// Stop The Warming!

I think that the main reasons people are skeptics to climate change are that they are misinformed, or that they don’t see it in their immediate environment. I can definitely identify with the second. I live in East Tennessee and sometimes it seems that the weather has a severe form of ADHD. One day it will be 80 degrees, the next, 30. One place that climate change can be seen in effect is in the Arctic and Antarctic. The only problem with that is not many of us live in the Arctic or can afford to go there, but the Extreme Ice Survey can. Headed by James Balog, it has tracked the movement of glaciers in North America, Greenland, and countless others elsewhere. The images taken are then placed in a time-lapse video. you can watch them on their website. James Balog did a speech for TED (ted.com) earlier this year talking about the project and showing some of the time-lapse video he has collected.
http://www.ted.com/talks/james_balog_time_lapse_proof_of_extreme_ice_loss.html

Another way that we can see climate change without traveling to the far reaches of the earth would be to look at the graphs on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) website. The IPCC is an organization of climate scientists around the world (through the United Nations) who’s mission is to compile their data into graphs and technical papers for the world to see climate change through their work. Their site can be viewed at www.ipcc.ch.

If someone is misinformed of the facts, the only way to re-inform them correctly would be to spread the word in a logical way that is irrefutable. The IPCC reports do this, but they are much too large for one to read in less than a minute. This leaves people that are informed to tell those that are not the core facts of the matter. So, I give you this burning torch so that you may give it to others, the flame undiminished. Good luck.

On a request from Toofan (<-spammer, but even so…), I will elaborate more:

I don’t think I really said anything about what the flaming torch would be. In this case, I think my readers should spread the word that climate change is a very real aspect of the world around us. Humans have been pumping out CO2 into the atmosphere for centuries and we are at the height of our output, at roughly 22,829,463.2 thousand metric tonnes annually (Source: http://ow.ly/1lbjO) and it keeps climbing. China is in the middle of their industrial revolution, planning to build 562 new coal-fired power plants (Source: http://ow.ly/1lbtL).

One might say that CO2 is a weak gas, so therefore it is not doing much damage. Yes, it is a weak greenhouse gas (compared to others like methane, etc.), but the sheer amount being released into the air from fossil fuels that have not been around for tens of thousands of years is not allowing for the earth’s ecosystems to adjust to new amounts of this gas.

So, we, as humans, should invest in clean energy to replace that of coal and oil. In addition, the CO2 already in the atmosphere should be taken out (a very hard thing to do). It is an uphill battle.

The people at iLoveMountians.org proclaim loudly a distress call for people to help stop blasting on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. The blasting is to start strip-mining the land for coal. Since this concerns greenhouse gas (specifically CO2) emissions into the atmosphere, we are just as upset about it. Here is their promotional video:
http://www.ilovemountains.org/coalriver/

A $400 billon solar collection project based in the Sahara desert has been started by various European countries to provide solar energy to power Europe. Since it was announced in July of this year, 12 companies have been chosen to erect the solar collectors. The group is led by major German engineering companies calling themselves the Desertec Industrial Initiative, or DDI. They have been accepted openly by many of the countries in Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa. The DDI hopes to have their systems running by 2015 and sending out 15% of Europe’s power by the year 2050. The power lines would stretch across the desert and the Mediterranean sea to reach their destination.

The DDI plans to utilize Concentrated Solar Power (or CSP) systems to accomplish their goals. These collection devices use large mirrors to direct the sun’s heat to a central location. There are three types of CSP: linear concentrator, dish/engine, and power tower systems. Linear concentrators use curved mirrors to focus light on tubes of liquid that in turn boils water to turn a steam turbine. Dish/engine systems use a large satellite dish to concentrate the rays onto a thermal reciever that moves a heat engine (usually a Stirling engine) that runs an electrical generator. Power tower systems use sun-tracking mirrors (heliostats) to focus the sun on a reciever located at the top of a central tower. The reciever uses a transfer fluid to boils water and turn a steam turbine.

Learn more links:
ENN – Using the Sahara Sun to Power Europe
NREL – Concentrated Solar Power

UPDATE:
Here is a differing opinion on the subject that I didn’t have time to incorporate:

http://greenlivingideas.com/topics/alternative-energy/solar-energy-photovoltaics/solars-thirst-water-concerns-desert-residents