Friday, August 24, 2012

A Few Practical Suggestions


Let's face reality. Earth is going to be the first planet terraformed. The human race is killing our planet by flooding land, sea, and air with pollution and by over use. Plants and animals are unable to adapt quickly enough to the changes in the environment that mankind is causing. The Earth is becoming less capable of sustaining the world's population. Even humanity is at risk of becoming extinct because of the long term effects of global warming.

Here are my recommendations of what has to be done to save both the planet and humanity.

  1. Recycle everything! Instead of having our trash sent to landfills, everything that people consume and eventually throw out must be recycled. Therefore, we need recycling plants for batteries, electronics, organic (food and garden) wastes, medals, etc. in addition to recycling paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum. Even existing landfills need to be recycled. You can find out about different ways to recycle landfills from this article.
  2. Pollution Free Energy! Right now this is impossible, but I have faith in science to one day make this a reality. Reducing energy utilization, such as energy efficient light bulbs, cars, and washing machines will not solve this problem; but only delay this problem from being solved as soon as possible. You can read more about possible pollution free energy sources that could be cost effective from this article.
  3. Population Control. Right now, the Earth can not sustain the existing human population indefinitely, and this is not including the current population growth. As a result, the world's resources are quickly dwindling without replacements. The only logical solution to this problem is population control. Since the world can not indefinitely support the entire human population, then the world's population needs to decrease to a level so that the planet can sustain both humanity and wildlife indefinitely.
  4. Renewable Resources. Humanity is currently consuming more resources than the planet can renew, and this does not include non-renewable resources such as oil. Therefore, business will eventually have to convert to strictly self sustainable and renewable resources in the near future.
  5. Environmental Protection. The human race is destroying vast regions of the planet, so much so that the planet's ability of supporting life is decreasing. Throughout the world, forests and wild lands must no longer be allowed to be destroyed for human development, and this still may not be enough to support all wildlife. Land that has become infertile because of man's actions, such as strip mining and deforestation, must be revived by law. The world's oceans also need to be globally managed, since the world's fish population is suffering from over fishing. It is estimated that the world's oceans will no longer be commercially useful for fishing between 2030 and 2060. Even air pollution needs to be completely regulated until all air is clean and remains that way.
  6. Manage Global Warming. Global warming is going to decimate the human civilization if left unchecked. The four previous solutions above will help slow down global warming, but they will not prevent global warming. Therefore, further actions must be necessary to either prevent or manage global warming. For instance, when the world's oceans start to rise because the polar ice caps are melting, it will be necessary to intentionally flood large portions of land to prevent the world's ocean from destroying coastal cities and farmland. One way to help do this is to redirect rivers to not deposit their water into the oceans but into lakes, valleys, canyons, aquifers, empty oil fields, and where ever else possible. Another solution is to use seawater to flood large sections of unused land, such as deserts. These solutions will definitely have major consequences, but those consequences will hopefully not include the uncontrolled destruction of cities and countless lives.

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