Global Warming

World's temperature is rising. What can we do about it? Not a whole lot. The Second Law of thermodynamics dictates it. Anything we do in our life will cause the entropy to increase. Entropy is measure of disorder. When disorder increases in matter, the heat increases.

Climate change due to global warming is a reality, it occurring and we have to accept it. Receding glaciers, rising sea levels and drying marshes and lakes are evidences of it. But changes in earth are nothing new. Today's oil and gas fields were rain forests millions of years ago. Salt mines were vibrant  seas in the distant past. Animal world and humanoids lived through continental shifts. So, we should not be surprised that a catastrophic change in earth and its atmosphere is occurring in front of of eyes. The only difference is that current changes are being caused by human activities.  

Our willingness to address this problem depends on how much we want to sacrifice for our great great great grand kid whom we will never meet. Having said that, as a conscientious human being we should all try our best to leave a livable earth to our future generation.

Let us begin with trading our SUVs for small hybrid or electric cars. Or, better yet, use public transits, bicycles or even try to walk. If seven billion of earth's residents change our transit habit a bit, a significant amount of green house emission will be reduced. Secondly, we need to plant more trees. Plants produces oxygen, taking in carbon dioxide during photosynthesis. Urbanization, which is the current trend all over the world, is some what good for afforestation and agriculture. People move to big cities leaving behind land to grow trees and these trees produces oxygen to offset carbon emission by automobiles and industries. Rooftop and balcony gardening by urban dwellers also helps.  Thirdly, we need to recycle more. Paper recycling saves trees. Metal recycling reduces carbon intensive mining activities.   Less garbage means less landfills and more room for trees.

Corporations have big responsibility in this matter. The products they produce and the way they produce must have the least environmental impact. Research and development should have environment in consideration all the time.

The technique of carbon capture where carbon is captured from industrial emission is quite innovative. But storing the captured carbon in abandoned mine shafts is like sweeping dust under the rug. Accidental rupture of the containment due to earthquake will bring all the carbon back to the environment. It Is also bad for subterranean microorganism. We have to find out a inexpensive way of transporting the captured carbon outside earth's atmosphere using booster rockets or space shuttles. If we can release earth's exhaust in outer space, our problem is solved.

Government have the biggest responsibility of combating global warming. They have to come up with environmental guidelines for its citizens and companies and enforce them. Nations have to hammer out protocols which are acceptable to all nations. Above all, they have to try their level best to avoid wars. Wars are simply bad for environment.

There is a flicker of hope in all the doom and gloom of global warming. When rivers get flooded, it erodes the banks and gets wider. Then again, it creates island nears the middle of river. Usually those islands consist of very fertile soil and are excellent for agriculture. We can draw a similar analogy here. Once we loose the prime real estate of New York, London, Miami, San Fransisco and other urban and agriculture based rural sea side towns, a new batch of fertile land will arise from the now snow covered parts of the world..All we have do is set up shops in those new areas and continue the history of mankind.

Exporting Energy

Natural gas price is so low in North America. Yet, in South Asia, consumers are paying much higher price for it because of high demand and low supply. It is time for North American gas producers to take advantage of this opportunity aggressively.  Just liquefy the gas and send abroad. Liquefying plants should be built around port cities for shipments to South Asia, immediately after production. Shipbuilders need to come up with a new breed of ships to transport large volume of Liquefied Natural Gas and feed into the pipelines of importing countries.

Electricity demand is also rising rapidly in South Asia. The rate of construction of electricity generating plants simply is not enough to keep up with the demand. Building a hydro-electric plant requires massive infrastructure spending and loss of arable land which cuts into agriculture output. Coal and Natural Gas powered generating station need the fuel that many of South Asian are starving for. Wind and solar generators are really not practical solution. So we are left with nuclear energy.

Nuclear power stations need technical know how. Being concerned about nuclear proliferation, many developed countries are not willing to share the technology. How about selling electricity to the countries in need? Utility companies do often sell electricity beyond their boarders. Many North American companies have shops in foreign countries where they generate electricity and sell it to the consumers. Now it is time to go a step further. It is time to build floating power stations and generate electricity to sell it to the consumers in South Asia.

Let us stretch our imagination a little further and build some nuclear power stations aboard some giant ships. It will be quite easy to deploy those ships to the ports of any county that needs to purchase electricity from foreign source. Besides, our oceans ares vast source of energy. We can simultaneously generate electricity from wind, sun and ocean current on those ships. In terms of safety, it also safer to operate nuclear power station in a ship.If things get out of control like the Fukushima Daiichi plant, we can tug the ship to a remote location use the sea water to cool it down. If  it gets totally out of hand, we can always shoot it down and sink it.

Anthology of Demising Industries

Due to advancement in computer technology, many industries are becoming things of the past. For example, the neighborhood print shops. Previously, if we needed some letterheads, envelops, business cards or fliers, we would run to the local print shop. But, now we do all those things on our computer. It makes you ponder, what other industries are becoming obsolete.

Publishers are selling books in electronics formats. In ten years, book sellers will have no reason to maintain huge book stores in malls and other places. Unless, the stock up variety of other items to sell.

Public libraries are becoming like play grounds for kids and Internet hubs for adults.

Remember Blockbuster Video? In the 90's, it , along with other video stores, were the coolest stores on the block. The whole industry was whacked out of business by digital downloads.