Climate change is not an issue - it is manysteemCreated with Sketch.

in #science7 years ago

The three main components driving climate change are: agriculture, energy production, and industry according to the EPA.
Source: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data

Looking at climate change as monolithic problem does well to raise awareness, however addressing the problems it poses with singular fixes is short sighted and can even be counter productive. Deploying half a billion solar panels as a solution may offset a chunk - big or small - of the energy production problem however leaves other major sources of climate change alone with the impression that something meaningful has been accomplished. Instead, solutions need to be explored within each portion of green house gas output.

There are solutions out there for each of these and I'll break them down below:

Agriculture and Industry
Land use and live stock contribute to climate change with both CO2 and methane - a more potent green house gas - and there are interesting new technologies that can become a game changer. Farming live stock uses water, grass and other feeds, and land in addition to the CO2 emitted by factory and industrial processes, and the methane produced by cattle. Instead of growing an entire animal and slaughtering it for the meat, scientists have been able to use stem cells to grow meat and bring the price down from $330,000 in 2013 to $11 in 2016 for a beef patty. It's more humane to animals, drastically improves the efficiency of meat production, and cuts down resources resources required majorly. Also, with the threat of food bourne diseases and superbugs - transitioning away from slaughter and towards clean lab produced meat will serve as a great insurance against these threats as well as climate change.

Video:

For plants, there are surprising strategies that can be used. One example that seems counter intuitive to fighting climate change is starting fires and cutting trees down for lumber. As a matter of fact, controlled burns (aka prescribed burns) can eliminate dead plants and other fuel sources from forest floors so that in the event of a wild fire; damage would be minimized and the intensity of the wild fire will be reduced. Cutting trees down to make it harder for fires to spread also helps this. Furthermore, tree farming allow cor CO2 to be taken from the atmosphere and since the farmer has an incentive to have a steady supply of trees - deforestation is prevented. The video below by MinuteEarth explains the concept very well.

Video:

Finally, plants such as Hemp have to be taken seriously in order to reverse the effects of climate change. Hemp sequesters CO2 better than trees, reduces the energy needs for homes, and is flame resistant which goes hand in hand for protecting against fires caused and amplified by climate change. The benefits of hemp are numerous but that's the subject of another blog for another time. With these benefits come an economical boon as opposed to reduced standards of living brought on by other expensive climate change policies.

Energy Production
Next generation nuclear (Gen III+) reactors and research in thorium reactors should be the replacement of fossil fuels until the technology for solar panels and batteries make major improvements to be competitive. They are far safer than the decades old reactors out now and cleaner at that. The only problem nuclear faces is merely public perception, not hazards:

Overall these few but far reaching strategies and technologies will gut the problems of climate change and this isn't even going into depth on how they tackle climate change from every angle and the other methods not included in this blog. Thank you for reading.

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amazing post @aeromatter - love the information you are promoting. Good to see that Steemit seems to have a strong community of people interested in preventing climate change!!

Upvoted and followed.

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on my recent post about getting governments to divest fossil fuels.

Alex

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