The earth is getting hotter by the hour and with good reason. A child could do the math! Firstly, the earth gets warmer from two main sources, the sun's energy in the form of sunlight heats the earth, and secondly, the earth gives up stored energy, when humans destore and use the energy already on earth. People destore energy when they use it as when they drive a car that is not fueled directly by the sun.
While energy is being stored in plants and other storage forms, it is less likely to produce heat, or might one say, unlikely to produce heat. Well we can't do much about the energy that is streaming in from the sun, which we know follows several cycles of repeating regularity. We know about agricultural and industrial cycles related to sun spots because of the data flows from records of our historical agricultural production. The process has been well documented.
We know that there are times that the sun's energy streaming to earth wanes quite apart from the 11/22 year regular sun spot cycles. There are thus waves within waves of the sun's production of heat streaming to earth. This heat affects our economies directly, but we still are not taking advantage of it sufficiently. Our sun using technologies are not developed enough and we are backward in terms of our economic growth based on sunlight energy.
If we are to get a handle on global warming we need to separate in the numbers the heat that is streaming in from the sun from that which we are creating by using energy already stored on earth, such as wood, gas and oil. By using sunlight directly to power our earthly activity and by storing the sun's energy, we have a hope of altering the key things in the negative global warming equation.
The no brainer is to realize that if people consume more and more of the energy that is already stored on earth that this will produce more and more heat. Using energy by destoring it produces heat. The more earthlings do, the more heat we will produce.
Global heat = heat from the sun(we can't do much about) + heat from the earth (we need to be more proactive about our net use and storage of energy coming from the earth)
Global Heat = Using energy coming from the earth + Using energy coming from the sun - Storing energy coming from the sun - Storing energy coming from the earth.
The idea that there is global warming should not be seen as an article of faith. It is stupid to say that one believes that there is global warming. A little bit of brain use identifies that there is bound to be global warming, if only because we have more people on earth using energy.
No! Global warming is happening because of economic growth based on the world using energy coming from the earth and its a no brainer! What one does about it is, however where we can really use our brains. To slow down global warming we need to alter the equation between use and storage of energy on earth substituting this with greater use of heat and energy coming from the sun.
We need to do this by a mix of public and private enterprise. If homo sapiens is going to survive, then the 'sapiens' part of the brain better start working and yesterday. Why? The easy reason is that we will not reduce our rate of use of energy without much much greater use of our ingenuity. Left on its own the human being will use more and more energy stored on the earth, such as available through fission or fusion reactors.
The only real effective method of reducing our consumption of energy stored on earth is to raise the price of that energy artificially so as to get technologists and commercial shifts towards energy coming from the sun. I have not mentioned the atom or the fusion reactor because such using such energy is still use of energy stored on earth that will definitely contribute to global warming.
Unfortunately, those programs that are trying to use energy from the sun such as by growing fuel crops on soil where there are already plants storing energy, do so by releasing the already stored energy and so there is not much net gain other than to reduce the price of using energy stored on earth, which we don't want to do. The real trick is to grow crops on desert where we have sunlight that is heating up our planet and not being stored in any way. In fact unstored sunlight can become trapped in the earth's atmosphere and interfere with the earth's normal 'cooling down' process, such is the CO2 gas effect.
In summary, the real threat is by way of using energy that is stored on earth and not by storing or by using enough of the energy coming from the sun. In my view, the real threat is in people not being sun oriented in their use of energy. For example, drying clothes on a clothes line uses heat from the sun instead of heat stored and generated from the earth.
By orienting ourselves more to the balance between sources and uses of energy from the earth and the sun, people on earth can survive.
If we were to use the sun to power our cars, we would reduce global warming. If we use hydrogen or atomic energy to power our cars we increase global warming so hydrogen and atomic energy is not the long term solution.
Conversion of the deserts to sustainable plant life would be a solution. For this we need water and we could use hydrogen energy to transport water to the deserts eventually altering the climate of deserts. Desalination technologies used in deserts and powered by the sun would help us use photosynthesis to store the energy coming from the sun.
Plant and nuture an oak to save a thousand lives!