Global Warming & Four Points to Support U.S. Green Energy Development

The fundamentals of global warming are well known. The Earth has three proximal cycles named the Milankovich cycles affecting the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth. The 100,000 year cycle is the eccentricity of the orbit of the Earth around the sun. The 41,000 year cycle is the Earth obliquity, and the 22,000 year cycle is that of the precession of the poles.

There are other factors that warm the planet. One is radiation from the Earth's core. I wonder of plate tectonics-not just volcanism but the configuration of the continental plates in relation to the Milankovich cycles, don't also affect global heating-cooling.

I have been reading a good popular physics book on temperature recently by Segre' that is quite informative. I think the most interesting point I learned recently was that the atmospheric gases 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% argon don't trap solar radiation or infrared radiation from the Earth. Instead it is the trace elements such as Carbon dioxide that trap long-wavelength radiation warming the atmosphere.

The amount of sunlight arriving at the Earth should radiate off the planet back into space in equal measure conserving energy. If it did the Earth temperature should be 0 degrees F. It is that trace Co2 that provides the extra 60 degrees of warmth above zero that is the average temperature of the world-so if high-tech efforts to get rid of Co2 were too successful the world temperature would drop. It's a narrow, knife edge balance easy to change.

I can think of three simple legislative measures that should be done to stimulate the economics of green energy. One is to end the oil depletion allowance, second is to set a federal minimum sales price for gasoline high enough to let electric cars and other rivals have a stable mark to compete against, third is the extension of tax credits for alternative energy ten years, and forth is funding of research and development of thorium rather than uranium nuclear power. Only the last measure would cost anything directly. it is too bad the Obama administration did not prioritize these simple legislative goals in 2009 as they, more than the stimulus for government union workers, would have provided lasting economic development and a less Co2 producing industry for the United States. Simply giving large loans to particular businesses tends not to be as effective.

image credit :WillowW-GNU license