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when I stuck my tongue out when it rained, I didn't taste any salt at all,

If I was choosing my nick again I would be the RTFT-TROLL (yes; that loud)

Here it is; the article title again, but this time a bit marked up for those of you so bloody stupid you can't see it.

Science: Bill Gates Funds Seawater-Spraying Cloud Machines on 2010-05-10 23:35

and a marked up an excerpt from the summary.

[...] The Microsoft founder recently announced plans to invest $300,000 into research for machines that suck up seawater and spray it into the air, seeding white clouds that reflect rays of sunlight away from Earth. [...]

P.S. Typical of Gates, that he's investing into a speculative solution into solving a problem he has a large responsibility for (just like drugs and vaccines for people who've been deprived of them by his IPR policies) still, better than a kick in the teeth. Many of our tycoon overlords don't even bother with this level of "largesse".

P.P.S. In case that wasn't enough of a troll to start a "discussion" I'll just post a link to someone who seems to have done the calculation whether this can help enough and found it can't; maybe we just need to start cutting down on fossil fuel use now??

1) the better way to "protect wildlife" is to not build a city where it lives. (Duh?) The Chinese are absolutely deadly to the environment - not just the air and water, but also leaders in deforestation and species extinction, even outside their borders.

2) the better way to cut pollution is to... uh... do something about the extreme pollution all over mainland China.

Who knew that clean air and water, forests, and sustainable coexistence with other species on the planet was worth having? Human greed trumps everything. The US was the poster child for environmental damage (Bush is very proud of being the "biggest polluter"), but China is competing for that gold medal.

Nuclear is expensive. Just about every plant requires govt. subsidies, and almost always goes over budget. Darlington NGS here in Canada is a good example of that. And now the Ontario govt. wants to build Darlington 2, Electric Boog-a-loo.

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal last month (reprinted here) about the high costs involved with nuclear power. New builds in places like Finland are behind schedule and over budget. The Bruce reactor refurbishment, here in Ontario, is already $300 million over budget.

I'm not anti-nuke (I work at a nuclear plant), but the public should know that nuclear power plants don't come cheap; and if their govt. decides to go on a nuclear building spree they should be prepared to open their wallets.

In case you haven't heard, dead zones (without oxygen) in the oceans are increasing rapidly.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4624359/
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/53803.html
http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceancolor/scifocus/ocea nColor/dead_zones.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1501AP_Dead _Zone.html
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2006/2006-10-19 -03.asp
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.as px?linkid=59371
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/10/20/deadzone_ pla.html?category=earth&guid=20061020143030

"Sometimes splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen by using sunlight energy is also referred to as artificial photosynthesis."

http://www.csiro.au/promos/ozadvances/Series14Arti fical.htm

http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/2003/bnlpr09090 3.htm

http://www.climateark.org/articles/2000/4th/rework to.htm

...but the trouble with human emissions is that they coinside with destrction of the Earths natural Carbon Sink mechanisms, eg. deforestation of the Amazon which has reached a crutial tipping point and the so-called Mega-fires have already started, as not reported on Slashdot (sniff).

http://www.climateark.org/articles/2001/4th/stsuma rs.htm

Just like the cycles here on Earth.....

Actually, there is evidence concerning this very fact. The research is something like 10-15 years old (heck, I did a report on it in middle school ten years ago and it was old news).

Here's some links, Google for more if you want:
http://www.climateark.org/articles/1999/icecore2.h tm
http://www.climateark.org/articles/1999/icecore2.h tm

Here's some good images of analyses of the Vostok core samples from
http://www.androidworld.com/prod60.htm - http://www.androidworld.com/Vostok_Ice_Core.jpg
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/vostok.htm - http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/vost ok.co2.gif

Ultimately, the data is generally interpretted two ways.

1. We're increasing faster than ever before, so it'll be worse than ever before.
2. We're not increasing faster than ever before, thus so-called "global warming" is part of a natural cycle.

Actually, there is evidence concerning this very fact. The research is something like 10-15 years old (heck, I did a report on it in middle school ten years ago and it was old news).

Here's some links, Google for more if you want:
http://www.climateark.org/articles/1999/icecore2.h tm
http://www.climateark.org/articles/1999/icecore2.h tm

Here's some good images of analyses of the Vostok core samples from
http://www.androidworld.com/prod60.htm - http://www.androidworld.com/Vostok_Ice_Core.jpg
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/vostok.htm - http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/vost ok.co2.gif

Ultimately, the data is generally interpretted two ways.

1. We're increasing faster than ever before, so it'll be worse than ever before.
2. We're not increasing faster than ever before, thus so-called "global warming" is part of a natural cycle.

What!? Dude. Every single country in the UN signed the Kyoto protocol, including Russia.

This is precisely the problem: that you and those who ride the same bandwagon as you seem to think that signing a piece of paper is solving the problem.

In reality, Canada continues to violate the Kyoto treaty. Russia only signed the treaty recently. This is just two examples.

Before the flame war begins, let me stress that I am definitely for a global reduction of polluting elements. But it is ridiculous to think that just signing a piece of paper is going to lead to that, and even more ridiculous to think that change from such an action would be immediate.

And while I'm no fan of Bush, I'm also no fan of unemployment, recession, or the US losing its corporate edge. If it is possible to move ahead with new technology and also with moderate restrictive policies, that seems smarter than committing to an ideal we will never follow (like other nations who have agreed simply to look good), or cutting our own throats.

What!? Dude. Every single country in the UN signed the Kyoto protocol, including Russia.

This is precisely the problem: that you and those who ride the same bandwagon as you seem to think that signing a piece of paper is solving the problem.

In reality, Canada continues to violate the Kyoto treaty. Russia only signed the treaty recently. This is just two examples.

Before the flame war begins, let me stress that I am definitely for a global reduction of polluting elements. But it is ridiculous to think that just signing a piece of paper is going to lead to that, and even more ridiculous to think that change from such an action would be immediate.

And while I'm no fan of Bush, I'm also no fan of unemployment, recession, or the US losing its corporate edge. If it is possible to move ahead with new technology and also with moderate restrictive policies, that seems smarter than committing to an ideal we will never follow (like other nations who have agreed simply to look good), or cutting our own throats.

A little googling places the Model T at 25 mpg (see http://www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?link id=23218).

This is slightly better than something like a porsche Carrera 2 (which http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/transportation/personal/buy ing/ reckons can get 22mpg city and 34mpg on the motorway).

Now is the Porsche an average vehicle? Not round here it isn't :)

Actualy in germany in 2004 it was roughly 9.4% of the power consumed was garnerd from wind power
http://www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?link id=39367
Its not a conspiracy theory its a fact of the matter , It will be replaced eventualy but right now too many jobs and natural resource earnings would be at stake for countrys to consider ditching it right now

Conglomorates its the right word though (A corporation made up of a number of different companies that operate in diversified fields.) most of them do have stakes in several sectors ,if you look into the various fields companys such as shell , BP and Texaco operate ..

will be the first thing reversed.

It's high time the top brass of the environmental movement admit that stopping Nuclear power was a mistake that has lead to greater devastation of the environment by coal plants.

Even the nuclear waste issue pales in comparison to the the ecological damage coal plants have caused and will keep causing until we replace them (finally) with much cleaner nuclear technologies like Pebble Bed. Coal of course has it's own waste issues.

The anti-nuclear power movement has been one of the best examples of the law of unintended consequences in our times.

CO2 is already pumped into oil fields to force oil out of old wells, its quite precious. I assume they can't use air because the oxygen would presumably create a danger of explosions and underground fires, though I don't know for sure.

They drill wells to tap underground CO2 deposits in the Four Corners and there is a rather long CO2 pipeline, built at substantial expense, from there to old West Texas oil fields.

You could in theory pump 100 billion tons of CO2 in to depleted U.S. oil fields which is 18 years worth of CO2 emmissions in the U.S. It might be possible to to do the same in underground coal mines,and use the CO2 to push out Methane to be used for example to make more Hydrogen and CO2.

They are apparently working on molecular filters to scrub CO2 out of the smoke stacks of coal fired power plants though it sounds a bit far fetched to me.

All this is kind of a short term fix though, and I'd agree its postponing rather than solving our energy and Greenhouse gas problems.

You're not serious that you don't "GET IT" are you? The evidence is overwhelming. And those who trot out some trumped up fiction that refutes the majority are mostly politcally motivated, or funded by oil companies. There is really buig bucks at stake to these people, at least for them. But if the planet compromises it's long term future, what have we done? Look at this month's "Discover" magazine; or any simple searching dregs up tons.: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2001/04/13/MN211246.DTL http://home.earthlink.net/~cevent/11-10-04_solid_e vidence_gw.html http://www.carleton.ca/~tpatters/teaching/climatec hange/globemail4.11.97.html http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/02/19/en vironment.report/ http://www.ehleringer.net/Biology_5460/Projects/cl imatedata/globalwarming3.pdf http://www.climatesolutions.org/pubs/pdfs/gwih.pdf http://www.climateark.org/articles/2001/2nd/statto ce.htm http://www.mmmfiles.com/archive/gw2001.htm http://www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/3970 _ConferenceBoard.pdf http://www.colorado.edu/pwr/occasions/salliebaliun as.htm http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-58/iss-1/p13.html

Yeah! Just because the US, with something like 5% of the world's population produces 25% of all the world's greenhouse gas emissions, doesn't mean they're responsible or should sacrifice the sacred american dollar. God forbid - they're the chosen people.

What is truly offensive to most of the world is the f-you attitude of americans like you and your warmonger-in-chief (and, judging from your spelling, I'm sure that you voted for him).

And in fact, the Sahara was inhabited following the last ice age (see this), and the final drying started around 5000 BP. Some believe the root cause was variations in the earth's tilt (this) -- which doesn't mean that a change in circulation cells wasn't the direct cause of the drying.

Wind Power and Temperature Change

1. California regulated the construction of power plants, making them so hard (legally) to build that not a single one came online between 1988 and 2001. "Deregulation" indeed.
2. California regulated the maximum price of electricity (as charged to consumers) while allowing a shortage condition to drive the cost of electricity (bought to producers) to go as high as five times the proce.

So how can straight-thinking people call that "deregulation"? What next? Rename DoD "The Department of Foreign Happiness"?

-- SysKoll

A site with more information is here.

Here is a paper about how frozen methane may offer hope as alternate fuel

Okay so contrails are bad... unless you live in a cold climate ( that is ) ...

Bzzt. Naive. Global warming affects all climate zones. Some naive Canadian journalists have naively suggested that global warming would benefit Canada, because areas too cold for farming would now become arable. Or they have suggested it would be good for the summer tourist industry. Dim.

But the effects are proving unpredictable. Will there be enough rain? Currently arable areas are experiencing drought. I have already written here about the shocking results of the Repeat of Henry Larsen's voyages through the Northwest passage. The first traversal of the Northwest passage, in 1903, took Amundsen three years, because of the ice. Larsen's first trip took him 850 days, because of the ice. The vessel that repeated the voyage in 2000, easily traversed the passage, from Vancouver to Halifax in just 100 days, and encountered almost no ice...

Actually, hydroelectric dams produce lots of pollution, in the form of methane (a greenhouse gas) produced when vegetation washed into the stagnant dam water rots. See a blurb about this here. The report was produced by the World Comission on Dams, and I think this graphic does an admirable job of illustrating some of the pluses and minuses of hydroelectric energy. It's not perfectly clean, although it certainly has advantages.

First of all, reducing C02 doesn't really lower greenhouse gases. The biggest greenhouse gas is water vapor, making up 98% of all greenhouse gases. We can't control water vapor.

That's a gross simplification, and may not even occur. But we don't know. We don't know how delicate the system is. And we don't know if some previously undiscovered feedback loop is going to leap up and bite us on our arses (several candidates are already known).

It was similar to the worry about global warming now, only the reverse. As we know now, this didn't happen.

Third, global temperature depends on where you measure temperature. If I measure temperature in the middle of the city, it will go way up as the city increases in size and population. If I measure it in the country, it's not going to increase. Statistics lie, that's what they're good for.

Lastly, scientists don't agree on global warming. There was a similar conference earlier this year where scientists decided that they couldn't come up with a solid decision on global warming.