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Asked by lottie1407 to Angus, Simon, Laura, Hannah, Christian on 20 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by towelie.
Question: Do you think we will ever discover how to completely prevent global warming?
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Angus Ferraro answered on 20 Jun 2013:
Well, the globe cools and warms all the time. There are various things that can cause this, such as changes in the energy coming from the Sun, the amount of greenhouse gases in the air, and the amount of sunlight-reflecting particles as well.
Currently, the globe is warming because of greenhouse gas emissions from cars and power stations and so on. To stop this warming we would have to stop burning fossil fuels, which emit carbon dioxide, the gas responsible for most of the warming. That’s it!
The problem is, stopping emissions is easier said than done. Most of the world’s energy is generated using fossil fuels, and pretty much all of the world’s cars rely on them. People are working on alternatives that don’t use fossil fuels, but these take time.
Basically, we know how to stop global warming, but actually doing it is quite difficult!
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Simon Holyoake answered on 21 Jun 2013:
As Angus says, global warming and cooling happens naturally and it would be very difficult to prevent this happening at all!
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Laura Roberts Artal answered on 21 Jun 2013:
I agree with Simon and Angus.
The question is not if we can do it, the answer then is simple – yes! The question is how we can do that? It would take a collaboration between all countries across the globe to sign up to and stick to agreements like the Kyoto Protocol, which says that countries will cut their emissions of harmful gases by so much by 2020. The trouble is, we all need energy, plastic and so many other things that come from burning fossil fuels, so agreeing emissions that allow us to live as we do without causing further damage, is very difficult!
As well as that, you’ve got to factor in the natural cooling and heating of the planet and that makes the problem even harder to resolve!
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Christian Maerz answered on 22 Jun 2013:
Agree with all previous answers. We really have a good understanding about some of the processes that cause global warming, and ways to stop it. But making this happen is a difficult issue, mainly for economic and political reasons.
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