Sunday, December 5, 2010

Techno Fixes for Climate?

 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101204/ap_on_sc/climate_broken_taboo_4

Note: I tried to get the above button to work but couldn't so you might have to paste it or type it to go there.

2nd note: I just discovered that "climate change" in the first sentence of the quote below will also take you into the article above.

The basic idea appears to be this: The U.S. and Great Britain appear to be working upon ways to technically modify the climate to help prevent some of the extreme effects of global warming.

begin quote from above article:

CANCUN, Mexico – Like the warming atmosphere above, a once-taboo idea hangs over the slow, frustrating U.N. talks to curb climate change: the idea to tinker with the atmosphere or the planet itself, pollute the skies to ward off the sun, fill the oceans with gas-eating plankton, do whatever it takes.
As climate negotiators grew more discouraged in recent months, U.S. and British government bodies urged stepped-up studies of such "geoengineering." The U.N. climate science network decided to assess the options. And a range of new research moved ahead in America and elsewhere.
"The taboo is broken," Paul Crutzen, a Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric scientist, told The Associated Press.
Whatever the doubts, "we are amazingly farther up the road on geoengineering," Crutzen, who wrote a 2006 scientific article that sparked interest in geoengineering, said by telephone from Germany.
But environmentalists are asking: Who's in charge? Who gets to decide whether to take such drastic action, with possibly unforeseen consequences for people worldwide?
"This is really a risky, dangerous option," said environmentalist Silvia Ribeiro, here for the two-week negotiating session of parties to the 193-nation U.N. climate treaty. end quote.

Though I see the problem I also see that unless someone does something millions and later billions likely will die from climate change worldwide especially in the poorer nations on Earth.

Though there may be many mistakes made by the richer nations that attempt to "Fix?" the climate, since there appears to be no agreement or consensus between all the nations this might be the only way presently to save at least some of the people on earth from death by extreme climate change that is now coming this century and beyond.

The term Geo Engineering or even the science fiction term "Terraforming" might be relevant now and in the future because of where the world is presently at in deciding it's fate.

Also, in case anyone was noticing the England, Scotland and most of Ireland photo from space of being completely covered by snow this early in the year this week, one of the actual causes of this happening so early in the year is the Iceland Volcano late last Winter and Spring of 2010. The little Ice age of Europe from the 1700s to 1900 was partly caused by the Iceland Volcanoes then. Even the starvation of the French which caused the French revolution was caused at least in part by the Iceland volcanoes altering the weather by putting volcanic glass dust particles above 20,000 feet in altitude. In the late 1700s these events also caused the Mississippi River to Freeze all the way to New Orleans. So, it could be said that Volcanoes worldwide when they put volcanic glass particles up high enough into the atmosphere (above 20,000 feet)  alter the climate (at least in that hemisphere) for years until enough of them fall to earth in rain storms or other weather related events.

Note: The easiest way I could think of would be to cause an eruption of a volcano that is away from large population centers. However, once you got something like that started there is no way of telling where everything would end up. In other words there would be no real control of the situation as to how high the eruption would go in the atmosphere, how long it would erupt or anything else. So, I think this sort of idea should not be tried. However, there may be countries or individuals who might try to dump glass volcanic dust up near the north pole to keep the northern ice from melting. Since not many people live in that region there likely no one would notice much as long as it was over 20,000 feet and away from  air passenger polar routes like the ones from Europe to various cities on the west coast of California, Oregon, Washington or Alaska.

Anyway you look at it I think a way to keep more people alive on earth will be found. When there's a will there's a way. It's just human nature to find a way to survive anything that comes.

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