Abstract
Conservation, recycling, more efficient machines, altered lifestyles, and new sources of energy are all needed to reduce the growth rate of our greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, the best that all of these actions combined can achieve is a reduced rate of emission growth. If humans are truly causing global warming by profligate use of fossil fuels, then we need to do far more than reduce the growth in our emissions; we must reduce the absolute amount of these gases in the atmosphere to levels below those of the last century. With more and more people entering the global middle class, and their commensurate use of more and more energy, it is unlikely, perhaps even impossible, that we will be able to stop global warming. We almost
All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”
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Further Reading
For further information on the topics discussed in this chapter, we recommend the following: M.J. Fogg, Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments (New York: Society of Automotive Engineers, 1995); Louis Friedman, Starsailing: Solar Sails and Interstellar Travel (New York: John Wiley, 1988); Peter Glaser, Solar Power Satellites (New York: Arthur D. Little, 1968); Thomas Hayden, “Curtain Call,” Astronomy magazine, edited by B.B. Gordon (January 2000):45–49; Christopher C. Kraft, The Solar Power Satellite Concept (1979); Colin R. McInnes, Solar Sailing: Technology, Dynamics and Mission Applications (Chichester, UK: Praxis, 1999); Alan S. Manne and Richard G. Richels, “CO2 Emission Limits: An Economic Cost Analysis for the USA,” The Energy Journal, edited by Leonard Waverman, Washington, DC, 11 (April 1990): 51–74; E. Mallove and G.L. Matloff, The Starflight Handbook (New York: John Wiley, 1989); Gregory Matloff, Deep-Space Probes, 2nd ed. (New York: Springer-Praxis, 2005); G.L. Matloff, L. Johnson, and C Bangs, Living Off the Land in Space (New York: Springer-Praxis, 2007); K.I. Roy, “Solar Sails: An Answer to Global Warming?” in CP552, Space Technology and Applications International Forum – 2001, M.S. El-Genk, ed. (2001); Ken Roy and Robert G. Kennedy, “Mirrors and Smoke: Ameliorating Climate Change with Giant Solar Sails,” Whole Earth Review, edited by Bruce Sterling (Summer 2001): 70; John P.W. Stark, “Celestial Mechanics,” in Spacecraft Systems Engineering, Peter Fortescue and John Stark, eds. (Chichester, UK: John Wiley, 1991), pp. 59–81; G. Vulpetti, L. Johnson, and G.L. Matloff, Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to Interplanetary Travel (New York: Springer-Praxis, 2008).
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Johnson, L., Matloff, G.L., Bangs, C. (2010). Mitigating Global Warming. In: Paradise Regained. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79986-5_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79986-5_14
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