Letters to the Editor
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Has anyone calculated the cost of getting the particles OUT of the sky?
Because there's something about this that reminds me of the nuclear energy business as it was being developed: Really cheap, safe, and great for the environment because it was non-polluting.
Our advanced knowledge of science saves the earth!
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Some thoughts
Thank you for an interesting article. I do feel that Paul Crutzen should have been mentioned (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_J._Crutzen#Global_Warming)".
- "The reason nothing's being done is that governments are ever slower to act." Ordinary (dare I say typical?) people do not see themselves as part of the problem. As soon as governments try to implement something that impinges on people's lives, people try to get around it. Or the officals get voted out of office.
- "securing funding to test their grandiose plans in the Arctic and other trial venues." Who is he talking to so that I can plead for him not to get the funding? Just a small area like the arctic?!? Ever heard of Hadley circulation? Warm tropics, cold poles? It defines the entire global circulation. Has he any clue what a little "tinkering" might do?
- As Al Gore said in his book, "Earth in a Blance", people have to stop taking two tons of metal with them when they leave the house. The Netherlands has the best bicycle path network in the world, but the highways are still clogged with cars every day. Working out of the home is the best solution, I feel. There are just too many people moving around unnecessarily. (I don't think it is necessary to do away with them.)
- As for future generations, currently, all governments cooperate in a satellite network which is monitoring the earth. Everyone should be educated in at least the basics of how the earth functions, very much the same as learning how our own bodies function to stay healthy.
Trying not to feel too depressed...
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Look, leap
Right, let's intervene massively in an unimaginably complicated dynamical system that we barely understand. Surely things will come out for the better -- haven't they always, when we've done the same sort of thing on a minutely smaller scale?
Surely the first step (or long series of steps) before irreversibly changing everything would be to conduct a monster research effort that would give us something better than a crude facsimile of the knowledge required before making any such moves.
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Three More Suggestions ...
1. Nuke a volcano to induce an eruption.
2. Increase CFC use so that we can widen the hole in the ozone layer, since holes causes global cooling.
3. Develop a valid model for measuring global warming and obtain a scientific consensus on the results before thinking about solutions whose results don't permit measurement.
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They have already done that.
I recently flew from the east coast to the San Francisco. I brought a camera to get some nice pictures of the clouds. I couldn't see them once we were at cruising altitude. A brown haze filled the sky below the cruising altitude of the passenger jets which was visible until the sun set. First thing I noticed upon arriving was that the skies were actually blue and the sun was far brighter. I think we have intentionally blotted out about 15 percent of the sunshine on the east coast simply from domestic jet engine exhaust. Anyone remember how blue the skies were after 911 when they had cancelled flights?
The other remarkable thing was that in San Francisco, people know how to use toilets. That cannot be said for people on the east coast - well at least the northern half. Upon return I had to use the toilet and the first two had urine all over the seats, the next one was clogged with a roll's worth of toilet paper, the fourth one was smeared with excrement and the fifth one had the issue of self gratification splashed upon it.
We don't need to reengineer the earth, we need to reengineer people.
Block out enough sun and how is that going to affect the crops?
WTF is wrong with these people?
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@Ken Erfourth
"Humans eyes can't even detect the slightly lowered amount of sunlight hitting the ground."
Yes you can. You can get used to the reduced sunlight, but when you go where the sky is not filthy, you will immediately have a desire to buy some sunglasses. I did. Then I remembered that it was that bright 30 or 40 years ago.
Visit San Francisco and see for yourself. It also seems to improve people's dispositions. Fresh air and sunlight do wonders.
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Still More Hubris From The Peanut Gallery
Benford lost credibility after the first paragraph. Shooting millions of tons dirt into the Arctic Atmosphere? Never mind the immense carbon release getting it up there. Won't that dirt eventually settle on the the Arctic Icesheet, absorb more solar radiation and drastically accelerate it's demise? The white icesheet reflects massive amounts of solar radiation back into space. When the Icesheet is gone life will get truly surreal down here.
This fantasyland notion of engineering our way toward guilt-free fossil fuel consumption has got to stop. Conservation is the only way out of this debacle. Yet it always fall to the bottom of the solutions list.
Benford, the "realist" might find my views pollyannaish. But Rarely in history have cynics like Benford later emerged as visionaries.
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April Fool?
Hey, is this an april fools joke?
I'm surprised nobody mentioned that before me.
I remeber this idea being mentioned in some sci fi bookback in the 80's or 90's using nuclear winter to counteract global warming.
Any way, the science on the subject is pretty clearly not accurate, since fine particulates don't stay aloft in the atmosphere long enough to cause more than a minor seasonal change.
April Fools.
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@Clockwork Smurf
April Fool? Edward Teller has a patent on the process. That is why we have persistent contrails that form into long lasting clouds. He said it would cost about a Billion dollars a year to run the program. Aluminum particles, Barium salts and who knows what else are being used to reflect the sunlight back and provide a reflective layer for military communications systems.
The same thought process applies to bio-engineering and social control. When was the last time you ate a "natural " corn product? I try to stick with blue corn, but Monsanto probably has plans for that too.
I think the brown haze is just jet exhaust - it was visible over the east half of the country.