What we have is called a 'high equilibrium trap'. For over 200 years the burning of fossil fuels has accelerated along with the growth of population and the clear cutting of forests that act as carbon sinks. NOTHING on the horizon is going to stop either the increased use of fossil fuels OR the growth of population... NOTHING! If the entire world decided to stop burning fossil fuels today the entire web of factors that allow seven billion human beings to exist on this planet would collapse. If we continue to maintain fossil fuel burning and population growth the entire web that allows seven billion human beings to exist on this planet will also collapse. That's what a 'high equilibrium trap' is. It's not a trap you can get out of, that door is already shut tight.

The question as to what to do as a 'solution' is the wrong question. To get the right answer you have to ask the right question.

The right question is how do we as a species survive a massive failure of all of our social, political, economic and religious constructs. We do have some history to guide us. When the Roman Empire finally gave up the ghost there were still people, but the technical know how of engineering, institutions of learning, large scale farming and social and political organization came to a halt. By happenstance by 500 AD the rise of religious retreats made it possible to conserve at least some learning even through the dark ages.

I suspect that before climate change disrupts the ability of societies to feed what will be nine billon people information will be sealed away by what can only be described as a secular priesthood. A few million people will survive, and at some point several centuries in the future that knowledge will be reestablished. It will be a poorer world, but it will be a livable world... not by our standards, but there will be civilization.

A 'solution' is having a parachute when the plane is falling out of the sky. We have no parachute. In fact way too many people don't even know that the plane IS falling out of the sky. Individuals may survive a world with a CO2 index above 450ppm, but for entire societies so dependent on everything hanging together in the face of massive climate change... good luck with that!

The thing is... it's a complex problem, and there is no single solution (short of, say, immediately banning all fossil fuel use worldwide, which would be incredibly disruptive) that would make the problem completely go away in X years. Hell, with the warming in the pipeline (that is, warming that is going to happen from the CO2 already in the air, it takes time for the Earth to actually reach thermal equilibrium), even if we completely stopped all deforestation and all burning of fossil fuels today, there's still warming that would happen.

But, well... you've probably heard the saying... "The first rule of holes is, stop digging when you're in one."

If we keep making the problem worse and worse, we're all screwed. If we, instead, start reducing the problem--by switching to non-fossil fuel power sources, such as solar, wind, and nuclear; by conserving energy, so we need less fossil fuel use during the transition and don't need to put in as much in the way of other power sources to be "carbon free"; by planting more trees; by controlling methane emissions from our livestock, agricultural waste, and garbage; et cetera--then we can slow or even halt its progress, and eventually even reverse it.

But if we keep saying "Oh, well, it's too hard to fix this, so let's just keep doing whatever we want", we'd... be a lot like someone who says "I can't pay my credit card bill this month, so I'm just going to keep spending money like it's water until the debt collectors come".

First rule of holes, dude.

The solution to global warming is to do NOTHING. Because it does not exist.

It doesn't matter if you are talking about man-made Global Warming or natural warming, neither exist today. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/fro...

The only problem with global warming is that it's a political movement that is costing the taxpayers into the hundreds of Billions of dollars and all of that money is being wasted.

If we cut the funding for this scam --- then you will hear little about global warming in the near future. Warmists want to use OUR tax money to sustain this scam just like they have been doing for more than 30 years. When the funding stops, so will the incessant screeching about so called global warming.

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I don't think the global warming will be much of a problem, BUT if we wanted to fix it then..

The US solution

1.) Start a switch to nuclear power to provide the base load. Using the same design for mutliple plants would severely reduce the costs. Set up a strategy of opening up nuclear power plants to replace old coal plants after 30 years. This would have our output of CO2 down nearly 70% in the next 35 years.

2.) If we continue to see the reduction in the cost of solar power, then with little help, solar power will become the primary provider of energy for the home and could be used as a source of partial energy for cars.

3.) A movement to e-cars should take around 30 years. Some new technology needed is a quick charging battery with the fuel locations creating these type of quick charging stations. Further the cars will need to travel about 300 miles without a recharge to be readily usable. With direction, this could be accomplished in 30-35 years.

For other countries.

1.) Clearly the cost in solar continuing to decline will make this source readily available for other countries.

2.) The e-car emergence in the US will naturally lead to it being sold in the rest of the world.

3.) The base load power cannot be provided by nuclear for many countries, as they are not in a position to be trusted with nuclear power. This is really the only unknown in my plan.

All of the other portions of the other countries should follow the US in around 20 years (with Europe about 5 years or maybe even sooner than the US, with third world maybe 30 years).

One should note, that my plan will require no more taxation than is currently present. It just requires direction. Above all, it requires that the environmentalists start acting like the care about the environment and start endorsing instead of cursing one of the cleanest and most efficient ways of getting power (nuclear). Most of the costs involved in nuclear is that the communities don't want them around and are afraid of three-headed children from green glowing goo. An assinine load of BS fed to the people by the "environmentalists".

Paul h,

Nuclear is only expensive in the US because we have demonized it.

https://www.euronuclear.org/1-informatio...

Note the cost comparison in Europe places it cheaper than coal.

Paul H,

Have you looked at the deaths from the meltdowns you reference. Now compare those to the number of deaths from coal mines. Fukishima, which you reference as 3 separate failings, was caused by poorly placed secondary systems failing (a known problem) after the 5th largest earthquake on record followed by a tsunami. And how many locations in the US can be subject to both an earthquake and a tsunami?

Based on the BS, er I mean BS for the last time you posted this question, and your comment to Sagebrush that his answer is good, I would say that you are not interested in real answers. Perhaps you should do like Madd Maxx and block everyone who has one.

But why do you need to say that you need to know X years in your answer?

Conserving energy and reducing population won't stop global warming; only slow it down, though slowing it down will buy some time to get clean energy solutions on line.

Apparently you "forgot"

1) That you already asked this same "question" two days ago.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...

2) That, as "best answer" to the "question," you chose:

"AGW is an absolute hoax...and an appropriate solution to the "problem" is to work to educate people about the scam that this represents. Here is the deal. People who stalwartly insist on AGW dogma, in the face of very feeble scientific data, are rightly known as "Global Warming Alarmists," and pseudo-scientists. And as they shift the rhetoric to "Global Climate Change," they are just playing silly head-games. There are about a dozen reasons why the AGW hypothesis is fatally flawed. And, the official position nicely represents a lack of critical thinking (and probably a hidden agenda)."

3) To which you commented:

"5 out of 5 No one answered the question. What is the solution? Yes, we have taxes and they are legal but there is a huge difference between a tax and a penalty...and a penalty just because. Once the penalty money is collected...then what? Still no solution. Bottom line...it's a hoax. "

The REAL question here seems to be, "How do I perpetrate a hoax on YA"?

To which one answer would be: try to be less obviously deceptive.

01 Tackling Emissions Growth: The Role of Markets and Government Regulation

02 Achieving low emissions energy systems in rapidly developing economies

03 Drawing down CO2 from the atmosphere

04 The role of city planning and buildings in tackling emissions growth

05 Achieving the capital investment required to tackle climate change

06 The CEO's survival guide to climate change

07 Adapting to the impacts of climate change

08 Role of Information and Communications Technology in Addressing Climate Change

09 Beyond a global agreement: Scenarios from the future

You need to do your own schoolwork so you can develop your brain and amount to something

The problem is over 250 years of humans emitting more and more greenhouse gases to the point that AGW will last beyond 2100. The quicker we can conserve now and move away from fossil fuels the more likely it is we can have an impact on CO2 emissions to possibly slow down AGW for ourselves and for future generations

Too many people are getting rich and powerful by this scam.

Quote by Ottmar Edenhoffer, high level UN-IPCC official: "We redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy...Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization...One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore."

Or as one common sense scientist puts it:

Quote by Tom McElmurry, meteorologist, former tornado forecaster in Severe Weather Service: “Governmental officials are currently casting trillions down huge rat hole to solve a problem which doesn’t exist....Packs of rats wait in that [rat] hole to reap trillions coming down it to fill advocates pockets....The money we are about to spend on drastically reducing carbon dioxide will line the pockets of the environmentalists....some politicians are standing in line to fill their pockets with kick back money for large grants to the environmental experts....In case you haven’t noticed, it is an expanding profit-making industry, growing in proportion to the horror warnings by government officials and former vice-presidents.”

Just don't feed the kitty and attempt to stop them from making asinine laws. It will go away when the truth comes out.

The solution is to do nothing especially drastic like converting everything to much more expensive forms of energy like wind, solar, nuclear, etc..or convert over to electric vehicles which just move the emissions from tailpipes to smokestacks or higher cost solar/wind power and would require many billions or trillions of dollars in updating the power grid to accommodate all the vehicles in the US and elsewhere.

We should still look into more efficient methods to provide cleaner, less polluting energy sources for a growing population on Earth and more efficient use of fossil fuels to make finite supplies last longer and give time for research and conversion into cleaner, carbon-neutral or negative biofuels, etc...

If you consider all the health care costs of pollution from obtaining or burning dirty fossil fuels like coal or oil versus cleaner fuels or alternative energy forms, then you will get a true picture of how much each energy form costs us. One nuclear accident can also cost billions of dollars and decades to clean up. Energy prices that consumers pay should reflect the total overall costs of not only how much it costs to produce and distribute but also the long term health costs. Not too many studies on that give an accurate assessment and it's hard to pin down exact figures given so many variables involved.....do you include the emissions of workers driving to energy construction or distribution sites? etc..

IMO...Global warming will in turn lead to global cooling...it has to.

As the oceans heat up from excess heat or warming, they emit more moisture into the atmosphere which also leads to more warming since it is a more prevalent GHG than CO2 ...more moisture in turn falls back as much more rain and snow ...more snowfall in turn leads to higher albedo in polar regions which in turn leads to more reflected sunlight/cooling effects. More warming also melts more Arctic ice and melted fresh water entering the ocean disrupts the global ocean conveyor belt of currents in the North Atlantic which in turn leads to colder areas in Europe/North America and more cooling effects. And the cycle goes on unless solar inputs alter. Human CO2 emissions or melting permafrost/methane emissions may speed up the process but in the end, any excess warming will always lead to more cooling.

The one factor left out in many discussions is solar inputs..the sun's sunspot/solar flare cycle is due to diminish in the next year or so or has already and will lead to more cooling such that we may yearn for the good old days of a warmer climate....then people will then cry out for more CO2 emissions to warm things back up. We'll just have to wait and see but don't pack away the longjohns just yet.

"Is a mini ice age on the way? Scientists warn the Sun has 'gone to sleep' and say it could cause temperatures to plunge

2013 was due to be year of the 'solar maximum'

Researchers say solar activity is at a fraction of what they expect

Conditions 'very similar' a time in 1645 when a mini ice age hit "

"The Sun's activity is at its lowest for 100 years, scientists have warned.

They say the conditions are eerily similar to those before the Maunder Minimum, a time in 1645 when a mini ice age hit, Freezing London's River Thames.

Researcher believe the solar lull could cause major changes, and say there is a 20% chance it could lead to 'major changes' in temperatures."

"'Whatever measure you use, solar peaks are coming down,' Richard Harrison of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire told the BBC.

'I've been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I've never seen anything like this.'

He says the phenomenon could lead to colder winters similar to those during the Maunder Minimum."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...

For a little humor...the most reliable chart of global warming in the past two centuries...