?

by: away teamOf course, the leading CO2 emitter is the US. That didn’t surprise me. But Australia as number two in the world? That’s what the Union of Concerned Scientists are saying:

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2-emissions.html

What’s going on here? Am I missing something? According to Wikipedia, the current population of Australia is 20.6 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia

Please, to my Aussie friends, I mean no offense.
Koyyalamudi R–Good question. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, “…all sources of fossil fuel burning…” were taken into account for this ranking. For those without a dictionary handy, fossil fuels include petroleum, coal, and natural gas.
In other words natural sources like volcanoes or forest fires were not taken into consideration. Deforestation leads to higher CO2 concentrations, so that’s not good (but wasn’t figured in here).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

Methane gas wasn’t figured into the equation either.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2-emissions.html

Remember, I’m a layman who likes to keep up on science. I am far from having all the answers. Thus, my question appears here. Thanks for your participation.

Damien