Of all the planets in our solar system, the Earth is the only one that, as far as we know, supports life. In part, we owe our existence to a process called the greenhouse effect. Inside an artificial greenhouse filled with plants, the surrounding glass traps the sun's energy, making it warm inside, even while outside the temperature may be much colder. This same effect happens every day on the Earth. Gases within the atmosphere act like glass, trapping the sun's heat. These gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
Just like any other planet, the Earth absorbs the sun's heat as UV radiation and radiates it back towards space as IR. But greenhouse gases counteract that heat loss, trapping heat, and reflecting it back towards the Earth. The more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the more heat that is trapped. The less the amount of greenhouse gases, the less heat that is trapped. Earth has just the right amount to help life flourish. Too many of these gases, as is the case on Venus, would create a runaway greenhouse and a sizzling hot surface. On the other hand, without any greenhouse gases, more of the sun's heat would be lost, and the Earth would become a frozen wasteland
The changes in the balance and concentration of all these gases can affect the Earth's temperature, and these temperature changes are often referred to as "global warming" or "global cooling." Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere have been naturally rising and falling for billions of years, creating cold and warm periods in the Earth's history. For example, as the Ice Age progressed, scientists believe the amount of natural carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dropped over thousands of years, reducing the greenhouse effect, and making the Earth cooler. But many disagree on how that change in carbon dioxide occurred. Today, scientists are looking at effects of global warming as they debate the long-term impact of man-made carbon dioxide and CFCs entering the atmosphere. Many climatologists argue that we are artificially increasing the greenhouse effect, warming the Earth faster than would occur naturally, which could cause problems for the Earth in the future.
Discussions for a resolution to the Greenhouse effect have almost always revolved around finding agreement among the industrialized nations of the world to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions by cutting back on those activities that create the gases. This has been most widely promoted in the Kyoto Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty on global warming. Countries which ratify this protocol commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases, or engage in emissions trading if they maintain or increase emissions of these gases, which have been linked to global warming.
Critics of the Kyoto Protocol see it as a means of forcibly redistributing wealth from the United States to the Third World. This is because the U.S., which produces 25% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, would likely exceed its quota and would have to buy emissions credits from nations such as China, India, and Russia.
I am proposing that it is possible to continue the activities which create these gas emissions if we have a viable and cost effective means of removing those emissions from the atmosphere. It is in fact possible to remove dilute CO2 from the air by growing biomass (for example, sugarcane), which is harvested whole and digested anaerobically.
The following is a brief discussion of this proposal, including statistics and graphs, to describe and demonstrate this process and its viability to tackle the greenhouse effect. Please contact me with your questions.
