Tech Weapons We Need To Combat Global Warming

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Science Technology

CCNM Reporter Sep 8, 2022 3

By Rob Enderle
August 30, 2021 4:00 AM PT
Reprint from TechNewsWorld Tech Ideas To End Global Warming

Whenever a war like Afghanistan ends, a financial problem drives a country into the next war. The companies that build the weapons take a massive revenue hit because a country at peace doesn’t consume many ordinances.

But this time, thanks to climate change, there is effectively another conflict doing far more harm. That is the war to mitigate the fires on the West Coast and the weather events e.g., floods, tornados, and hurricanes on the East Coast of the U.S.

What if we took this military capacity and built “weapons” to fight fires and floods? Today we use repurposed military vehicles for this kind of service, but weapons designed for one type of conflict aren’t necessarily ideal for another.

A shift in focus of military manufacturing from killing people to alleviating disasters could also address many large companies’ problems with employees objecting to military contracts. If the efforts were switched from predominantly taking lives to saving them, the efforts should be more palatable.

Let’s talk about some of the inventions that could be used to make us all safer, switching our focus from harm to help this week.

We’ll close with my product of the week, arguably the coolest Tesla-like electric-powered hydrofoil boat that’s trying to transition boating away from fossil fuels.

Fire Mitigation

This is the third consecutive summer that I haven’t truly enjoyed living in a resort community due to the smoke from wildfires. Our home has never been at risk, but the smoke is so heavy some days that they say it is doing lung damage in line with a pack-a-day cigarette habit. One day the smoke was so thick that I couldn’t breathe outside. We’ve lost entire towns to fires that got out of control and couldn’t be contained in time.

Yet, we have developed various weapons systems that have advanced to identify enemy groups over broad geographic areas. Suppose we could use the identification technology that we currently use to find terrorists and mission it to locate forest fires before they have time to grow aggressively. In that case, we should be able to respond more quickly.

We often use reconfigured air tankers to drop water from fires. Still, these tankers take a while to get into the air because their crews need to be called up, so they can’t be maintained in a fully-ready state. There are also risks associated with weather, drones, and other pilot distractions that can lead to crashes.

The Boeing Stingray Drone is an air refueling drone that could be converted into a rapid response flying vehicle for fire elimination. The Stingray is designed against an aggressive military specification; it should be able to resist adverse weather. It has no crew, so it can get into the air more quickly. A drone’s loss of life is minimized, meaning it could fly in conditions a typical air tanker could not.

Another solution is to repurpose the new military drone swarm; so instead of dropping explosives, it drops fire-extinguishing bombs. One company already makes these. I have several in my garage because they can be very effective against small fires. Check this out:

A large drone swarm dropping these extinguishers could likely diminish a fire before it spread widely.

Coupled with a distributed sensor network like the one Huawei has developed with the Rainforest Connection (they repurpose cell phones as sensors), this network could provide far earlier warning than the old-fashioned methods we have today. A reconfigured Stingray — or a flock of them — could be launched to deal with the young fire within seconds of being identified, potentially eliminating it before more damage was done.

Human Transport

In a fire or flood, often there are situations where the roads are unpassable, yet we need to get first responders in and evacuate citizens out. Frequently, civilian or repurposed national guard helicopters are provisioned for this duty. But neither is designed to rescue people off roofs or from the front of raging fires.

Helicopters could be replaced with people-carrying drones that can land in tighter spaces, get first responders into remote locations, and evacuate rescuers and victims and from dangerous places.

There are several personal riding drones under development for both commercial and consumer use. One of the more interesting is the DP-14 Hawk being developed to evacuate an injured soldier to a base up to 100 miles away. This same drone could be used to evacuate people caught in a fire or flood zone without putting a helicopter and its crew at risk.

A larger version is the Cormorant, which can deliver cargo, like fire fighting gear and equipment, and evacuate a small team from a remote location.

There are autonomous vehicles for this purpose, but they would have limited use in a fire or flood. Still, they might be helpful in an earthquake or a localized situation like a remote hiking injury.

The evacuation in Afghanistan is slowed by the size of the transports and their inability to function well without a landing strip. Granted, they have to worry about hostile fire. But no one should be shooting at responders in events like I’m describing. So, designs that may not work on the battlefield could work to evacuate people from a disaster area rapidly.

One of the more interesting efforts is the Lockheed LMH-1, a heavy lift airship expected to be 300 feet long and capable of carrying more than 23 tons of cargo, along with a capacity of 19 passengers and two crew. Swap in people for that 23 tons of cargo, figuring 100 people per ton, and we’re looking at roughly 2,300 people. Although humans and cargo are not loaded on aircraft the same way, my point is the capability to transport large numbers of people in emergencies.

Another effort that could carry up to 3,000 metric tonnes is also under development. A water ton is 224 imperial gallons, giving this something like 672K gallons of water, which could be moved to address drought or fight a fire.

Wrapping Up

We have a problem: wars are profitable, which drives money and influence into starting these conflicts. This dynamic makes wars harder to get out of than to get into.

But with global warming, we have a battle that almost everyone supports: the war to keep people safe from fires and weather events that are crippling many parts of the globe.

If we shifted the military-industrial complex to fighting the effects of climate change, they could retain their profits and we’d be far safer. Everyone wins. The military firms get a sustainable non-war income, and we get a better defense against what is currently causing a lot of harm: a pissed-off Mother Nature.