HACKER Q&A
📣 dougSF70

Simple Solution to Earth's Rising Temperature


I am not a climate scientist by any stretch. However given that all life on the planet is a direct result of the Sun and the energy we receive from it, it would make sense if that less of the sun's energy was used to grow things (which must use up a lot of energy as chemical bonds are being formed) then there must be more energy used to just make atoms vibrate. So if we grew more things AND / OR used really inefficient Solar panels OR used the sun's energy to melt vast quantities of eutectic salts then we could reduce the rate of temperature change on the planet by putting more of the sun's energy to state change / energy capture. Just a thought.


  👤 Phithagoras Accepted Answer ✓
Sadly it's not that simple.

Trees alone do not absorb much CO2 past the lifetime of the tree. In the vast majority of the world they die, decompose, and release a lot it again. To store this carbon (and energy) long term the material needs to be buried. Mangrove forests are excellent at this because anything that dies is quickly covered by sand into an anoxic environment where it can't be broken down by bacteria that create CO2. Over a few thousand years the sand layers really pile up. Over a million or so it'll turn to sandstone and coal/oil/methane). Hopefully a shale develops overtop or that methane is just gonna escape straight into the atmosphere anyways.

Melting eutectic salt isnt much more useful. Once you have molten salt, now what? Bury it? It will equilibrate with the ground. You might as well have just let the ground absorb the energy and saved the trouble of making panels.

Fun fact: Not all life on earth is a direct result of the sun's radiation! Sulphate reducing bacteria are regularly found in ocean floor vents and deep in caves, completely independent of solar events.


👤 rzzzwilson
Once energy from the sun penetrates the atmosphere most of that energy is here to stay, so nothing that you do with it after it gets here will help the overall problem.

👤 tamaharbor
Instead of trying to stop the climate changes (which is probably impossible), we should focus on adapting to what will inevitably become the new normals.