Juridical national measures on climate change

This is a list of suggestions to neutralise countries' emissions by means of a set of nationally implementable laws. The suggestions were taken from the JNMOCC website. As can be seen in the index below, this first document covers the measures focused

The second document focuses

One must keep in mind that this document (atleast at present: August 2008) only reflects my own research and beliefs. As this document ages, it will be modified (which I encourage) by several other Wikipedians which will think along how the current problems in our society can be adressed. Once this has happened (in a few years or so), this document will reflect the position of many people.

Main Measures (focused on climate change and economy

Objective

Means

Gases that are emissionless regardless of their use (ie incineration) should be excepted from these rules. Such gases include hydrogen, oxyhydrogen, liquid nitrogen, nitrous oxide, syngas, nitric oxide, nitrogen trioxide, nitrogen pentoxide, and the 2 forms of nitrogen peroxide (nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen tetroxide). However, these gases are only to be considered emissionless if they are produced from constituents (ie N, O, H, ...) that were already in the atmosphere.

Sectors that should be excepted from these main rules include: the metal sector, research sector, and aviation sector (turbofan airplanes). The agricultural tools (ie tractors, ...) used by certified farmers can also be excluded of not being able to operate on methane and biogas. Finally, the waste disposal and energy sector's power plants that run on polluting resources, yet are equipped with carbon dioxide storage should also be excluded if the carbon dioxide storage eliminates all emissions resulting from the electricity power plants operation, and if the plants themselves have been constructed before the suggestions have come in effect.

Note At the moment, no laws exist in any country that forbid the use of these polluting energy resources, aldough enough alternatives are present. This makes it possible that climate change is increased as people are free to use these energy sources in their current, unmodified machinery and even built and buy new ones ( e.g. energy companies are still building allot more coal-fired powerplants without carbon dioxide storage aldough it is extremely polluting). Besides this, without the law, environmental technology needs to compete with this polluting technology (and other environmental technology that is not too clean e.g. coal without carbon dioxide storage, internal combustion engines running on 1st generation vegetable fuels, ...).

At the moment, oil, coal, gas, alcohols and biomass can all be replaced by alternatives as nuclear, wind, hydro, marine, geothermal and solar power (which can already be seen by several countries and cities as GSEII, Dongtan, and Newcastle). Depending on the sector, different energy sources or systems are used to replace the above polluting energy sources.

For electricity generation: They can be replaced by power plants, build by electricity companies and consumers (see suggestion 2) and running on nuclear or renewable (wind, hydro, marine, geothermal, solar) power. Biomass is also an option, aswell as polluting power sources (ie coal, …) when the powerplant is foreseen with carbon dioxide storage.

For transport: All internal combustion engines can be either converted to a emissionless fuel (hydrogen, oxyhydrogen, liquid nitrogen, 2nd generation alcohols or 2nd generation vegetable oils) or replaced by combustionless zero-emission engines which include electrical engines powered by batteries, fuel cells or flywheels (FES) and compressed air engines. Aldough hydrogen has been the most popularised fuel for transport, being already adopted by several countries ( e.g. Iceland, ...) for use in the future, allot more alternatives exist such as the mentioned 2nd generation alcohols and 2nd generation vegetable oils, oxyhydrogen, nitrous oxide, ... Switching to 2nd generation vegetable oils and alcohols is the most intresting option as vegetable oil is about 2x cheaper than fossil oils. In most cases (e.g. IC-engines), only very limited changes will need to be done for running on such alternative fuels and costs will hence be very limited. E.g. changing from direct to indirect injection for IC (Diesel) engines needs to be done to allow running on vegetable oils, limited changes (ie on the carburettor) needs to be done with gasoline engine to allow running on 2nd generation alcohols as ethanol and methanol and no changes at all need to be done with gasoline engines to allow running on biobutanol). For certain people that have already switched to environmental engines (e.g. hybrid electric vehicles), the new change required will be even smaller as in this case, even less modifications are needed (eg convertion or merely disabling the fossil-fuel powered engine).

As the converted (emissionless) IC engines aswell as the fuelless engines can be used in all vehicles, everything can altered; from cars to boats aswell as some airplanes (turbofan/jet propelled aircraft will not be able to be changed). As said, for boats the engines proposed can be used as primary replacement alternatives, but given the size of the vehicle some more alternatives than those proposed are available, namely passive wind power (trough sails, kites, turbosails/rotorsails, ...), nuclear power and other less common ways of energy production also used on the ground ( e.g. PV solar panels, ...). As said, besides sails, kites too are available for boats (trough companies as SkySails). Besides kites, nuclear marine propulsion is also being used (e.g. in the NS Savannah, Otto Hahn, Mutsu, ...). Finally, other ways of energy production will be used by new ships as the E/S Orcelle.

Finally, the amount of vehicles that will need this (very moderate) change needs to be put into perspective as a large portion of them are already electrified ( e.g. trains, trams, trolleys, ...) or do not feature a polluting engine at all (human/animal powered vehicles as bicycles, sailboats, rowboats, ...).

For residential and commercial sector: Heatening of rooms, heatening of water, and cooking can all be done by their electrical variants (electrical boilers, electrical radiators/convectors/heat pumps, and electric stoves). Conventional (non-electric) heaters can also be used, when they use 2nd generation biofuels. The required electricity can be gathered from the described power plants running on nuclear or renewable power.

For a small part of of the electrical equipment (especially heating of rooms) more energy may be needed than before. However as this electricity would be entirely clean this added extra energy need would be of no importance, and for these devices too when compared it would be seen that allot of pollution/GHG-gases would be avoided of being released than would otherwise be the case. If however the owner wishes to decrease his energy usage aswell despite the fact that it does not really matter, this would also be possible and well combinable with electrical equipment. In the case of the heatening of water and rooms for example, respectively by a solar thermal collector and home generation of electricity (trough e.g. a small windmill together with an energy storage device) can be used. Also, for cooking solar cookers may be used to some extent (depending on the local climate). Again, besides being environmental, economic gain can be achieved with these devices as the price of electricity from companies is generally higher than if you make it yourself.

Changing the economy to work on these power sources is needed anyhow as the current Western type oil-economy is producing way too much greenhouse gases to be sustainable. In fact, by 2050 countries will globally need to halve their carbon emissions to keep climate change within a safety margin. If this does not happen, an even much higher economic and ecological cost will result than that what will already be the case (atleast 5% of GDP is the minimal cost when this margin is respected). Given the fact that we will need to to change our economy anyway to more sustainable one, a complete redrawal from gas, coal, oil, and wood might be invoked instead.

Besides being cheaper the sooner we change (5-20x the cost), and even being cheaper in operation, there are also other advantages. Changing to these energy sources has the advantages of not weakening the domestic economy by transferring our money abroad and also has the advantage of increased energy security (as the energy does not need to be gathered from the other countries).

Because of the fact that by using polluting resources as oil, gas, coal, ... we let our energy security depend on oil producing countries as Iran, Irak, Venezuela, Russia, ... in this regard too, it would be better to change to widely available renewable resources.

Finally, ethicaly seen should the polluting energy sources be abandoned as they are causing health problems with the domestic population and because of the indirect negative consequences they have on agriculture and severe weather (which is causing the death of thousands of people).

Objective

Means

-OR-

Note
These suggestions should only be applied when they are needed, in most cases the electricity companies themselves will probably have enough resources and expertise to modify their powerplants and private people/companies will probably also be able to implement the changes, so that this preposition will not need to be executed.

For people that are not financially capable of changing (which would be only a very small part of the inhabitants) to a zero-emission engine and other electrical devices/machinery, the price advantage of the use of this electrical/zero-emission equipment can be used to repay an innitial loan ( e.g. by the state). As such people will be able to change, and even save more money after the downpayments have been done. Also, to decrease the price of the initial procurement of some of the environmental technology described ( e.g. solar thermal collector), do-it-yourself information-provisioning may be extended (e.g. via internet) and workshops/kits can be set-up/made available.

In countries where reliable energy companies reside and where the electricity lines are maintained and set-up correctly, the first suggestion can be chosen to allow decrease global warming and pollution timely. Depending on how it is handled, this first system could be more cost-effective and does not require inhabitants to put matters into their own hands.

In countries where no reliable energy system is set-up beforehand, the second suggestion should be followed. Depending on how things are handled, it might be more expensive and requires inhabitants to put matters into their own hands; however when there are no aduquate energy provisions present, it is the only way how matters can be handled efficiently.

For the second suggestion, the way how this is done can be chosen freely. Private people can do so on their own (trough a rechargable battery, flywheel energy storage (FES) or compressed air tank, powered by a solar panel, small windmill or small waterturbine) or they can join groups of people to pay for bigger power generation plants ( e.g. big windmills and waterturbines). Any surplus energy that is generated by a private person/company can be can be redistributed on the net (trough net-metering) which ensures that all generated energy is used optimally and also makes the system more financially attractive for private persons and companies .

The extra power supply generated should be more than sufficient to bridge the gap that will occur by putting the polluting power plants of electricity companies out of commission. As a similar system is also used by the ecocity of Dongtan, there should be no problems.

The electricity companies will keep providing the backbone of the energy system with nuclear and renewable power. Besides electricity production, the electricity companies can also keep taking care of the maintenance of power lines and distribution of leftover power by consumers, and monitor the electricity use (so it can be checked whether the consumer obeys the law, and fined when not following it).

This method, has several advantages over the traditional way of a power production generated solely by electricity companies:

Objective

Means

Note By implementing this law, we be able to save on costs on waste management, and decrease its emissions. Besides this, companies can save allot themselves, dumping of garbage is limited. Furthermore, if we want to stop using fossil oil, all byproducts made from fossil oil ( e.g. plastics, food additives, ...) will need to be replaced too. Like some of the other suggestions, the cradle-to-cradle system proposed is sturdy and will not give any problem in even the least developed countries. Especially in the developing world, wandering garbage will be reduced to a minimum so that clean-up costs, disease outbreak, ... will be reduced to a minimum. Finally, a cradle-to-cradle design system is already implemented in China (Circular Economy) and here it has already proven its value.

At the moment, companies can, in most cases, already opt for alternatives. Examples are:

At the moment, almost all petrochemical products can already be replaced by products made by the white, red and green biotechnology-sectors, combined with natural products (e.g. rubber, sisal, hemp, jute, climatex, ...). Products ( e.g. oils, ...) derived from plants has the advantage that it contributes far less to global warming, when compared to fossil oil.

In regards to cradle-to-cradle housing, there should be no problem in achieving this as most common houses are already set-up fairly less polluting ( e.g. most houses are made from stone or wood, ...), and only some certain materials may need to be replaced (e.g. insolation materials). In less urbanized zones however, biodegradable housing may be used to also offer environmental protection (fauna & flora); especially as, because of the proposed population control less houses and urbanized areas will be needed anyhow and can be cleared (very gradually) to attain maximum advantage for the environment. As already mentioned this can be accomplished by wooden (light-frame) housing, already present in the USA, Canada, ... aswell as other natural building techniques as straw-bale construction, earth-sheltering, ... Finally, MBDC (and to some degree EarthShip BioTecture too) has already created such biodegradable housing. Complementary (dough not obligatory) to this biodegradable housing, the house lay-out, ... can be improved with the construction of new houses so that the costs of the buildings operation can be lowered and pollution (from energy use) can be lowered still. This can be done by promoting low-energy house construction ( e.g. the passivhaus standard) for new (and some existing) buildings. This suggestion would primarily serve to make the environmental measures proposed more popular, as the lower costs of operation would be far greater than the decrease in pollution. Please note that this suggestion is mostly intented for the western world as in the developing world (most of them located in the tropical or subtropical climate zones), the advantage of these houses is heavily diminished. This, as it focuses on decreasing heat loss, which is unneccessairy in these tropical or subtropical belts. Instead, in the tropical/subtropical regions, some mere low-cost solutions may be extra implemented, when this proves necessairy (e.g. when airconditioning is being over-used to compensate bad house construction). Even still these solutions needed would be very limited and only require implementations as house whitening (or zebra-striping), passive ventilation, ...

The measures the waste disposal sector need to take generally includes recycling metals and other certain material seperatly. Besides using different materials (including a high percentage biodegradable material aswell as metals), and seperating the materials more, the materials that can be completely or atleast heavily recycled ( e.g. glass, paper, ...) should be recycled to the highest extent possible. The seperation of materials can, unlike in the past can be done efficiently with the cradle-to-cradle system as cradle-to-cradle products are manufactured at such method that the different materials can very quickly and easily be disassembled (often even without any tools). Recycling together with certain other methods as incineration, compostation, materials recovery, reparing and return of broken products to the companies that created them ( e.g. Nike and its ReUse-A-Shoe program, ...) would even allow to completely eradicate the need of any landfills (zero-waste).

To decrease the extra needed effort that will need to be made in seperating the materials, besides seperation at the landfill/disposal sites themselves, private persons themselves can already do allot of the work by already (partially) seperating their (municipal) waste. If efficient municipal solid waste collection systems are implemented in the city (e.g. vacuum-based collection via the Envac-system), this extra effort that would otherwise need to be taken by increased sorting can be nullified.

What's more, the landfills created in the past can be regarded as an easy and valuable source of materials ( e.g. ferrous materials and other recyclable material, that is high in density and relatively easy to retrieve), aswell as a valuable source of energy (e.g. organic materials that are usable as a fuel, methane gases, ...) and can be reintroduced into the economy by making use of existing technologies as Materials Recovery Facility's and Waste-to-Energy Plants. This feature combined with natural occuring compostation and perhaps incineration of any leftover material (preferably using carbon dioxide storage) can allow previous landfill sites to be completely cleaned up, while benefitting he local economy. Examples of companies who can accomplish this are for example Green Power Inc. and Alphakat. Aldough fossil fuels are to be banned from being sold to the regular public, the fossils fuels these plants produce would be used merely in the beginning of the transition process and would only be used in (government) installations in which it is combined with underground carbon dioxide storage.

The cradle-to-cradle design plan for products will have as a result that allot of products, as they will be organic, will no longer need to be treated by incineration, ... yet will still need to composted. This can be done by the regular waste disposal or it can be left to private composting companies which can, when composted, return the nutrients back into the society by spreading it over land used in agriculture. This would again offer economic benefits to the society as this material too makes good fertiliser.


Objective

Means

Note By standardisation of waterlines, house, road construction and electricity grids, huge amounts of costs and energy can be saved, as it affects all sectors. At the moment both in the developed and undeveloped countries, no standardisation for these are present (aldough better city designs are present in some cities as New York City, Philadelphia, Lisbon, ...). This means a.e. that :

It is clear that trough inefficient city design, lots more energy need to be generated and climate change is increased. However, as only the manner on which electricity is generated (coal, oil & gas power plants) contribute the most to global warming, this added power loss is still of small importance for climate change when put into perspective. Instead, encouraging change on the above matter would make our climate change mitigation suggestions more popular as no one likes the annoyances (traffic jams, expensive energy/watt, ...) associated with the inefficient city design. As it has been proven in the past ( e.g. Lisbon) that even old cities not complying to the grid system can be altered efficiently over time, the West could gradually start to alter its urban planning. In the less-developed world however, as allot of cities still need to be created/expanded here they may inmediatly start to implement them in their new structures and save energy, cut back annoyances, ... easily.

The watertransportation system may also be improved by eliminating the use of watertowers. Instead, the piping itself can be pressurized. Extra waterreserves can be build by using regular reservoirs, supplemented with pressurized underground cisterns.

Objective

Means

Note The extra greenhouse gases would, by 2050 double. Growth of the population would eliminate our previous work done on mitigating climate change. For this reason and because of the fact that current population levels need to be lowered anyhow (as they are unsustainable; not only on climate change but on the decline of biodiversity, pollution, diminishing resources, ...).

If we decide to decrease the size of the population rather than slow down or stop it, we can not only stop the increase of greenhouse gases, but also decrease present greenhouse gas levels. Besides the advantage for the environment, trough this birth control, the population would also become richer and wages would rise (which would also make our suggestion more popular), costs on healthcare would decrease, risk of pandamics lessen, less strain would be put on the environment, and inflation could drop ( e.g. price of food drops, ...). Similiar measures have already been taken by the P.R. of China since 1979 (One Child Policy), and therefore the method is proven to work.

Together with the birth control, eugenics may be used which would physically strengthen the population, making them healthier, more resistant or immune to diseases, and as such more productive. Especially in the developing world, where people are subjected to a physically harder life, where certain untreatable diseases ( e.g. malaria, HIV AIDS, ...) are prevailent and where not everyone is always vaccinated against the treatable ones (yellow fever, polio, ...), eugenics would ease their life substantially.

In order to achieve a sustainable economy that has all the above advantages, the exact population number to be targeted, should probably be around 2 billion people (1900-1950 pop. level). This, based on WWF's Living Planet report that states that if we all want to live with a high degree of luxury (European standards), we would be spending 3x more than what the planet can supply. This number would offcourse not be spread evenly, but instead the demographics charts of 1900-1950 could be used to determine the rate of decreasement needed per country, and region. I rest assured that country leaders (and their inhabitants) can be persuaded to decrease their population rate, given the many advantages. What's more, the (poor) countries that will need to decrease their population rate the most, will also see the most financial retribution. To convince the developed countries, their commitment to the Millenium Development Goals can be used in our advantage, for if they wish to keep them the industrialised countries too will need to lower their population number. Finally, it is a measure that can be implemented inmediatly, by all countries including the most undeveloped (as it is a low-tech solution) and could ensure a very big decrease in greenhouse gases.

Objective

Means

Note The Kyoto-protocol was designed as a way to stop the worst effects of global warming from happening. As it is unable to stop or revert climate change, we will need a new protocol. This new protocol is needed as the current Kyoto-protocol is too weak (50% reduction is needed by 2050, which will not be attained by the Kyoto-protocol), and is not balanced fairly in terms of what certain countries have generated and are still generating in terms of GHG-gases and what measures they need only to take ( e.g. the industrialised countries have been and are generating the bulk of the gases yet only need to take more or less the same measures than the developing ones). A new protocol can level this by stating that all emitted anthropogenic GHG gases (thus emitted in the past and the current amount of GHG-gases) should be mitigated. This should be done only by methods that really absorb the gases, as the other methods described in Kyoto's flexible mechanisms (CDM/JI/ET) will no longer have any use (preposition 1 would already forbid all polluting energy production, so that there is no point in supporting environmental friendly energy production, which would become mainstream).

Aldough the first suggestion already decreases emissions by 80%, a complete mitigation is needed if we intent to create a sustainable society. As we can not eliminate all production of GHG-gases (sectors as manufacturing, agriculture, ... cannot go without), a protocol to mitigate the remaining 20% is needed.

Normally, all of the countries' oil usage, rates of deforestation, ... are known and calculating this should be no problem. The country can use this information to tax its inhabitants (average price), and companies (depending on the amount of emissions generated and their nature (GWP-value)). This revenue can then be used to neutralise the countries' emissions by tree plantations.

The location of tree plantations should be determined based on the vegetation (as how it was in 1900), and cost of the project/hectare. Particularly in developing countries, can very cost-effective plantations be set up ( e.g. Sahel-area, ...). The protocol could also be used to revert the natural vegetation and ecosystems by planting indiginous vegetation and mimicing the conditions of site as how it was in the 1900's. To support this using indiginous species to the particular site aswell as a minimum number of treespecies/ha can be made obligatory. With this protocol it should be possible to replant the amount of forests that were present a few hundred years ago, since the amount of co2 to be stored by the protocol would be as high and possibly even higher than what is needed for this. Besides the economic aspect, it would also be possible to do so practicly as according to a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the decline in woodlands would be reversed in 30 years, even without this extra funding.

To benefit the local population and possibly increase the financial profits, the plantations could also provide energy trough power plants running on the wood coming from the plantation site (biomass). No pollution needs to result if carbon dioxide storage is to be used, as described in suggestion 1.

In addition, tree plantations, as they alter the local climate, would also provide (in some cases) the planting of certain foodcrops where before this would not be possible (e.g. in arid environments, trees can increase water availability, ...) and could hereby financially support the local population. To adress any problems with soil nutrition that might introduce itself, the suggested system of nutrient recycling (in a closed loop system) may be used.

Finally, there are already enough ways how companies can lower their emissions (and taxes).

For farms, these include:

For factories, they include:

In some cases, farms will however need to switch to alternative crops/cattle. This as certain crops/cattle may become less profitable, given as the extra expendatures on the GHG-emissions. However, this switch may only be required in very specific cases , and the switch itself can be very limited ( e.g. wheat instead of crops). As a result, very little investments or modifications to the machinery is required. If the government decides to also direct the attention on healthier food (e.g. by promoting vegetarian and macrobiotic cuisine, ... and besides these diets also promotes replacement foodproducts ( e.g. soy milk instead of plain milk, ...), than the farmer's switch to these different crops will be assisted (and in some specific cases, the farmers will get higher returns). This as demand for these environmental foods, proposed in vegetarism, macrobiotics, ... and now grown by farmers will increase. Also, promoting these diets will result in extra savings/profits as certain diseases (obesity, certain intestinal cancers) will decrease and thus health expendatures are decreased and economic productivity is increased.

Besides promoting diets that discourage (excessive) meat consumption, it may also be advisable to relook and update the government's agricultural subsidies (especially on meat production / cattle rearing). As the government should be seen as to sponsor certain types of high-carbon farming ( e.g. cattle rearing), these subsidies may be lowered or removed.

Given the above measures, the now common meat production will heavily decrease (however, for those willing to pay an extra price for meat produced at this way it will still be possible to obtain whilest having all gases in its production mitigated). For those people however that want to continue eating meat, at affordable prices, yet hereby accepting another way of production, solutions exist. These meat substitutes include first of all meat produced from algae, fungi or soy (brand names respectively valess, quorn, tivall/vivera, ...).Besides this, meat can also be produced industrially from animal cells, something which is already happening ( e.g. by a coalition between Stegeman and the universities of Eindhoven, Utrecht and Amsterdam).

Notes

Why the use of laws to regulate GHG-emissions ? Aldough some laws are already present to regulate climate change and a migration to a sustainable society ( e.g. Kyoto-protocol, those presented at the Rio Earth Summit as the UNFCCC treaty, Covention on Biological Diversity, ... and the Millenium Development Goals that amongst others supports sustainable development), they are not sufficient to handle climate change, ... on their own. This is because of the fact that most of these do not include a general approach on how things should be adressed, leaving it up to the energy companies, the political world and the citizens themselves to adress the situation. Others like the Kyoto-protocol do feature a practical approach but are much too weak to achieve any real change ( e.g. on the case of climate change a minimum global decrease of 50% is needed by 2050 while the Kyoto-protocol only commits countries to decrease emissions by 10% of current GHG-emissions. Recently, critics on the Kyoto protocol by Gwyn prins and Steve Rayner have confirmed that a more suitable approach needs to be followed instead of the approach followed by the Kyoto protocol.

The laws suggested however would support the existing environmental technology so that they are used at full and all their potential can be harnessed. The laws would hereby allow the needed changes to actually take place ( e.g. on behalf of climate change at least a decrease of 80% is attained). Besides supporting this environmental technology, it would also eliminate competition of certain environmental technology amongst each other. These environmental technologies that would be eliminated will be technology that does not decrease emissions far enough ( e.g. ICE- hybrid engines for cars, ...) and would only obstruct the set-up of the technology that can make the difference.

Is hydrogen a viable option for transport? As stated in the suggestions, internal combustion engines can be converted to run on one of several zero-emission fuels. One of these is hydrogen. Despite the fact that indeed a great amount of the energy is lost using electrolysis (upto 75% depending on the catalysts, ... used), hydrogen internal combustion engine conversions are still an important feature to aid us in converting to a emissionless society. Hydrogen may be produced may be produced in the future without the use of energy, eliminating this (great) downside; this may be possible trough the use of microorganisms, modified by synthetic biology.These conversions are important as they allows a relative fast, cheap (at very short term) and easy conversion. The fabrication and inmediate change to the use of fuel cells would however be very difficult to achieve. As such, the use of certain emissionless fuels as hydrogen will, for the time being, be restricted to the use in IC engines. The other proposed fuels (oxyhydrogen and liquid nitrogen) too are equally important (and probably even more important) fuels as they can also be used in regular IC engines and can even provide less energy loss/more power. The government can thus make sure good conversion kits for these fuels become available on the market. Also, the combustionless engines (compressed air engine, electric engines, ...) should be advocated to be fitted into the new series of vehicles. In addition to advocating this, fuel stations should be demanded to supply all of the other noted emissionless fuels (compressed air, nitrous oxide, oxyhydrogen, ...). To store these emissionless fuels, the tank that previously contained regular fossil fuels may be used (leftover fuel will be flushed out over time). Perhaps that some extra adaptations may still be required with the tank (eg airtight sealing, possible cooling). Also, the energy distribution network should be inspected and upgraded where needed. Especially the neighbourhood transformers are usually not equipped to allow vehicle recharging using grid-power (energy produced at home may however still be used as these do not depend on the transformer). This as hydrogen (using the contemporary production trough electrolysis) indeed features so much energy losses that a complete transfer to this energy carrier is not cost-effective.

Nuclear waste In the suggestions, nuclear power is advocated as a main source of energy. The main reasons for this is that renewable energy power plants (wind turbines, active & passive solar power plants, ... cannot supply energy continuously and are therefore no suitable alternatives if used on their own. Also, nuclear power plants can supply allot more energy, which is exactly what we need if we wish to completely convert to a emissionless society. As for the problem of nuclear waste; this can be resolved by nuclear reprocessing, this process can reduce the radioactivity tremendously and reduce the radioactivity period to 100 years or a few hundred years (rather than thousands). Also, with the new line of fission reactors (fast breeder reactors, ...) and with other new reactors as the fusion reactors now coming in sight, this problem will even eventually phase itself out in the near future.

How can we change as most of our power plants run on fossil fuel? A significant problem in most countries is the fact that most of the electricity production still relies on fossil fuel power plants. In countries where environmental inspection is strict enough (eg mostly countries in the developed world where corruption is low), this problem can be adressed in the short term by a temporarily solution; namely equipping the plants with carbon capture and storage (also noted in the remark). This solution may offcourse only be used with large-scale energy production power plants, and as mentioned before not with any countries where the conversion is not guaranteed and carefully inspected. In addition, the solution is a temporary one, as the building of any new fossil fuel power plants would be made illegal. The measure would thus support a slow phase-out of these types of plants. This is required as these plants -even if made emissionless- still have other drawbacks; namely still being dependant on resources that are usually located on foreign soil. In addition, the mining process itself, the great inefficiency of the plant and transport of the resource still inflict much environmental disturbance (spreading of dust, noise, coal particles, ...) and increase costs. Sometimes, conversions of the fossil fuel power plants to allow running on municipal waste (perhaps with material recovery) may contribute to keep costs of the economy conversion low. In continents as Europe, the Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plants technology platform has already made up reports on how the conversions may be done.

How quickly can we start to reduce global warming ? Due to the many suggested laws, we will be able spread the difficulties in reducing out greenhouse gas emissons. This means that we can start to reduce global warming quite rapidly. This, as many of them (eg carbon sequestration trough reforestation, carbon capture and storage, population control, ...) require no more fundamental research and can be set up almost inmediatelly (after a mere planning).

When will we see results from the measures ? Actual drops in temperature rises can be expected quickly from some measures as carbon sequestration and the banning of polluting fuels. Other measures however, need some time before they take full effect.

What temperature increase limit should we not exceed ? With a +1°C, we can expect the destruction of a great portion of coral reefs worldwide, and a number of island nations being submerged by rising sea levels. A 2°C rise would be accompanied with heatwaves, and increased drought around the world. The +2°C increase is currently set as the limit. A recent paper by James Hansen et al. however states that even 2°C is too high, given the rate of degeneration of the Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheets, and that 1.5-1.7°C is more in line with adhering to the precautionary principle. As such the limit could is subjected to change. A 3°C increase would bring about the complete collapse of the Amazon ecosystem, and the threat of conflict over water supplies around the world.

It is likely that the carbon dioxide already released will continue to push up the temperature for years to come (a phenomenon known as 'thermal inertia') by at least 0.6°C, which could mean that we will attain a 1.4°C rise whatever we do. A 1.4°C rise, aldough worrysome, still falls within a safe margin despite the fact that many natural organisms will be reduced in number. However, as explained before, using the multitude of measures and because of the fact that some of the measures will take effect quickly, we will still be able to heavily limit the decline. Also, aldough the amount of natural organisms may be reduced, with conservation efforts (eg gene banks, ...), we may prevent that the species themselves die out.

How to persuade the country's inhabitants ? By increasing public awareness trough the country's media (local radio-stations, TV-broadcast, and newspapers, ...). It should be explained that it is our duty as a human being and that changing to these energy sources, aswell as following the other suggestions would rather benefit ourselves than make our life harder.

More precisely it is our duty as a human being because of the fact that:

It will also benefit us because of the fact that:

Note on decreasing energy use Aldough described by many nature organisations, decreasing the energy use by companies and private persons is not the answer to the climate problem as

Aldough reducing energy use might be a valuable secondary measure (see practical examples at suggestion 1), I would not recommend it as a primary measure that private persons and companies should take. Instead, making the electricity generation more clean should be a first measure for private persons and companies. Making the electricity generation more clean can allow much higher emission decreases and can be poored effectively in regulations.

To demonstrate the amount of emissions that can be mitigated, I refer to the POST report at which we can see that electricity generation of coal (still heavily used by electricity companies) versus solar panels is 16x greater and versus windmills 100x greater. If the power of the second user is also generated at the home, this can be multiplied by 4 (the normal electricity loss trough the power lines) which adds up to a difference of 66x-400x. This effectively means that even if energy is wasted (by our current lifestyle; something we will not be able to change), we can still easily decrease our pollution levels by a factor 100.

Finally, making the energy use more clean is also far more reinforcable than decreasing the energy use. This because setting up laws to decrease energy use would mean that for different person, and company higher or lower percentages of minimum energy decreases should be set up (something which is very hard to do). Instead making the it more clean is simply a matter of banning the polluting resources (with some exeptions) and by monitoring where the still present yet diminished flow of these resources (coal, gas, oil) is going to ( e.g. companies on energy plants equipped with carbon dioxide storage, ...). In addition to monitoring the sale of these resources, ..., door-to-door inspection (e.g. by the electricity companies themselves), and other technology that can detect carbon dioxide gases and heat accumulation ( e.g. by GMES, air pollution detectors, ...) can detect whether the ban is being followed.

Besides being better enforcable and being able to decrease carbon emissions way further than by decreasing the energy use, making the energy generation more clean (on the described manner) has also extra benefits:

References and more information

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/postpn268.pdf

Renewable_energy

http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/indicator5.htm

http://healthandenergy.com/air_pollution_and_cancer.htm http://ec.europa.eu/environment/health/pdf/respiratory_health.pdf

Environmental_economics

http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm

Carbon_capture_and_storage

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7165/full/449973a.html

Appropriate_technology

Zero_emission

Zero-emissions_vehicle

Air_engines Air_car Compressed_air_vehicles

Electric_vehicle

PHEV

ICE_fuel_conversion Hydrogen_fuel_enhancement Green_tuning Liquid_nitrogen_economy

Battery_electric_vehicle

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/10/27/ft.kiteships/

Flettner_ship Turbosail

Future_aircraft_developments Future_Boat_Developments

Fuel_cell Hydrogen_vehicle

Flywheel_energy_storage

Net_metering

http://biodesign.webeden.co.uk/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nABkkK-32w http://www.instructables.com/tag/type:id/category:home/keyword:water http://www.thesietch.org/projects/solarthermalpanel2/index.htm

http://www.instructables.com/group/solarenergy/ http://www.instructables.com/group/livingwithoutoil

Radiator Gas_and_electric_stoves

Solar_box_cooker

Solar_thermal_collector

Cradle_to_Cradle:_Remaking_the_Way_We_Make_Things

http://www.mbdc.com/certified.html

Industrial_ecology

http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=27&cat=reuseashoe&subcat=global http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikeconsidered/

Applications

http://www.chinacp.com/eng/cppolicystrategy/circular_economy.html

Natural_building

Earth_sheltering

Green_building

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main31.asp?filename=Ne230607a_race_CS.asp&id=2

http://www.grrn.org/

Solid_waste_collection

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/10/garbage_in_dies.php http://dwb.thenewstribune.com/business/story/5982736p-5259676c.html

Collection_Methods

Grid_plan

http://cmbi.bjmu.edu.cn/news/0610/12.htm

Epidemic

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6244496.stm

http://ww2.unhabitat.org/wuf/2004/documents/WUFbrochuretextonlyMay2004.doc

http://www.pwc.com/extweb/pwcpublications.nsf/docid/dfb54c8aad6742db852571f5006dd532

w:World_population

http://www.panda.org/news_facts/publications/living_planet_report/index.cfm

w:Overpopulation

Topic:Population control

w:Population_control

w:Eugenics

w:One-child_policy

http://nsac.ca/eng/research/scians.asp http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/7CB/0E/annex7g_agriculture.pdf

w:Agriculture#Environmental_problems

w:Ecological_pesticides

[w:Vegan#Resources_and_the_environment]] http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/other/veganfarming.html

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,1947182,00.html

http://www.intactforests.org/publications/intactforests_poster_preview.pdf

[w:Irrigation]]

[w:Deforestation]]

[w:Imitation_meat]]

[w:In_vitro_meat]]

http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/605caweek/index.htm

https://archive.is/20130105232744/www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2003/12/61562

w:Environmental_ethics

www.dti.gov.uk/energy/whitepaper/index.shtml UNEP's Global Environment Outlook saying that humanity is at risk by climate change and other environmental problems http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/26/climatechange http://www.unep.org/geo/

http://www.coopamerica.org/about/newsroom/editorials/Twelvesteps.cfm http://www.ipcc.ch/

http://www.gseii.org/gseii/

http://www.carbonneutralnewcastle.com/

http://www.arup.com/eastasia/project.cfm?pageid=7047

http://www.earthship.net/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11221015

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/archive/2208013.stm

http://web.archive.org/web/20070820012608/http://www.norway.org.uk/policy/news/carbon-neutral.htm

On Increased Environmental Advantage

Objective

Means

Note

By making high percentages of the country protected nature reserve, smaller area's will remain on which constructions, farms, ... can be placed. As these buildings will be build closer together, huge amounts of energy will be saved as

Besides this, allot less pressure will be put on the environment as fauna and flora will be given more space and less interaction will happen between humans and fauna/flora.

Aldough the amount of farming grounds may decrease, due to the increased fertilisation (from the recycling of nutrients from sewage), less ground will be required for the same amount of crops and as the population is due to decrease, less food will need to be grown anyhow.

Depending on the country, a percentage between 75-95% will need to be given the status of nature reserve. For certain countries (e.g. Singapore, Hongkong, ...) however, huge deviations may be allowed. Finally, an example of the benefits can already be seen in Japan, where the inavailibility of flat terrain has limited construction possibilities to a small percentage of the country, creating a similar situation.

Objective

Means

Exceptions should exist for

Note Fish production can be set up trough aquaculture, and has the benefit that no price variations will arise as it will become independant from fluctuating fish catches. Fish from aquaculture can also be checked more thoroughly, which raises the fish quality. Finally aquaculture can also allow fish to be cultivated even in landlocked countries (without lakes).

Farmers can make use of seedless varieties or varieties that produce non-fertile seed to ensure that no excess spread of their modified crops end up in nature. Besides these cultivars, they can also make use of structural barriers (e.g. by a well chosen location, or a selfmade barrier as in greenhouses) between their cultivation and nature.

Aldough allot of pesticides will be forbidden, using the new agricultural techniques (organic farming techniques as Fukuoka-method, diodynamic farming, AgroEcology, Natural Pest Management, Integrated Pest Management, BioIntensive Farming, System of Rice Intensification, ...) and new crop-varieties (cross-bred and GM), no pesticides are required anyhow. Aldough these systems use no pesticides, yield does not suffer; in the System of Rice Intensification yield can actually be increased by atleast 100%, while being grown completely ecological. For crops where pesticides are still required, biodegredable pesticides and biological pesticides can be used (e.g. lime sulfur, basalt rock dust, substances derived from plants (eg wormwood extract, ...)

Aldough the amount of roads between (not within) the cities will be halted from increasing or even decrease, enough roads are to be maintained for general road transport (aldough in some cases more distance will need to be travelled), and can be assisted with other means of transport that do not require roads (e.g. trains, boats, airplanes, ...). Finally as, according to NASA, roads are putting up too much strain on the traffic itself, it is expected that it will be replaced anyhow and by the progress that is made perhaps even within a few decades (e.g. NASA's push on PAV's, ...). As such little gain can be made by putting down more roads.

A certain limit (or higher taxes) to the amount of biodegradable municipal waste a private person can bring in to the cities biodegradable waste disposal sites, would decrease the amount of stress put on the cities biodegradable waste disposal system, and would decrease the unnecessairy extra traffic, energy usage and relocation of nitrients/minerals/bacteria, ....

Objective

Means

Objective


Means


Note At the moment no closed food cycle is present in any country and closing it will mean that less nutrients need to be gathered from other sources (e.g. no extra farming grounds will need to be created), costs on fertilisation of these farming grounds will decrease heavily. Methane emissions will also be decreased because compostation generates less methane than natural degredation of the waste and the methane produced can be collected and burned as it will be centered. Besides this, pressure on the environment is also lowered susbstantially as in many, if not all countries, not only are the nutrients not being reused (in developed countries they are burned), they also often end up in nature without processing (mostly in developing countries) where they disrupt the ecosystem and do even more damage (e.g. the sea; where it overfertilises the water hereby encouraging algae growth and the destruction of the local ecosystem).

The use of a sludge processing plant placed after the underground canals of the sewage was considered, but ultimately discarded because of the fact that huge water consumption would still occur and as raw collection of the waste material would yield a better soil additive. In addition, the system's set-up is way more simple (seperation between water purification and sewage, and for this sewage system no piping, collectors, pumps, water purification plants, ... are required;; only a septic pit, 1 processing plant and trucks to carry the waste material) the cost to set-up the system (aswell as it's operation) would be incomparably cheaper. This new system of large-scale waste disposal could be set up fairly quickly as it is based on existing composting loo's combined with the constant recycling of nutrients (present in nature and systems based thereon; as the MELISSA-system, and the cradle-to-cradle design system).

As the initial set-up and operation costs of this system of sewage are cheaper, they could help to decrease non-existent (80% of developing countries) or inaduquate sewage. To increase the financial beneficits for the general population too, (part of) the money saved by the price difference of this method could be used to make the septic pits (which need to be bought by the user itself) cheaper or to allow loans. As such, this measure would help to increase popularity for our suggestions, decrease environmental pollution and improve the life-quality of the people.

Objective

Means

Note GHG-emissions will be decreased as the ozone depleting substances are also gases that contribute heavily to climate change (high GWP-value), and because of interaction. Aldough the Montreal-protocol already banned the worst ozone depleting gases as CFC-gases and chlorofluorocarbons, not all ODS-gases are banned by it. Finally, trough the Montreal protocol, it has been proven that all technical barriers have been broken.

Objective

Means

Note Forbidding non-indiginous plants will also decrease water use (as sprinkling will become unneccessairy because indiginous plants are adapted to the (in)availability of water in the area. Besides this, the people will not only need to water the plants less, but weeding and other annoying garden activities will also decrease because indiginous plants grow allot faster and can easily outcompete weeds.

Laws to be implemented until the countries in question have also implemented the suggestions:

Objective

Means

Note In biodiversity hotspots, all logging of trees (without replanting) should be forbidden as it not only accounts for emissions of carbondioxide but also for a huge loss in biodiversity (which has a huge negative financial impact trough the field of bionics). To counter this, all activities that involve deforestation should be forbidden in biodiversity hotspots.To compensate the loss of money, countries can receive 10% of profits from intellectual property, gained from bionics found in these countries.

References and more information

w:Biomimetic

w:Composting_toilet

http://ecls.esa.int/ecls/?p=melissa

w:Rainwater_harvesting

w:Xeriscaping

P.S.:Hook-up with other side-projects: Perhaps a law can be implemnted that forbids all agricultural crops (thus exepting the horticultural crops) of being grown outdoors. This would completely phase out any environmental damage that may result and can be replaced in practice by

Optional digitalisation of city communal services

Objective

Means

without needing any government-issued paperwork such as a passport, visum, permits (residence permit, entry permit, work permit, ...)

Notes The first measure above is intented to allow people from countries with a high population density, lower development index and still many pristine areas to move from their countries that are more developed and have little pristine areas. As such, people have a chance to become more productive and wealthier, while at the same time preserve the natural environment better. It also allows people in countries that are at risk of climate change (low-lying islands/countries, ...) of moving to another country easily.

The second measure ensures that if they have moved to another country, they do not become a financial burden to the people of this other country. In addition, it also ensures that people within the country act more responsively with the money they attain from their job, and are more eager to keep their job. Note that most social securities would be unaffected though, so disability insurance and financial assistance to people that need medical support and can not pay for this themselves should remain in place. The indefinite semi-naturalisation for aliens mentioned as the alternative would involve that during the course their life, they would not be able to attain any unemployment insurance whatsoever.

Technology that can be used to replace non-open source OS':

Technology to replace libraries and postal services:

Technology to replace the old keys/keycards to open doors and for other security purposes:

Technology to replace writing paper, aswell as the paper versions of newspapers, & non-educational magazines and books:

Technology to replace analogue telephones:

Technology to replace analogue TV broadcasts (via cable/VHF&UHF-antenna):

Additional possibilities:


New services the city will need to offer:

P.S.1: Perhaps 3G-masts can be converted or used alltogether to also distribute the services mentioned in the cities internet/intranet network (probably by LAN). If so, analogue radio communication (which GSM-mobile phones also use) may be completely forbidden and replaced by voIP-phones. To adress the then occuring problem of reduced coverage, new mobile voIP-phones may as an extra be equipped with low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication.

P.S.2:Hook-up with other side-projects The express-mail companies described (UPS, DHL, TNT, FedEx, ...) may use the UAV proposed in one of my side-projects to deliver goods/packages. Also, the UAV proposed may in the (distant rather than near) future be used as a personal air vehicle (PAV) to decrease stress on the road system and improve transport efficiency.

P.S.3: By means of hydraulicly retractible tables and chairs, extra space can be conserved , reducing costs (for heating rooms), and making simplifying cleaning. Besides for people, this simplification of cleaning may also be useful for making robotic cleaning (e.g. with the Roomba vacuum cleaner, ...) possible (cleaning robots being similar to the Robomow, but then for cleaning)

P.S.4: As the UN is pushing internet access as a human right, the set up of global internet access wil need to be done anyhow and actually features no extra cost

P.S.5: File storage for the cities' residents trough base stations is required to allow them to use smaller pc's called UMPCs or handhelds (as on these machines fery few files can be stored)

References and more information

w:RFID#Passive

w:WiMAX

w:Package_delivery

w:Goobuntu

w:Irix Project Looking Glass (3D Modification for Linux) w:Project_Looking_Glass

w:Compiz

w:Croquet_Project

http://cities.media.mit.edu/projects/elens.html

w:Electronic_paper

w:Paper#The_future_of_paper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_over_IP

http://www.inmarsat.com/Services/Land/BGAN/?language=EN&textonly=False http://www.bentley-walker.com/technology_mobile.php http://www.stratosglobal.com/products/page-products_vsat.cfm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Internet_access

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region

Objective

Means

Note: Technology to replace Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) displays include Liquid Cristal Display (LCD), and Plasma Display Panel (PDP) viewing devices

References and more information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_light-emitting_diode

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_discharge_lamp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_outlet#Type_E_and_F_hybrid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_power_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_crystal_display

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_display

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_English

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Calendar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_name


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