Climate Engineering As US Policy?

EricTheGreen writes "The Associated Press has an article featuring Obama administration science advisor John Holdren discussing potential climate engineering responses to global warming. Among the possible approaches? His own version of Operation Dark Storm — shooting micro-particulate pollution high into the atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. I'm sure the rest of the world would have no issue with that at all, of course. Yikes ..."

Comments

Matrix

[gmuslera]

Nice way to conmemorate the 10th year since that movie... scorching the skies as Morpheus said, just that "the machines", this time, are just spambots.

Re:Matrix

[Yvan256]

It's just a preemptive strike.

Jurisdiction

[rockNme2349]

What even makes them think that the U.S. has the right to tinker with the global climate. I'm an american citizen, not a U.S. hater, but we don't have the jurisdiction to make changes that will affect the global climate.

Re:1/2 Acre of Trees = 1 Car's Pollution

[cybernanga]

According to my google fu, there were about 600 million cars world wide in 1997, and they estimate that at present rates that will double by 2030.

As we are in 2009, which is less than half way to 2030, let be generous and say there are 900 million cars on the road today.

This means we need to plant trees on 1.8 billion acres.

Considering that the Sahara Desert is over 2 billion acres, I think we have plenty of space. and as the Sahara is not too densely populated, it won't affect too many people, and will actually provide a lot of work for people in Africa, which will go a long way to solving may problems there.

Note: There are other deserts that could be used as well ;)

Re:1/2 Acre of Trees = 1 Car's Pollution

[ScentCone]

How much additional CO2 will we put into the atmosphere to irrigate the Sahara?

Fool. Just use carbonated water.

Venus has way too much CO2

[tjstork]

Venus's atmosphere has a few magnitudes more CO2 than the earth. So far the most workable modern plan for terraforming Venus would involve creating a sun shield to freeze the planet, then launch a bunch of CO2 blocks into space.

whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

[FooGoo]

He gets re-elected.

Re:It doesn't matter...

[IndustrialComplex]

Amusing, that you're willing to write fuck but not hell (heck is a sanitised version of hell)

Well, a lot of people don't believe in hell, but everyone believes in actions assocated with fuck.