Controlling the Future

We are all aware that global warming is a major problem that requires our immediate attention. What sets this book apart is that it tackles the problem from an automation and control perspective.

To control a process, you 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 effects were in balance, but burning fossil fuels has upset the radiative equilibrium and combustion products accumulated in the atmosphere.

Automation and control analysis shows that the Earth's heating must be reduced and its cooling increased. Instead, the opposite is occurring: the Earth's temperature is rising because 8 to 10 billion tons of carbon are being emitted yearly. The resulting greenhouse effect blocks some of Earth's radiation from escaping into outer space and redirects it back onto the planet. The analysis also shows that global warming will accelerate when the positive feedback loops (ocean degassing, ice cover melting, permafrost methane release, clouding increase, etc.) are triggered.

Using the model-based control approach, Liptak analyzes the dynamics and characteristics of global warming, identifies the subprocesses that sustain and escalate it, and ultimately determines what can be done.

While the book presents the consequences of an out-of-control global warming process, it also describes the positive role artificial intelligence can play in solving the global warming problem. In addition, the book provides detailed descriptions of the technologies that are already available to convert to a safe, free, and inexhaustible energy economy by 2050.