respiration and physico-chemical diffusion from the seas. Over the last two centuries, man has upset this balance. Scientific estimates now place the number of metric tons of carbon removed from the atmosphere annually by natural processes at approximately 204 billion. Added to the atmosphere are approximately 207 billion metric tons of carbon, of which 5 billion tons are produced by burning fossil fuels and 2 billion tons are released by deforestation. The net gain of 3 billion metric tons of carbon per year is the primary cause of global warming. The Project The Greenhouse Effect was the topic for investigation by teams of fourth year and graduate students in the Institute of Design's Systems and Systematic Design class in the fall of 1988. Using a computer-supported design process called Structured Planning to gather and organize information from a large number of sources, the teams devised two macro-design proposals to confront the global warming problem. Then, as the teams realized the seriousness of the problem, the work begun in class in 1988 was continued independently into 1989 and on through 1990 to develop a computer-produced presentation of the concepts for public dissemination. Both design proposals grow out of reflection upon a basic greenhouse equation: the oxidation of carbon. The first approach (the subject of this paper) takes the equation as is and asks what can be done to contain its effect. In this approach, the effort is toward reducing the amount of CO2 in the air by reducing the amount of carbon burned - in essence, replacing fossil fuels as a source of energy. The second approach reverses the equation and asks what can be done to remove existing CO2 from the air. This approach leads to means for augmenting photosynthetic processes and is covered separately in the project report/ Over the course of the work, the Project Phoenix design blended the best ideas discovered in the process of information gathering with new ideas invented to fulfill unmet needs. The result is a conceptual plan - really a carefully prepared problem statement for projects to be carried on at a more detailed level. In this case, final concepts were visualized for the first time with computer produced renderings. The figures in this paper were computer-generatedon Silicon Graphics workstations using Alias 2.4 software. Space-Based Power Environmentalists for years have called for the use of natural energy sources to replace fossil fuels. Wind, sun, rivers, waves, tides and geothermal sources have all been harnessed locally where they are effective. Independently or in conjunction with conventional fossil fuel energy sources, they reduce dependence on fossil fuels - which, in any event, have a limited life expectancy (the supply of fossil fuels will ' Obtainable as "Project Pheonix" from the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, 10 W. 35th St., Chicago, IL 60616.
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