Wild and Crazy Ideas to Cool the Planet
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06.28.06
Last year we sort of made fun of Mike's (pre-treehugger) idea for an artificial partial solar eclipse- a giant reflective orbiting space blanket to reduce amount of sun reaching the earth by a few percent to counteract global warming. Perhaps he should have patented it- The New York Times recently listed a plethora of zany suggestions- pumping reflective sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere; floating giant white foam frisbees to reflect sunlight; even orbiting Mike's giant reflector. It is all about geoengineering, or "rearranging the earth's environment on a large scale to suit human needs". It seems to us that we have done a bit too much geoengineering already. ::New York Times see ::worldchanging on the same subject and ::Mike's post here
the US government already put forward a weather modification bill. http://www.willthomas.net/Convergence/Weekly/Weather_Modification_BillS517.htm
Wow, what a great idea **ROLLS EYES**. Instead of fighting global warming at the source, lets come up with stupid ideas to fight the cause. Well I guess as long as our way of living as wasteful pigs is preserved, who cares right?
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editor note: Hmm, relax. Nobody* said that this was anything but fun to think about science fiction at this point and that it should take priority on dramatically reducing GHG emissions.
*Well, I haven't read the Times article, but we at TH certainly don't think so.
I certainly don't want to imply (and risk the wrath of the previous poster) that we don't need to reduce emissions. But I have to take exception to the statement that "It seems to us that we have done a bit too much geoengineering already." We have acted without regard to the consequence, and that certainly cannot be called engineering. Now that we've seen the consequence of our actions, we want to act differently (for instance by reducing emissions or by floating a giant space mirror) in order to cause a different consequence, to maintain human habitability of the planet. It leads me to ask, if the purpose of ecology isn't at least in large part human habitability then what is it? And if it is human habitability then does it matter whether we engineer through conservative (reducing emissions) or radical (changing the atmosphere to be more reflective) means?
There was a similer article written in the UK Times a month or so ago; it can be found here.. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2208385,00.html
It covers different standpoints on rectifying climate change; those advocate micro-generation and increased sustainability, and those advocate increasing usage of technology.
Sorry I wasn't getting on the case of the writer for the post, I was getting on the case of whoever suggested we look into these ideas. And sadly there are some people that suggest we look into such measures as putting a giant mirror up. And while this topic exists, I thank Lloyd Alter for writing the post, because exposing these ideas is just as important as pointing out why they should remain just an idea.
Just as an FYI: there was no sarcasm used in this comment...
weird crazy odd