Geo-Engineering to stop Climate Change 551
MattSparkes writes "Following the latest report of the United Nations climate change panel, there has been a flurry of renewed interest in so-called geo-engineering. This is the theory of using technological schemes to stop climate change. These can range from sun-shades orbiting the Earth, to pumping millions of tonnes of sulfur into the atmosphere to the bizarre idea of painting the ground white to reflect more light. Let's reduce our emissions now, before I have to go and paint my roof bright white." Thanks to jamie for pointing out another potential solution of seeding the southern oceans with iron to spur plankton growth.
anything (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is everyone so afraid of change? (Score:1, Insightful)
Cheaper vacations. And the superhurricanes would take out all of those damn snowbirds in Florida.
Scares me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:anything (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Will enough roofs get painted white to counter the number of solar collectors being installed for hot water, pool heaters, PV and other dark surfaces?
You put up a black solar panel and you just thought you were doing the right thing.
Stop screwing with ecosystems (Score:5, Insightful)
1st. In Moab, Utah the forest service planted Russian trees to prevent the erosion of the river bed, only to find out that the plants have drained the river and killed many endogenous plants and animals.
2nd. Cane Toads were introduced into Australia to eat the insects that prey on the sugar cane. It turns out that the insects that eat sugar cane in Australia and Hawaii are completely different and there are no predators that can eat the Cane Toads. Now Australia is over populated with a Cane Toads which again are killing the natural plant life and animal life.
3rd. I can't think of another off the top of my head but I am certain there are probably hundreds of examples of this.
We must stop screwing with the ecosystems. When I hear of orbiting solar shields and massive projects to paint the desert, I get really scared because a scientist who really understands the delicate balance of the ecosystem would never dare to suggest such an idea. Only one who doesn't and is looking to make a buck and get on time for "saving the planet from global warming" would do it. These ideas will only result in causing more problems then they solve.
Fixing what isn't broken (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, lets say the world is warming up. Is that bad? Seriously, is that really bad? Who has determined this? Where do they live? What are their motives?
At one time when for natural reasons the earth had lots of CO2 in the atmosphere it warmed up and taller trees grew towards the poles. Great prairie fires dumped millions of tons of CO2 in weeks. Warmer temperatures and more trees resulted. This reduced CO2 and on came a subsequent ice age. It also left behind coal, natural gas and tar sands where today it is too cold for this to happen.
Nature is just fine tuning for the 6.5 new critters crawling on it. It needs to warm up to have more vegetation to scrub out the CO2. Let nature do it's thing.
Man contemplating whole scale planetary changes like this is similar to giving children an atomic bomb kit.
Global Warning (Score:2, Insightful)
We can see that it has occurred in the past and is occurring now.
What is in dispute is cause and cure, if any.
These cycles have taken place long before we had ANY impact on the planet.
*shudder* I can only imagine the swings once we start "tweaking" the cycles! */shudder*
Halt! (Score:1, Insightful)
We are going to make massive changes, spend trillions (US word) of dollars, make some irreversable decisions on ideas based upon an idea whose roots are based more in economic-geopolitical warfare than actual science.
When the hard core scienetists do not agree (and anyone saying there is consensus for man-caused global climate change (warming or cooloing) and there is no need to listen to the other side, are not only wrong, but their motives must be seriously examined), and we are looking at this in a highly emotional state, nearing hysteria, or religios ferver it's time to step back from the jumping off point and realize that we are being led, like lemmings or children by the pipers of anti-capitalism and population control.
Does anyone find it suspicious that the proponents of this man-caused point of view fly around exhaust belching planes and drive in caravans of SUV's, playing the "carbon neutral" carbon-credit shell game (3 card monte, really), to preach this idea when they could just teleconference in, and lead by example? Can't the inventor of the Internet show up to all his conferences by way of video and never travel? Wouldn't that be more beneficial? Wouldn't that show the world it is possible to globally telecommute? Saving the planet starts with you, Al?
Al doesn't believe it himself. It's not enough of a priority for Arianna. No, it's a means to a socio-political ends, nothing more. And the public is being hoodwinked.
"Geo engineering" (Score:4, Insightful)
Leave the planet alone please.
We know WAY too little about the planet to start screwing around with its Biosphere.
Not only that, but you do not get a second chance if you screw it up.
I say we start someplace else and experiment there, so if we do screw it up, no biggy.
Even the dumbest WINDOZE admin knows you always experiment on a TEST server before doing anything to your production server if you do not want downtime.
"Downtime" in this case would mean the Earths Biosphere.....I hope I do not have to explain what that means.
Besides, if we experiment with a different world, the WORST that can happen is it doesn't work.
Best possible thing that can happen is we get another planet to live on.
Half the people on this planet belong on Mars anyway....IMHO.
-Hack
Re:anything (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that there's just too many people. Trying to control or influence all of them is nigh on impossible, short of making the things you describe illegal, which would probably lead to a revolt.
A large segment of the population, any population, will always be stupid, thoughtless, and self-centered.
It doesn't help that the fastest growing and arguably the most powerful ideology in America today, evangelism, actively encourages bigotry, narrow-mindedness and a contempt for scientific principles that would be funny if it weren't so dangerous. And oh, the icing on the proverbial cake is that it doesn't matter what we do with the planet anyway, because it's all going to pass away any day now, and the faithful few will be taken to a paradise where they don't have to worry about anything at all, while the faithless multitudes will burn in hell forever.
Oh and I'm not done ranting yet either... (Score:3, Insightful)
planet far worse than people driving in their cars and cows passing gas,
like dumping million of tons of sulfur into the atmosphere
or painting large parts of the planet white or shading the planet from the
sun from orbit
believe me whoever comes up with these halfbaked (http://www.halfbakery.com)
ideas has no clue what could happen.
As Scientists, we had better be right (Score:5, Insightful)
This means that arguments against intelligient design will now have to show how the "certainty" about evolution is any different from the "certainty" about global warming. Similar issues will come up in arguments for vaccination and other issues where real deaths could follow. Arguments will come up about funding levels at universities and research institutes. Arguments will come up against new initiatives for reducing pollution.
There are a large number of interest groups out there that are waiting with increasing anticipation that this issue will blow up in the face of the global warming proponents. A large number of the rest of us will get hit by the shrapnel of that explosion. As an engineer and consultant who gets a great deal of work and money out of efforts to curb green house gasses, I personally love the hype. As a believer in the importance of science in all of our lives, I am now getting very nervous about the future reputation of science.
Cheers
JE
Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems (Score:2, Insightful)
Pigs and goats have ruined a few ecosystems. Rats too, but they were not put there intentionally. Gardeners have introduced a few plant species that that taken over, e.g. giant hogweed, Japanese knotweed.
Ecosystems only get balanced over long periods. I'm sure there are plenty of cases in pre-history where a new species has moved in and destroyed what was there before, but eventually a predator/parasite/disease will move in or evolve to control it.
You would hope that we know enough now not to just introduce a species without planning for controlling it's spread. In any case it should be possible to re-forest using local species in most cases. I expect someone will propose genetic manipulation to help things along, but that has it's own dangers/unknowns.
Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems (Score:4, Insightful)
4th. By not allowing woodlands to burn periodically, we've created the potential for much worse destruction by fire.
5th. I'm sure people can think of others.
The biological carbon sink idea is a bad one (Score:4, Insightful)
I would say that most of the carbon 'sinking' is done by algae that dies and falls to the bottom of the ocean, where it is cold and oxygen is limited. We don't know though if we fertilize the ocean that the algae will end up in the right spot, or just find its way to an area where the carbon would return to the atmosphere.
Re:anything (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, you obviously live in a major metropolitan area to be able to not own a car (that is, you must have copious and effective mass transit available to you). For many people across the country, owning a car is not an option if they are to be able to get ANYWHERE (see work, school, hospital, etc). While I agree that if one can feasibly find alternative means of transportation, then one should opt for that method, but we shouldn't demonize the very idea of owning a car under the assumption that the only reason people do so is out of selfishness/laziness.
Second, the problem isn't in owning SUV's or other gas guzzling cars, it's the fact that those cars (and car makers, oil companies, and government decision makers) are forcing us to power those vehicles with petroleum. The idea of getting rid of these vehicles is a crude attempt to treat the symptom and not the disease. Don't make it a bad thing for the family with 4 kids to drive an SUV because they need the space, make it bad that no one seems interested in solutions to powering these vehicles differently.
In short, just keep in mind that your particular circumstance (i.e. being able to walk to the store and carry your groceries home) isn't necessarily everyone else's (like the mother of 4 with the SUV...imagine her carrying those groceries when the nearest store is 7 miles away)
Re: Fixing what isn't broken (Score:2, Insightful)
"Consider the direct cost of moving all the world's coastal cities to higher ground."
For everyone having to spend a dollar to move there's someone else making a dollar. Encouraging spending is good for the economy.
"Consider what's going to happen when the world's current breadbaskets turn to deserts, and some of the present day's have-not countries find themselves sitting on the new best farmland."
When cars became popular, the guys making horseshoes found themselves becoming mechanics or going out of business. Change always brings troubles to those who refuse to change. Globalization is taking the low-level jobs and moving them to places that see them as high-level jobs. There are people who want to stop globalization because of the threat to their way of life and don't care that there are benefits to other people's way of life. Change is a given. It's all about opportunity.
"Yeah, nature doesn't care. But most of us kind of like our easy dinosaur-free lifestyle, and would like to pass it on to our children."
We don't have the world our parents had and they didn't have the world that their parents had. Heck, already our kids don't have the world we had. I think that's called adapting to your environment. Mankind's ability to do that has kept him at the top of the food chain for a long time.
Cheers
Huge potential for screwup (Score:1, Insightful)
One guy got himself totally plastered, so they went to fetch some super-strong coffee. But they gave him too much, and he went over the edge. So they had to get more alcohol to bring him back to the right level.
The planet is auto-correcting the mistakes we make, at its own pace. We need to make fewer mistakes, rather than try to push the planet to make faster corrections. If you don't screw up, you don't need to fix it.
-M
Re:anything (Score:5, Insightful)
What would help quite a lot is converting from coal and petroleum to nuclear power generation. That would pretty much solve the problem over-night, slashing our CO2 production by nearly 50%! What impact that would have on the climate... isn't actually 100% clear. It certainly is likely to have some impact, though.
Personally, I'm not concerned. I'd rather address mercury pollution than greenhouse emissions any day of the week. After all, warmer weather never caused my father to stop being able to tie his own shoes
Stop trying to fix the problem! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I said centuries. Look how quickly we started the whole global warming mess. I think we can reverse it even faster, but I doubt we're good enough to decelerate it and bring things bad to where they belong.
Control Chaos? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with this and all the other dingbat proposals is that climate is of its essence chaotic; there's no way to predict what any particular action will end up doing. That's why past climate models have been so far off the mark (of course, the next one will be bang-on!). That's how it is with dynamic systems: Even God can't predict climate, and humans certainly can't control it.
When we can control the flow of water down a mountain with a little push here and a nudge there instead of digging a ditch, we might be ready to start thinking about controlling climate.
Having read the article....let's review, shall we? (Score:2, Insightful)
and Earth will smell like egg-farting ass....NEXT!!!
2. Trillions of little sunshades in space (pictured). More like lenses than shades, these would bend sunlight away from Earth, reducing the light hitting the planet by about 2%. Although the shades would be simple and lightweight, it would still cost trillions of dollars to build and launch so many of them, according to astronomer Roger Angel of the University of Arizona, who is championing the idea.
and, if we put enough small objects in orbit, we won't be able to orbit anything else for fear of impact....NEXT!!!
3. A giant orbiting dust cloud. Vast quantities of dust obtained by vaporising a comet - or collecting lunar dust - could be injected into an orbit similar to the Moon's. The dust cloud would eclipse the Sun for several hours each month, cutting the total amount of sunlight reaching Earth per month by more than 1%, according to a proposal by astronomer Curtis Struck of Iowa State University. On the downside, the particles making up the cloud would eventually spiral towards Earth in huge numbers, hitting and possibly destroying satellites.
Wasn't this one of the plot elements in the MATRIX? and hey, why stop at tweaking our own planet's eco-system when we can tweak the entire solar system....NEXT!!!
4. Painting the ground white. We could cover roads, oceans, deserts or other surfaces with reflective material, thereby increasing the amount of sunlight reflected back into space. On the downside, changing the amount of solar energy absorbed by the ground or oceans could have unanticipated effects on the weather.
Reminds me of THX1138. Oh and, I did an experiment in elementary school where we had shoe-boxes that were painted different colors on the inside with glass tops and thermometers inside. We left them out in the sun and, guess what? THEY ALL REACHED ABOUT THE SAME TEMPERATURE!!!...yes, the dark ones may have heated up faster, but they all peaked about the same....NEXT!!!
I sure hope this is just a science-fluff piece....like Omni Magazine.
Re:Fixing what isn't broken (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably - humans have adapted their settlements to the areas they live in. Change in their environments means that their agriculture and housing won't be suited anymore.
E.g. lots of people live in coastal areas, if the sea level rises (which is relatively likely) that means they'll lose their houses and land. On the other hand inland areas which are dry could become even drier - people there might not be able to grow food anymore.
Of course, earth may well stabilize itself in a few thousand years, and humans as a species might survice that, too. (Why not - we survived the ice age, after all.) However the economic and humanitarian costs of such an adjustment would be gigantic. It would seem to make sense to come up with strategies to avoid this scenario in the first place. There is really no need to put that much CO2 into the atmosphere.
Semi-offtopic, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
On the last subject here, I would take climate change alarmists a whole lot more serious if they, expecting the rest of the world to make sacrifices, were willing to make some sacrifices themselves. No, giving up cars on their part wouldn't cut it, as they already regard cars as evil - it has to be something of a value. Let's see... I value personal transportation, they value... let's say, old-growth forests. As old-growth forests are essentially carbon-neutral, and tree farms remove carbon from the atmosphere, are climate change action proponents willing to sacrifice some of those to mitigate global warming? Until I hear an honest "yes" from the "global change is bad" camp, I'll remain unconvinced as to the severety of the problem and opposed to any action that diminished my quality of life.
Re:Halt! (Score:4, Insightful)
The IPCC report states that it is 95% certain that humanity is influencing global climate change and this guy thinks it's some sort of global conspiracy? Slashdot what the fuck has happened to you?
Re:anything (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Fixing what isn't broken (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Global Warning (Score:5, Insightful)
We are preserving forests with certain kinds of trees dominant when every few hundred or thousand years the dominant trees would have naturally cycled to another variety.
We try to strictly preserve animal populations when, for millions of years, the dominant animals have cycled between various predators that over hunt to various prey that thrives becasue predators died off.
And now we're going to try to preserve the global average temperature when, since the planet came in existence billions of years ago, the temperature has always cycled for various reasons. And there's more than one cycle at work, too.
We try to preserve every animal from exinction when nature has killed off far more species than man ever has. Now, I agree it's tragic when a species is lost, and it's more tragic when it's lost because mankind has over hunted them, but those are not the only protected species. It's a fact of nature that some species simply don't deserve to exist; evolution didn't treat them kindly. Most species die because they are NOT suited to the EVER CHANGING environment our planet gives us. So while I do agree with laws protecting species from over hunting, the fact is that we try to protect too many from nature itself.
Lastly, we are human beings. Unless you believe some alien dropped us here as an experiment, then we are part of nature, too.
So yes, I consider myself an environmentalist; I think we ought to stop polluting as much as we do, I think we need to protect our drinking water, I think we ought not hunt species to extinction. I many of the lightbulbs (no, not all) are flourescent. I turn the water off when I'm brushing my teeth and shaving. Both my cars are ULEV, and I make it a point to combine trips when I go out.
My question is why do so many environmentalists want to prevent nature from happening?
Oh fucking christ (Score:2, Insightful)
It's precisely this sort of dominion-over-nature mentality that got us into this mess in the first place. The (annoyingly American) idea that we can solve any problem by simply throwing enough money and ingenuity at it needs to be extinguished, and fast. If we can't even figure out the precise extent of the damage we've already done to our ailingplanet, I shudder to think what nth-order unseen repercussions would result from reducing the level of solar radiation reaching the atmosphere by any meaningful amount. This "fix" is a complete nonstarter and every moment we waste discussing it as if it were a serious option just digs us further into the already deep hole we're in.
Re:The biological carbon sink idea is a bad one (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:anything (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple fact is, most people don't need the space! People like to pretend that families never left home until the SUV came out. BS! Fact is, very, very, very few people actually need an SUV, 4x4 truck, dully truck, or other such gas hog. Fact is, most people can do quite well in a midsize car.
If you want to argue their right to own it...fine...but please stop with the false claims that most families need SUVs as that is complete garbage.
Re:anything (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at it this way: anyone that's predisposed to use less for no return to themselves is selected against evolutionarily. So it's not surprising that things have turned out this way. PEOPLE ARE NOT, AND NEVER WILL BE, THAT ALTRUISTIC. MOVE ON.
It would be nice, just like it would be nice if people weren't violent, but unfortunately they are, and we need to realize that stepping backwards as a race or nation is a last ditch solution, not the first. Even if SUV drivers are annoying.
Re:As Scientists, we had better be right (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course you don't throw away that information -- but you also don't force a solution on something that may not be a problem.
The real problem is that most scientists do not admit uncertainty in their findings, so the general public is led to believe that global warming is infallible and we must respond to protect the Earth.
To many, the greatest threat is not if global warming will alter our way of life 15 years from now. The threat is the effect of combating global warming with extreme measures like the proposed ones when we might not have a problem.
Re:anything (Score:3, Insightful)
I never claimed that. Nevertheless, you seem to get my basic point which is, let's solve the PARENT issue of what powers these vehicles and stop bickering over whether this person NEEDS the extra space/horsewpower/4x4/etc. I think the idea of conservation is obviously a good one, but I think that sometimes people like to throw this argument up as a red herring to distract from the much harder to answer question of "what are we going to do to reduce out dependency on oil?". I'm not suggesting that I have the answer (I wish I did), I just would like to see us all work on the same team toward a common goal rather than just start with the infighting.
Re:Fixing what isn't broken (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Dumping a bunch of fresh water into the world's oceans can stop these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circula
Not only do they control coastal climates, they also control the deep circulation of nutrients bottom-to-top of the ocean's food chain. Stop these and the coasts become wetter and the interiors become dryer and colder. The moderating effects that these belts have on our climates allows us to have agriculturally productive continental interiors.
"Who has determined this?"
Scientists.
"Where do they live?"
Everywhere, around the world.
"What are their motives?"
We like to eat and live just like you do.
Funny that.
Re:anything (Score:3, Insightful)
Population density. Ancient civilization centers (most US cities haven't been around as long as many individual European townhouses).
If you're pretending that the geography and history of the two scenarios is the same, then right there you've completely killed off any credibility you have on this entire subject. You want to reduce emissions in a way that actually matters? Why aren't you spending all of this energy preaching nuclear energy? One or two nukes, in place of plants burning coal and natural gas, will do more than taking away the minivans of every family in a large city and replacing them with cars so small it takes three of them to move the same group of people between the same two points.
I'm one of the evil SUV owners you're blathering about. I telecommute at least 4 days a week, with no need to even start the vehicle at all. But then, some days I'm driving around with 500 pounds of rackmount servers as payload. Or six people, two dogs, and a big pile of gear. Renting a vehicle large enough to handle that, 4 or 5 times per month, would cost at least twice what it costs me just to own the vehicle and use it when I need it (not to mention I don't have to get transportation to where the vehicle is, and back again when I'm done). In heavy snow, when our local public transportation essentially fails entirely, and the grocery delivery services all say they can't function, and all of my neighbors' compact cars are completely useless, guess who is always asked to get people around, including kids to the doctor, etc?
Assuming you can lump all truck owners into one big Evil Bucket, while completely skipping over the fact that electricy generation is far, far more dirty and carbonating than the difference between an SUV and some other passenger vehicle that can even approach the same carrying capacity - that's just intellectual dishonesty. When I do social things with several friends, we take one less efficient vehicle (mine), and leave three other vehicles parked. Suddenly, my lower-mileage vehicle is getting the best mileage per person that we could possibly arrange. Evil! That's me.
Re:anything (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Halt! (Score:3, Insightful)
I honestly don't think this will happen. Assumptions made by the media about GW being an absolute truth is in such an abundance that it's difficult to erase the whole idea of it. Consensus says global warming is a fact and scientific findings mostly supports this. It's a compelling idea and it is understood why someone would believe it.
But it's simply too early to assume we need to take drastic measures like those mentioned. As many others said, it's ridiculous that we are willing to spend trillions on these tricks, but we can't even convince someone to reduce their emissions / consumption / etc.
I believe in due time we will realize that the Earth is not nearly as susceptible to its inhabitants as we currently believe it is. We've got evolution on our side -- a strong ability to adapt to any environment we live in. Why can't the same be said about the Earth?
Black and White, running out of options fast! (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to mention the rapidly growing number of people who question the carbon theories.
--"As a believer in the importance of science in all of our lives, I am now getting very nervous about the future reputation of science."
Organized science is about to slam rock hard into religion: it's taking the same fall. People are
indeed getting wise to the politics in and around science. Those of us limited to black and white
are in serious trouble though, because they're running out of colors fast. Up to maybe 250 years
ago you could fool people by wearing a black priest robe. Then came the Age of Enlightenment. After
that you had to put on the white lab coat to fool people.
Re:Oh fucking christ (Score:3, Insightful)
It's precisely this sort of dominion-over-nature mentality that got us into this mess in the first place. The (annoyingly American) idea that we can solve any problem by simply throwing enough money and ingenuity at it needs to be extinguished, and fast. If we can't even figure out the precise extent of the damage we've already done to our ailingplanet, I shudder to think what nth-order unseen repercussions would result from reducing the level of solar radiation reaching the atmosphere by any meaningful amount. This "fix" is a complete nonstarter and every moment we waste discussing it as if it were a serious option just digs us further into the already deep hole we're in.
Here's the deal, in case you haven't been paying attention. Since about the time that our ancestors figured out how to grow crops and build cities we, as a species, have been living by modifying our environment. Since the beginning of civilization, humans have existed by modifying their environments substantially. This means building dams to irrigate land, draining swamps, clearing forests (either for cropland or for grazing land). It's amazing how relentlessly this process has continued with very few reversals until you realize that its continuation is literally a matter of life and death. Even during the Dark Ages, the land under cultivation in Europe is said to have doubled and to have moved into more intensive farming.
Of course, things really started heating up when we figured out how to burn coal and make it do work in the 19th century and then in the 20th century started using antibiotics, pesticides and effective chemical fertilizers. These are the technologies that have allowed us to largely escape starvation and have allowed our population to increase to 6 billion or so. If you want to give up our dominion over nature, that's fine, but realize we'd have to kill off billions of people to cut the population down to 100 million or so and give up such things as indoor pluming and electric light. This isn't a future I want, so I, for one, will continue doing my best to extend our dominion over nature.
Re:As Scientists, we had better be right (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm guessing that you replied to this after most had read the article etc. once and hence little chance for modding up. You are not messing with my world view. Reread my original post. Carefully. My world view is: The media reporting of the IPCC et. al. would have us believe that science is absolutely correct in this. None of the proponents of man made global warming are standing up and saying "Hey we could be wrong". As you seem to understand, this is absurd. The enemies of science will grab this failure (if it is indeed a failure) and use it to forward a myriad of idiotic proposals, such as intelligent design and the dangers of immunization. They will get funding for science cut back. They will get people to stop donating to Sierra Defense and others. This issue is about as public an issue as science has had. If we have it wrong, science itself will be at stake. And by then it will be too late.
Cheers
JE
Re:next use for algae/plankton (Score:2, Insightful)