Many books have been published about stopping global warming. What sets this book apart is that it applies the science of process control to analyze the warming process.
To control a process, we must fully understand it. Global warming is analyzed here as a heat balance process in which Earth is warmed by the Sun and cooled by outer space. For a million years these heat flows were in balance, but burning fossil fuels has upset the radiative equilibrium as combustion products accumulated in the atmosphere.
The process-control-based analysis shows that Earth's heating should be reduced and its cooling increased, yet the opposite is occurring: Earth's temperature is rising faster than ever before, and the greenhouse effect that blocks some of Earth's radiation from escaping into outer space is larger than any time in centuries. The analysis also shows that global warming will accelerate when the tipping points of the gigantic feedback loops (ocean degassing, ice cover melting, permafrost methane release, clouding increase, etc.) are triggered.
Using the well-established process control principles, Lipták evaluates the time constants and inertias and determines the dynamic characteristics of the global warming process, identifies the subprocesses that sustain or escalate warming, and ultimately determines not only what needs to be done, but also describes the technology and infrastructure needed to do it.
While the book describes the consequences of this out-of-control global warming process, it also describes the role artificial intelligence can play in stopping it. In addition, the book provides the timeframe—based on the actual gains and inertias of this process—for converting today's energy economy into a safe, free, and inexhaustible one by 2050.
Today mankind is at a crossroad! One sign at this fork reads "Trust Science." This sign shows the direction towards protecting the only home we have and caring about the future of our children. We must shake off complacency, stop living in delusion, and do what needs to be done to protect the planet. The other sign reads "It's a Hoax!" We must not find out where this second road leads, because the threat is the size of life itself.