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Stop Global Warming With Smog?
lkypnk writes, "The AP is reporting that Nobel Prize winning scientist Paul Crutzen has suggested deliberately spreading a layer of particulate matter in the upper atmosphere to help reflect some of the sun's energy in an effort to combat global warming. He reminds us that the eruption of the volcano Pinatubo in 1991 cooled the planet by as much as 0.9 degrees; he believes his computer simulations show a similar effect from deliberate injection of sulfur into the atmosphere by humans. Whatever the feasibility of the idea, as the president of the National Environmental Trust has said, 'We are already engaged in an uncontrolled experiment by injecting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.'" From the article: "'It was meant to startle the policy makers,' said [Crutzen]. 'If they don't take action much more strongly than they have in the past, then in the end we have to do experiments like this.' ... Serious people are taking Crutzen's idea seriously."
This eerily reminds me of the dark sky in "The Matrix"...maybe life DOES imitate art
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
Stop the increase of the climate change from CO2 pollution, with more pollution!!!!!!
Although there is probably some good science behind the idea, there was also good science behind the idea of using the Cane Toad to kill the Cane beetle, and that worked out well for everyone didn't it.
A few weeks ago (here, on slashdot) they wanted to pour sulphur or something into the atmosphere, now smog?
What part of "the earth is 2/3rds water, which evaporates, naturally, the warmer the planet gets, covering the planet in CLEAN, NATURAL, REFLECTIVE, WHITE, FLUFFY, clouds of water vapour" do these brainiacs not get?
Ever been outside? On a hot day? And had a cloud drift over. Ever felt the blessed relief as you race your bicycle up a 12km, 7% incline, maxing at 22% and felt the cooling effect as the sky becomes more overcast, shielding you from the burning rays of the sun and providing a UV protection of up to 50% compared with clear skies?
Quit trying to add stuff to the atmosphere, it's where the problems started in the first place.
The only thing they should be adding to the atmosphere is the leaves of the trees they plant. And lots of them.
All these drastic actions that do more to mess with our environment are reckless. We barely understand that we don't really understand the complex feedback systems we've already upset. We have a much higher confidence that merely reducing our Greenhouse pollution will at least buy us time to learn what we can do to stay in the climatic "sweet spot" in which we've evolved our civilization.
Not to mention that producing all these extra artificial climate "enhancements" will produce a lot more pollution in their industrial processes. And use the existing political economics players, in manufacturing and energy, who have shoved us down the road to the Greenhouse with reckless abandon. They will screw up any complex/delicate procedure if it means more fast money, regardless of the worse consequences that they'll have to share (except the really old capitalists who'll die before their legacy is inherited).
Startling politicians, who understand Climate Change only as a buzzword tradeable on the open market, with visions of increasing pollution to fix the climate hazards that pollution has created is a terrible way to do business. It will just lock down their fear and greed. The reptile brains that survived the last climate change cataclysm, wrapped in mammal bodies. I don't want to go the way of the dinosaur, especially by voluntarily throwing myself to the Tyrannosaurus Rex who represents the fossil fuel industry.
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make install -not war
Well, nature is among the most complex systems we're aware of, so it's always extremely hard to claim an idea and easily see if it'd work. The obvious question this idea raises to me is for example: how would the reduced solar energy affect wildlife, and what chain effects would that have to nature, both as for animals and plants?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
This is much like Tylenol - lowers body temperature and temporarily removes pain, but doesn't cure the symptoms.
Simpy
Instead of getting rid of the greenhouse gases, we are going to continue to literally mask the problem.
And think of the potential. Countries like China, could claim carbon credits for the copious particulate matter they produce, thus cancelling out their escalting C02 emissions! I hope Cutzen's attempts to "startle policy makers" doesn't backfire in this fashion.
Next we'll have some bright spark suggesting using Nuclear Winter, in a similar fashion. You know kill two birds with one stone ... take out the largest fossil fuel burning population centres and cool the planet at the same time. Ooops, I just suggested it, didn't I?
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Actually, this ties in with the decline of science and engineering candidates, and programs, in this country. I deal in the real world. I don't give a damn about ideology, belief systems, even social morés actually. The anti-nuclear wing of the environmental movement isn't rational (you should have heard one of them attempt to explain alpha radiation). I could discuss, what I can discuss publically, Cherobyl until I'm blue in the face. The plain fact of the matter is that such an accident as Chernobyl cannot occur over here, period. We do not even have an operational breeder reactor (Chernobyl was a cadmium moderated breeder) in this country, let alone any reactor without a containment dome, nor are we idiotic enough to bypass all the engineering safeguards and then conduct experiments on the reactor. [Or at least I hope the NRC isn't on that last point. I sometimes wonder.] I'll just leave it there.
Nature blessed us far beyond anything we deserved giving us a huge endowment of fossil fuels for cheap energy production and radical new materials, equally large endowments of uranium-235, -238, and if we would design towards it, especially thorium. But these are simply down payments. Fission and even fusion are simply a stop-gaps. We've had the technology now for over thirty years to build OTEC, SPS (Solar Power Sattelites), achieve break-even on fusion, improve the efficiency of plants for conversion to ethanol (plants are barely 1% efficient), and especially to engage in extremely heavy duty, Manhattan Project level, research into what makes our planet's complete ecology tick, and investments to achieve energy (and materials) independence for everyone, not just those of us in the 'rich' west. Instead what we face our challenges from the uninformed, or the ill-intentioned, to block any and all potential approaches to breaking out of this deadlock. Remember the windmill farm over the horizon from the Kennedy Compound?
As it stands right now, your children's children may curse the people living today to eternal damnation for squandering our endowment. We are well beyond the scientific research stage, it's (relatively) simple nuts-and-bolts engineering. As I've said elsewhere, not my problem. I don't have long left on this planet (alive anyway). What continues to amaze me is that when I break the numbers down for the actual spending required, even accounting for 500% inefficiencies typical of NASA and other government agencies (you can tell I was in government), it's cheap. Dirt cheap. [Total] Highway Spending Bill 'Pork' cheap. If we have to spend money on pork, lets do it here.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go