If everyone is so concerned about global warming, why aren't we doing large scale removal of carbon dioxide?

Question

We have the technology to "scrub" the air. Why don't we have electronic trees or a filter that compresses the air and removes the CO2. It seems that the only solutions being presented are preventative types of things that do little if anything. If hippies and democrats are so serious, why don't they proactively remove what they believe to be damaging the environment?

Answer 1

There are few correction. Not they believe, you believe. What exactly technology are you talking about? What pack of ants can do with entire planet. You seem to have very bad censer of size scale.

Answer 2

Someone is directly benefiting from this situation. A lot of polluting industries like oil companies and car manufacturers have a lot of money and a lot of clout. So they lobby the living crap out of government, run disinformation campaigns (one of the most effective to date), and actively attempt to crush any legislation regarding the climate. They are going to fight tooth and nail to keep "business as usual" running.



Of course, what's been even more effective is how any and all information about Peak Oil has been kept out of the mainstream media. Sadly, no one financially benefits from reporting Peak Oil.



To be quite honest, I don't see much point in these techno-fixes. Just planting trees, restoring soil, cleaning streams, and reforesting are great ideas. And activists *do* do those things, it's just that it's gonna take more than a handful of us to solve the problem.

Answer 3

The plan to take CO2 out of the climate is very expensive. Not that I beleive the AGW hype, but the best plan is to move towards nuclear power. With this and a move towards e-cars (which we have had the technology for since the 70s or 80s) we would be able to drop our CO2 production to nearly nothing. If we made nuclear power plants using the same plans for multiple power plants, we would see that nuclear power would severly drop in cost (as most of the cost is in the initial construction) and the overall cost of power could drop lower than what we pay now. Unfortunately, while this is a solution that the repubs (those not normally for greener power) would accept, the greeners have been against nuclear power for so long, that many are still against it. So we have the dems, who can't get their crap together enough to actually work on a plan that would be accepted, and the repubs who really do not see AGW as a problem in the first place. The result is a stalemate and a new brand of religious zealots, who proudly display their "environmentalism" with their "green bags" but have next to no effect at all in actually improving anything.



BTW, the earth naturally takes CO2 out of the air. It is far more cost effective for us not to place it in the air and have the earth take it out, then for us to place it in the air and take it out.

Answer 4

We might be able to engineer our way around global warming by building "electronic trees" that remove co2, but the costs are enormous. In the end, we will need to stop burning fossil fuels anyway, because there won't be any left to burn. We might as well learn to use renewable sources now, like wind and solar.



No one of us can make a measurable difference to reduce global warming. Only the politicians have the power to effect real change. It seems that in the USA, congress bickers like children and nothing gets done. It's time to organize and start a real social movement...like the hippies did in the 60's, to end the VietNam war. Like M L King did for human rights. We the people must rise up and march on the capitols of our states and nation to demand that our leaders enact laws protect our fragile planet. Young people everywhere, this is your life, your children, your planet. Get mad!! Organize!!

Answer 5

Simple they are to small scale there are several ideas out there (and have been for over a decade) for the so called "artificial tree" but they need some rather toxic chemicals and if you tally up the human sources of Co2 emissions 800,000,000 cars many thousands of of Ships & Trains and thousands coal fired power stations and tens of thousands aircraft. As well as Agriculture and forest clearing you get a figure (2007 data) of 30 Billion tons of Co2 per year (100x the volcanic output),

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11638-climate-myths-human-co2-emissions-are-too-tiny-to-matter.html

If one of these devices could absorb the output of 5000 cars you would have to build 160,000 of them just to offset what cars are emitting and they would have to be regularly serviced to remove and replace the chemical that is absorbing the Co2, you would then have to store the many millions of gallons of that material somewhere, rather than fixing a problem you would end up with two problems. Which is why few are looking seriously at this as an option, when it is far simpler to just reduce our Co2 output with say, vehicles that don't burn fossil fuels and with at least two main stream manufacturers launching electric vehicles that is well under way although it will probable take a couple of decades for electrics to mature and become the predominant vehicle but rising fuel prices will help move many to the change. There will probably be some scare tactics from the fuel industry just as there where when Governments tried to get them to change to unleaded fuel, the stories of that fuel destroying engines were pretty much fantasy, they don't seem to have changed their tactics and they are still spreading fiction similar tactics were tried with ethanol blend fuels again it was fiction, and was simply the oil industry not wanting to spend the money to change.

Answer 6

In 1900? there have been possibly a million-2 billion human beings in the international, with finished rain forests, numerous phytoplankton, fewer domesticated animals, and much less industry. the factor that has been made with this question is that if guy is contributing to worldwide warming, bigger inhabitants is likewise a important contributor,no longer in basic terms via bigger fossil gas utilization, yet in addition via different procedures. Methane and water vapor are lots stronger worldwide warming brokers than is carbon dioxide, so lesser quantities impact the equation greater dramatically. Fewer vegetation around to transform carbon dioxide into potential and oxygen, coupled with greater materials, the two biotic and different, feeding extra greenhouse inputs into the gadget. to assert the carbon dioxide from animals and persons is recycled the comparable with 6 billion human beings is the comparable because it grow to be with a million billion human beings is only too simplistic. those isotopes of carbon, the carbon 13 etc. measured as an enter from burning fossil fuels will additionally be taken in through vegetation and extra into the carbon footprint. How lots oxygen does one human convert into carbon dioxide in one day? Multiply that through 12 months and six billion human beings, and the overpopulation image starts off to feed the international warming image on many levels, no longer in basic terms potential intake. additionally remember that archives shows 10 billion human beings in the international interior the no longer so distant destiny.

Answer 7

Most people in the community have reached the consensus that something needs to be done right now. However, when you tell people that their cost of living is going to increase by even a tiny amount to pay for the tax which saves the environment, they will go ape-**** crazy.

Answer 8

1) Because the net carbon footprint reduction of the technology is so low.

2) Because it would take Republican votes to implement.

2) Because very few people really are seriously concerned about global warming to begin with.



How about a nice Republican slogan here: Three strikes (against common sense and a basic knowledge of the subject): you're out.

Answer 9

Because there are to many lobbyist in DC that prevent the policies going through.

Answer 10

Thats the right on man. You said it.

Answer 11

Why have electronic trees when we have real trees?



Perhaps even democrats are smart enough to know that electronic trees would be stupid. Then again, they're Democrats.