Monday, October 29, 2007

How to fix Global warming and help with the overflowing landfill problem

One of the scariest things happening on the global warming front is the positive feedback cycle that is happening to the giant icepacks that are melting at a much greater rate than anticipated due to the increased areas of land and water exposed that are darker than the ice and snow and so absorb a much greater amount of heat from the sun, making the summers hotter in the Artic areas and warmer winters.

So, to fix this problem I propose we collect every bit of styrofoam chunks in all the millions of boxes that radios and TV's and all other kinds of fragile items as well as all the used styrofoam peanuts and ship them all to the North and South Poles and Greenland and dump them on all the exposed water and land areas, and perhaps even on the snow-especially during the summer to help keep the snow insulated from the sun even though it is already white. The styrofoam is perfect as it's white already and it floats really, really well and has a really long half-life in the direct sun and elements so it would last for years and years so that we could really get a lot of it piled up. With the styrofoam insulation the Poles would stay colder with more ice and thus naturally help counteract the heating due to humankind's insults to our own environment.
Collecting all the styrofoam and sending it to the Artic areas would also open up a tremendous amount of volume in our landfills that we also desperately need. Leaching of chemicals from the styrofoam and any small problems they might cause will at least be many miles away from most human habitation. There it is we already have the materials we need to do the job and shipping costs should be low as the styrofoam is so nice and light.

Added bonus to this is my not-patent-pending test method for determining if global warming has a strong human-caused component-note: it is best to preform this test only during the summer months. It is quite simple: go outside to a nice and sunny spot at the edge of your yard or other grass-covered area next to an asphalt street. Place one hand palm down on the sunny grassy surface, then place the other hand, palm down on the sunny spot in the street. If you move your hand from the grassy spot due to discomfort before you move your hand from the street due to a greater level of discomfort; humans have not had much of an effect on global warming. If you move your hand from the street first due to the fact the hot asphalt is burning your hand, then humans have had a great effect on global warming. Quite a few years ago I read an article in Scientific American that said just in road surface-not counting parking lots, tarred rooftops and the like-in America alone we had paved over an area as large as South Carolina. Now that's a lot of burned palms.

Later, leeSki

No comments: