I’m out to save the world and everyone is against me. I must be right.
Many scientist proclaim that there is global warming. They may be right.
Like a character out of a steam punk novel I’m out to stop it or it’s effects. Effects, I am told, will lead to the deaths of many humans in a couple of decades if we don’t do something now.
How I can help? Well Solar cells are a start. The more solar cells we have the less energy we have to generate with fossil fuels. Plus something no one talks about, when you convert the energy of a photon to electricity the photon can not strike the ground or a molecule in the atmosphere and generate heat. Sound good, but don’t fool yourself. If it doesn’t get politicians votes they will not support it (why should they?). If it impacts the world in any way the environmentalists will be against it. That’s two powerful groups against solar cells. What can I do about that? By putting in solar cells for my house. And by writing by elected officials to extend the tax breaks for solar cell installations, both commercial and residential. They are not in favor of that. They need every tax dollar they can get. There are too many things to spend that money on now and the temperature will not raise enough to start killing everyone for another couple of decades at least. Then we’ll do something about it.
There are plenty of open spaces in the United States to put large solar cell farms. There are large deserts where these farms could be built. If you propose to build one the environmentalist will first research every plant and animals that inhabit the area. They will find something that is impacted by the farm and they will go to the lawyers to stop the building of a solar farms. They will fight tooth and nail to save the desert belly flower, even if it means they and their children will die in a couple of decades.
There are other things that could be done, but I’m just one person. Solar cells could be developed that absorb the rays given off by carbon dioxide and cause globe warming. A quick physic lesson. A ray of sunshine (a photon) enters the earth’s atmosphere. It strikes a molecule of carbon dioxide. If the ray of sunshine has enough energy it makes an electrons of the carbon dioxide molecule gain energy. That’s quantum mechanics at work. The molecule is in an unstable condition ( the molecule was happy in the state it was in and wants to go back to that state). The electron gets rid of the energy by emitting a ray of light (a photon), but because of quantum mechanics it can only emit the beam at a certain energy. That beam of light can not get out of the atmosphere. It will bounce off the ground and a layer in the atmosphere until it is absorbed by the ground or the atmosphere. The atmosphere is 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen .93 percent argon and about .04 percent carbon dioxide, so there are other things, including dust, in the atmosphere to absorbs the beam of light or photon.
We can make solar cells that absorbs the frequency of light that a carbon dioxide molecule gives off. That is not as good as not burning carbon based fuels in the first place, but it is doable. Every photon of carbon dioxide that we absorb is one less photon to heat the earth.
I am just one person. I don’t have the billions of dollars to design and make the solar cells that would absorb the photons from carbon dioxide molecules.
Scientists say we have to do something now, not in one or two decades. People living and working in Washington D. C. should be worried. The place was built in a swamp that is barely above sea level, and the sea level is raising.
Politicians remember the end to the old joke, and ‘God said to Noah; How long can you tread water?’
Stay strong, write on.
Professor Hyram Voltage.