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| Science & Technology |
| Wacky Ways To Cool Earth |
| 2006-06-27 |
| In the past few decades, a handful of scientists have come up with big, futuristic ways to fight global warming: Build sunshades in orbit to cool the planet. Tinker with clouds to make them reflect more sunlight back into space. Trick oceans into soaking up more heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Their proposals were relegated to the fringes of climate science. Few journals would publish them. Few government agencies would pay for feasibility studies. Environmentalists and mainstream scientists said the focus should be on reducing greenhouse gases and preventing global warming in the first place. But now, in a major reversal, some of the world's most prominent scientists say the proposals deserve a serious look because of growing concerns about global warming. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #23 CO2 is not a greenhouse gass. H2O vapor is. In the fall of 2002, Mnt Etna spewed out during 10 days as much of pollutants, including CO2, as equaled whole mankinds' production of the same during 15 years. Nuff said. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2006-06-27 23:52 |
| #22 Broadhead6 You forgot to mention the formation of a new Great Red Spot on Jupiter. |
| Posted by: DanNY 2006-06-27 22:37 |
| #21 What the ...? Man and Gummermint haven't controlled the Sun or God, etal. yet - what the hell is going on here!? Communism OWG and Totalitarianism now, D *** it, the Lefties and Policrats need the $$$. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-06-27 22:17 |
| #20 The problem is that the eco-nuts still haven't explained away the "warming" on a solar system scale - and how that most of this warming may be related to solar output activity. And they have yet to prove that anyw arming effects are even caused by greenhouse gasses - rather than indicated by their presence. Nor is there any explanation of the warming periods of previous millenia where it was far warmer than now - and the geologic ages where it was even warmer than any of mankind' climatological periods - what caused those? WHat has cause the flattening out of mean global temperatures over the past 7 years? And better yet - WHAT CAUSED THE COOLING after each and every one of those warming periods? Hmm? Don't have an answer, do you? There is NO model that can illustrate realiable ANY of the historical warming and cooling periods. NONE. They need to stop screwing around and follow the most likely source (solar fluctuations, polar magnetic changes, etc) than the ones that fit their political agenda. |
| Posted by: Oldspook 2006-06-27 21:38 |
| #19 Shieldwolf DoD/DoE tested it a few years back. It worked just fine. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-06-27 19:56 |
| #18 Actually, the iron enrichment of seawater and resulting increase in calcium carbonate deposits in the ocean is one that can be tested in small scale demonstration projects. It could also result in an upswing in harvestable fish stock, due to the increase in the lower food chain prey species. But large scale terraforming on the only inhabitable planet that we have access to -- no freaking way. |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2006-06-27 19:17 |
| #17 "so pouring large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere ISNT planetary engineering?" CO2 (or airborne plant food) is 0.003% of the atmosphere up from 0.002% and change in atmosphere terms of 0.001% Yawn. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2006-06-27 17:57 |
| #16 Somehow, I think it should involve beer. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2006-06-27 17:56 |
| #15 Nor my area lotp, I was just extrapolating a little ways into the future and I have just finished reading Ray Kurzweils' "The Singularity is Near", hence all the talk about exponentials ;) I do believe the only way we're going to avoid planetary catastrophes (man-made or otherwise) is through our science and technology - a regression to an agrarian existence will doom billions to short, brutal, hungry lives. |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2006-06-27 17:38 |
| #14 Nope - THAT's "tinkering". Whole 'nuther approach LOL. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-06-27 16:49 |
| #13 "I'd be a little more comfortable with planetary engineering if we had a prototype to work with OTHER than the one we live on. ;-)" so pouring large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere ISNT planetary engineering? |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2006-06-27 16:43 |
| #12 Might work, Al Gore. You certainly leave ME cold LOL. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-06-27 16:42 |
| #11 I have a plan to half carbon and reduce temperature by the utilizing the absolute shearing force of boredom. woof! |
| Posted by: Al Gore 2006-06-27 16:40 |
| #10 Couple these two trends together and you end up with a system that will be gathering huge amounts of data on the atmosphere and be able to make predictions (if only by using neural nets to identify patterns) and so we'll be able to change climate (locally at least) by using a different kind of smart dust. Maybe. Neural nets learn by trying to match pre-existing patterns. We would need to understand the causal patterns of whole climactic systems, at a very very detailed level, as only the first step in this. Not my area at all (the weather side) but a friend of mine who did doctoral work at Penn State, one of the best climate modeling groups in the world at the time, thought we were far from that a decade ago. Do we understand it better now? (Could be we do - it's not a rhetorical question ....) |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-06-27 16:35 |
| #9 Dr. Sorry Moose, I couldn't help it!! Waaa |
| Posted by: RD 2006-06-27 16:35 |
| #8 Some things that make me question how much man is really adding to global warming as Gore asserts: 1. Scientists have studied the Sun & have concluded that it is hotter now and going through a heating period. (Apparently the sun goes through it's own cycles of heating up and cooling off). 2. The Ice Caps on Mars are really melting (as I sarcastically mentioned before.) 3. The ant-arctic ice cap has actually become more firm-packed while the arctic is melting. 4. The earth has only heated by a margin of one degee over the past 100 years. 5. *as per Mrs. BH6 - my extremely smart biologist/environmental science wife - the earth has went through numerous heatings, coolings, and mini-ice ages over the past millenia - this is no different. Plus, after all we are coming out of an ice age. -I tend to think that man has added a little to global warming by the use of fossil fuels etc, (either way I don't think we've helped). However, I think it's about 80% less of what Al Gore asserts. Either way I pray for the day we are off the arab oil and on to something better to test this hypothesis. |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2006-06-27 16:18 |
| #7 We have a doubling time of computation/cost of about 18 months, and this time is itself diminishing - it's always a bad idea to continue exponential trends indefinitely, but this one still has some legs in it. We're getting closer and closer to having 'smart dust' available with ubiquitous communications (think a sensor in every cubic kilometre of atmosphere). Couple these two trends together and you end up with a system that will be gathering huge amounts of data on the atmosphere and be able to make predictions (if only by using neural nets to identify patterns) and so we'll be able to change climate (locally at least) by using a different kind of smart dust. Of course, if we get self-replicating nano-machines, then this particular problem will become 'trivial' to fix. Other problems will arise though... |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2006-06-27 16:18 |
| #6 lotp, you don't want to do beta testing with live data?!?! Where is your adventurious spirit, damnit!??!?! I've got too many software launches of that type on my karma already ... ;-) |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-06-27 16:10 |
| #5 Martin A. Apple, president of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, said of geoengineering at a recent meeting in Washington, "Let's talk about research funding with enough zeroes on it so we can make a dent." That tells ya all you need to know... |
| Posted by: Ptah 2006-06-27 16:04 |
| #4 It's not nice to fool mother nature. Lack of empirical evidence on the result may just ensure we have a global ice age. The earth is such a complex system, something known as a continuous state problem, that tampering without knowing all - in this case most -of the variables usually leads to unforseeable results. |
| Posted by: Warthog 2006-06-27 16:01 |
| #3 lotp, you don't want to do beta testing with live data?!?! Where is your adventurious spirit, damnit!??!?! |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2006-06-27 15:37 |
| #2 I'd be a little more comfortable with planetary engineering if we had a prototype to work with OTHER than the one we live on. ;-) |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-06-27 14:47 |
| #1 What about Mars? The ice caps are melting there to. Maybe we should tell the Martians to go hybrid. I know, that's Bush's fault to. Damn you Karl Rove! |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2006-06-27 14:45 |