Responding to Global Warming

Dr. Michael L. Ford

21 August 2007

            Let me make something perfectly clear from the outset. I believe Global Warming is so much hokum just as Global Cooling was much ado about nothing a couple of decades back. As a matter of fact some of the people hollering about Global Warming and want wanting to tamper with the environment were yelling about Global Cooling back then and wanting to tamper with the environment. It is a good thing that did not get to interfere with the earth’s cycles back then and I do not think they should be allowed to now. But let us just suppose for a minute that they were correct. Instead of being a catastrophe as one supposes I would suggest that it would be a benefit to mankind if we had sense enough to respond to it.

            For instance, the claim is being made that the icecaps are melting away and this is going to cause ocean levels to rise while at the same time the salinity of the oceans will be decreasing harming the critters in the sea. This would not be a tragedy but an opportunity to increase the use of arid regions of the world for food production without having to contend with increased seawater salinity problems caused by desalination today.

            That’s right. Global Warming, if it existed, would make the use of desalination techniques easier while providing more water to be used to make arid lands yield their abundance. You see, most arid areas are not lacking in fertility, they are lacking in water. Today we have the ability to use such things as wave action and wind energy along seacoasts to produce energy. Desalination can be powered through the use of a process called cogeneration, where energy dropping from a high level of activity to a low level is recovered and used to power the distillation process.

            Cities along coasts could stop pumping treated wastewater into the sea and use it for things like irrigation. Inland wastewater also be usefully managed. Places now having problems with sinkholes because of the using up of underground water supplies could be a thing of the past if we just put our minds to it. Of course what I am talking about is possible Global Warming or not. But it’s a great excuse to get on with a worthy project.