If any of the politicians and world leaders are interested in combating the effects of global warming and climate change the major threats we face today, then there is a real need for them to change the strategies that are in use at present. Reducing greenhouse gas levels and pollution although will help; the overall problem is far greater. I am about to propose a theory that I believe will become self evident to all, of its possibility of success.
Studies of geology suggest 600 million years ago the earth was completely covered in ice, the snowball theory. Other theories suggest that the sun is heating up over time, causing the earth to warm correspondingly and will eventually end up similar to Mars. Conclusions indicate global warming and climate change have persisted for some time.
200 million years ago dinosaurs were the dominant population species of the world. They lived in the warmer climates; they were migrational feeders and consumed vast quantities of food. The main reason species become migrational feeders, is the lack of food to support them in one place. This would suggest that over-grassing of the central part of their domain existed. This causes a spiralling effect as the search for food goes on; in its wake, areas of land are left devastated. Unable to repair itself as the destruction migrates out-wards from the centre along with the feeding. Land left open in this way leads to a heating of the localised climate, thus effecting weather conditions for that area, reducing its ability to retain water. This will ultimately lead to the beginnings of desert conditions. As this progresses through the passages of time, new species replace the old ones, mammals become the dominant species, and again, unable to feed on barren land they too become migrational feeders. We still see this today in Africa’s wildlife
Archaeology and such like, proves to us today that the world is not as it was. Plants did exist in areas we now call desert. Rivers did exist to feed the land. Although some of the destruction will have been caused by other processes, volcano’s, earthquakes etc., wind and rain erosion, sun spot activity, the effect of life on the planet seems to cause more destruction than these other processes. If we discount global warming as a natural phenomenon, and the ice is not receding at the poles to the levels seen today, or the deep depth’s of our oceans getting warmer, then where are the prehistoric fish that were thought to be extinct, coming from?
Man; probably the biggest destroyer of all comes on to the scene. Ripping down rainforest for wood, clearing areas for food growth and building pyramids, harvesting natural resources, all these things have a significant effect on our planet.
All this destruction on our planet, results in higher temperatures arising from the deforestation, less oxygen, less ability to burn carbons, the result: pollution.
Weather-people talk weather.
Pollution-experts talk pollution.
Charities talk aid.
Over the past few years I have spent some time watching television programmes, along with reading encyclopaedia and other general media forms from different sources. These articles range from a variety of different subjects related to different topics space, dinosaurs, and ancient civilisations to name a few. I profess that I have no qualifications in any science. So any understanding of such subjects has come from these sources. I am not claming to have any answers, more likely looking for them; the conclusions I have drawn have led me to believe:
Climate change. The general weather conditions prevailing in any area over a long period. Now if my understanding is correct. The earth orbits the sun every 365.4days, it also rotates on it axis 24 hours, it also wobbles, gyrates off- centre, this is due to the speed of rotation slowing down, much the same as a spinning top. This must therefore create a climate change pattern of considerable influence over a period of time, enough to cause global effects on weather, currents such as the Gulf Stream to change, ice caps to melt or expand. No matter what we do, it is impossible to us to have any effect on this natural phenomenon. If this was the only cause.
If the earth were symmetrical, the surface of the oceans would be warmest at the equator. However, surveys show that the highest temperatures occur a few degrees north of the equator. One explanation is that most of the world’s sea water lies in the southern hemisphere. Only 19 per-cent is land. As land heats faster than water, continents of the northern hemisphere make the surrounding seas warmer than those in the southern hemisphere. A computer simulation of sea surface temperatures clearly shows the warm band of water (coloured red D1.) that stretches across equatorial seas. In the pacific it can be seen to be breaking up into eddies. Models like this have been used to predict shifts in major currents. Such as the Gulf Stream.
There are several areas throughout the world that can be identified as once having a healthy environment for habitation but for some reason has changed. The Australian desert has dinosaur footprints found in sand, frozen in time, as it must have been just after the last time it rained there, lets come a little more up to date
Egypt 5,000 or so years ago and lets not argue specifics. How much devastation must the ancient Egyptians has caused building the pyramids. We know that several rivers used to run into the Nile, and there is evidence to prove this. If we look at their perceived technology, they must have devastated thousands of acres of land digging for minerals (gold etc.) consumed in mass quantity and to build a pyramid tonnes of stone cut out of the earth, all the top soil that had to be removed had to go some where, left to dry in sun hundreds of square metres of dust blowing around in the wind when it rained it must have been a quagmire of wet clay, stone dust. When it dried in the sun it set like concrete, starving most vegetation. When it rained again the water run straight off the land causing floods of biblical proportions. This is sounding like a history lesson, but only highlights a few examples. The ancient Egyptians are not the only one’s to decimate our planet. If we look at the archaeological evidence of construction around this area at about this time, the land we see today would not support the life style and activities that we now know existed. The numbers of people needed for manual tasks, their overseers, their housing and feeding / farming would all require massive amounts of activity and resources. Coupled with this, the fact that this all took place on the edge of a desert, the area would have been devastated. Upsetting the local natural balance of the area. We know that destruction of a small amount of rain forest can take up to 300 years to repair its self naturally and only when the conditions are correct for this to happen.
I believe, that for whatever reason there is, there are some areas developing the same way today, look at say Ethiopia, for example, it seems to be taking on this format. A look at the example below shows the areas most at risk (coloured pink D3.).
As I am not qualified, I have no intentions of getting technical here. I’ll leave that to the experts. However, if we leave these areas to dry-out even more, and temperatures rise slightly, the band you see heated in D1 expands further around the globe, the warmer air arrives on the western African coast, I believe that nothing would be able to be done to save the planet from heating up. I am not talking about altering desert conditions. If we just cool the atmosphere down on the eastern side of Africa, sea, land and air temperatures being interlinked with one and another, would have an effect on the overall climate of the planet. Desert only expands and not recedes; larger areas of dry land produce more heat. If the temperatures rises by only 0.001 of a degree every 100 years this equates to 1 degree every 10,000 years as the desert expands so the temperature rise increases in proportion.
We spend millions of pounds/dollars every year giving aid to people. Medicines, projects etc., only to watch them die a few years later from drought. Not wishing to get into politics here. Aids etc. if we spent some of that money on transporting water, they would stand a far grater chance of survival.
Billions of dollars spent every year on piping gas, oil around the world, why not pipe water from a plentiful source to Ethiopia or Egypt, or anywhere. If fresh water was picked up at say the mouth of a river, this could be siphoned and pumped through relatively low cost piping under the sea, as pressures inside the pipe containing water would obviously be at the same depth and pressure as that on the outside, thus just leaving shorter more expensive land crossings. Not too difficult a task.
Although such small amounts of water would be ineffective at first, other than providing drinking water, long-term effects could possibly result. Small oasis could be created to grow food initially. If enough water is provided to semi-desert land with help from genetics lets say crops of rapeseed, enough oil produced could provide electrical power or a replacement diesel to run public transport. Reducing the levels of our overall pollution. This would provide sustainable economies, environmentally and commercially and help deal with pollution and oil shortages. The world consumes over 1billion gallons of petroleum a day. Also remembering that when we burn fuel, oil and gas etc. we also burn air. How much oxygen do we consume?
A step further on, any redistribution of water from river to dry infertile land would eventually have an effect on sea levels (if semi-desert is irrigated less water is available to raise sea levels as water tables rise) another step further, water placed on land would evaporate, thus causing rain clouds to form: natural phenomena. Now we get to the hard bit. Rain would reduce particles of pollution by bringing them to earth; this in turn reduces the effect of global dimming. Disastrous.
Not necessarily, as water vapour would replace the affects of the particles thus reducing the effects of radiation from the sun, helping to reduce skin cancers. Rain on the earth would also have an effect on global warming, hence cooling the earth directly and stablelising temperatures. Also the growth of plants it would create will burn certain carbons (plant food) and produce oxygen. Cleaning up the atmosphere.
As we have not experienced an ice age in recent years. It is reasonable to accept that the global currents that exist today have been in place for a considerable length of time and would therefore not be too adversely effected by minute drops in temperature, certainly less so than we would expect to see from a polar ice melt.
Pouring millions of gallons of water into the eastern side of Africa or the Middle East is not a new idea. It would obviously cool the land area down; this would ultimately have an effect on sea surface and air temperatures, reducing them in proportion. Decreasing the higher temperatures need not necessarily have any effect on temperatures in the more temperate zone, (coloured yellow D1) as the areas of land covered by these areas have been deforested and drained over the last 10,000 years, the land temperature its self will be proportionately higher, keeping sea surface and land temperatures for these areas higher. The result being I suspect a larger temperate zone. However a small drop of one or two degrees would be advantageous, as this would ultimately reduce temperatures at the pole, thus stopping them melting. Cooler air circulating to the poles would increase the flow of water vapour reaching these areas, thus causing their growth, rather than the shrinkage, that we see at present.
More water vapour, moisture in the air-cooling northward and southward would deposit at the poles, this again will have a reducing effect on sea levels. Controlling this situation would require constant updating and supervision. Because nothing will change dramatically, it will take many years to move enough water to these areas of land. It would not be an unobtainable goal to achieve success.
To ask the question. Why would anyone believe this is possible and would work? Surely replacing water to where it once was 10,000 years ago would only create similar conditions in the world today. The world and humans survived then, without the threats we now face. With the resources open to us now from botany, geology, genetics, plus numerous other sources we should be able to get it right. And to be honest before we try and terraform mars should we not sort out our own planet first? All information provided in this article has been obtained from verifiable sources and the only input I can claim for myself, is to have assembled it in to this structure.
A normal kitchen sink tap will deliver more than five litres / minute, run continually this equates to well in excess of over 2.5 million litres a year. The planet could be replenished, a healthy option for all. Of course any reduction of pollution of all types will make our planet a healthier place. So we could all, still do our own bit to help. If North Africa was, as it is now, where did the resources come from to build the pyramids?
I know that there will be specialists, scientists and experts that will automatically dismiss this theory without thought. My answer to them is; It was thought that the world was flat until Christopher Columbus proved different. If this article provokes research into some or all of these theories, it was worth compiling.
The article you have just read is a theory that I believe would be effective in combating effects of Global Warming, and, as you will have read, goes somewhere to reduce other problems we face on Earth today.
D1, D2, D3, are diagrams omitted for email purposes.
They are as follows:
D1= Sea surface temperature graph.
D2= Sea current plotting graph.
D3= Endangered areas graph.
This article is the sole work of the author and expresses opinions which might necessarily not be those of Save Our Earth.
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