How to control global warming

It was on Earth Day 2016 when more than 170 nations signed the Paris Agreement calling for limiting global warming “to well below 2°C.” Putting together the terms took years, with the difficult diplomatic work wrapped up by the end of 2015. Of course, the world’s climate emissaries would want to wait for a more dramatic date to sign. We’re now five Earth Days since Paris, and 50 years since the very first Earth Day. The world has moved from an average temperature increase of 0.06°C in April 1970 to 1.16°C today. That means we’re nearly 60% of the way towards breaching the Paris target, and a stretch goal of staying below 1.5°C is all but dead. Source: But these decades have not been entirely wasted. Many of the necessary fixes that could only be imagined 50 years ago are now in hand, so no one needs to wait any longer for the futuristic climate solutions to be invented. In fact, we’ve already seen most of the large-scale solutions successfully deployed somewhere in the world. Electric vehicles make up more than half of Norway’s passenger vehicle sales. The U.S. has retired 20% of its coal-fired power generation since 2012. Indonesia reduced its rate of tree-cover loss by 60% in 2017. That means we now have enough data to measure the relative effectiveness of major climate solutions. Whether you’re a head of state, corporate executive, climate activist or bystander, there haven’t been easy ways to test your preferences. Would taxing fossil fuels be more powerful than a carb...

A recent column dealt with the control of global warming and Pat Dixon, P.E, PMP, southwest region engineering manager ( 2 emission?” To control a process, we must first fully understand it. The more complex the process, the more difficult that is. So let us look at the heat transfer This heat-transfer process is similar to controlling the 2 emission), increase cooling by reflecting more solar energy back into space, or both. The second we can do by increasing the albedo by making our roofs, roads and agriculture more reflective. Now, let us look at the differences between controlling a reactor and the planet. In the reactor, the proportional mode of the PID controller generates a correction in proportion to the size of the error; the integral mode adds its correction based on the accumulated past errors; and the derivative (rate action) contributes its correction based on the rate at which the error is changing. So, why is this difficult to implement in case of the GW loop? The temperature of our planet was uncontrolled for the past two centuries while our carbon footprint increased, which increased the heat input into the planet. Being uncontrolled, there was no integral correction, so the past errors just accumulated—the carbon in the air increased from about 400 to 880 gigatons (GTC). And, because there was also no derivative action, the process wasn’t protected from continued future temperature rise. If we did this to a reactor, it would have blown up long ago. The pl...

Considering the abundance of plastic in our lives, the task seems enormous. But, some small steps can considerably decrease the amount of plastic that we use every day. Simple ways to reduce plastic in your life include: • Using a recyclable cloth bag. • Using refillable glass, clay, stainless steel, or copper bottles instead of plastic. • Replace your plastic straws with reusable steel or glass ones. • Shop with stores and brands that use non-plastic packaging. • Always ask for a reusable or non-plastic option when shopping or getting takeaway. The more people request reusable containers, the more companies and businesses will get the idea that they need to supply them. 2. Renewables to the rescue You could also explore installing other domestic-scale renewables like a small wind turbine or a heat pump. If these options are not practical, consider ways of cutting back on your use of energy at home. Placing lights on timers, and turning the heat or air conditioning down by just 1 or 2 degrees could make a big difference. 3. Whenever possible, use public transport The switch to electric vehicles has become a cost-effective way of conserving energy. The prices of vehicles and installing a home-based charging station are going down, and the availability of charging stations on the road, including fast-charging stations is going up. Today's e-vehicles also have a much longer range than previous versions. The next few years will also see the release of a huge array of high-spec...

I've spent the past six decades studying the behavior of industrial processes to determine their dynamics, the "personality" that tells us where they'd go—and how fast—if left uncontrolled. Such dynamic analyses also showed what it would take to stabilize them and keep them within safe limits. What we also learned during these decades of study is that this sort of analysis can be applied to all processes (biological, cultural, etc.), and not only to industrial ones. When I started my analysis of global warming three years ago, my goal was to quantify the impact, determine where it would lead if left uncontrolled, and learn what we can do to get it under control. ISA is publishing the resultant book, "Controlling the Future," in October. It shows that transitioning into a new, zero-emission and free-energy economy is still achievable. But doing so will take the sequential application of three gigantic steps guided by three different control strategies. By sequential, I mean that the short, medium and long range steps have to differ. I might also mention that since completing the text of that book, my outlook has worsened. I now see that no democracy is free to act as would be needed as long as its energy economy is at the mercy of the availability of fossil fuels. Let us first look at the heat balance process of global warming (GW) process, in which the Earth's temperature remains constant as long as the incoming solar heat equals the energy reflected back into outer space....