Posted on 09/29/2007 8:19:39 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
(LONDON) -- A series of giant pipes in the oceans to mix surface and deeper water could be an emergency fix for the Earth's damaged climate system, the scientist behind the Gaia theory said on Wednesday.
James Lovelock, whose Gaia hypothesis that Earth is a living entity has fuelled controversy for three decades, thinks the stakes are so high that radical solutions must be tried even if they ultimately fail.
In a letter to the journal Nature, he proposes vertical pipes 100 to 200 meters long and 10 metres wide be placed in the sea, so that wave motion pumps up water and fertilizes algae on the surface.
This algal bloom would push down carbon dioxide levels and also produce dimethyl sulphide, helping to seed sunlight-reflecting clouds.
"If we can't heal the planet directly, we may be able to help the planet heal itself," Lovelock, of the University of Oxford, and co-author Chris Rapley, from London's Science Museum, said. The two scientists argued it was unlikely any of the well-intentioned technical or social schemes for limiting carbon would restore the planet's status quo.
International climate experts have warned that global warming, blamed mainly on greenhouse gases emitted by burning fossil fuels, will bring more droughts, heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels.
Commenting on Lovelock's idea, Brian Hoskins, professor of meteorology at the University of Reading, said it was scientifically sound but there were huge unknowns. "This is the latest in a line of geo-engineering solutions," he said.
LOL.
***Do you mind?***
Very rarely.
Or maybe throw virgins into volcanos, that would probably work.
Since it's all symbolic anyway, can't we just try Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton instead?
Two birds, one stone kinda thing...
Will they never learn, man cannot manipulate nature. Nature will always manipulate man.
BS. The vast majority of the several thousand scientists who signed the UN paper blaming fossil fuel for global warming are not even climatologists, most of them are trained for and work in other scientific fields. You never hear anything in the media about the thousands of scientists, including many climatologists, who reject the man-made global warming theory, but they're out there just the same.
I read recently that 97% of all greenhouse gasses is water vapor, CO2 is only 1%, and man-made CO2 is only 1% of all CO2. I'm no scientist of any type, but I find it very difficult to believe that an almost infinitesimal increase in that 1/100 of 1/100 of all greenhouse gasses is enough to make a significant difference in the global climate one way or the other.
I believe each one of us could come up with crazy ideas to halt something that isn’t happening. Using this man’s logic, it doesn’t matter how much we spend on these crazy ideas as long as it looks like we are doing something. That’s the rationale used by many of government proponents of “the sky is falling” global warming.
Did they publish it? Anyone knowing anything about climate knows there is no such thing as “the planet’s status quo.” Anyone with any education in biology knows that this “Gaia hypothesis” stuff is not controversial, it’s just pure gobbledygook.
Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown
New!!: Dr. John Ray's
GREENIE WATCH
Ping me if you find one I've missed.
There is a bit of a difference.
Human activity has been going on for a long time and the world hasn't ended yet. These activities are for man's purposes of survival. I'd put that in the same category as beavers building dams since man is a creature of nature. I'm not giving license to pollute indiscriminately, but CO2 is a natural gas not a pollutant.
These schemes to "save the world" are another thing altogether. They are engineered to intentionally change the environment and are huge wastes of money too. Did these people ever think if they were wrong (as I believe they are) that engineering a system to turn the environment colder would result if it being too cold? I don't believe it is within man's power to change the climate by conventional (nonnuclear) methods, but if they really believe we are dangerously warming the planet, they had better be really certain before they hatch a scheme like this on large scale. It also had better be paid for out of the rich environment pimp pockets (ie Gore, DiCaprio, Crow, David, and all the rest of the Hollywood-Environment Complex).
Side-effects from planetary-scale tinkering are always going to be bigger and more devestating than they could imagine.
I'm fairly sure they're not virgins.....but they'd still be good volcano bait.
I think that if people -private interests- actually owned the air and water, they wouldn’t be used as a dumping ground.
CO2 is natural and I don’t think we should tax the economy into the stone age. But while it is natural for ice caps to melt and flood our cities, I don’t think we should want that. We need to look for a technological fix. (unfortunately as long as there is public ownership of natural resources, there will be many wasteful projects)
So I guess you do believe CO2 is causing GW and that cities will flood, meaning we should do SOMETHING about it even if it is not a man made problem?
Why should we do SOMETHING that isn't even certain and might have bad and unintended consequences at great cost to remedy a problem that isn't even certain in itself?
Don't get me wrong, I know there are times when man should do something to help reduce flooding or other natural problems, but these effects are local. If it goes wrong, it can be fixed. However, IF CO2 (manmade or not) is causing GW, and it took this long for the results to begin to be felt and it is "almost" too late (according to many), doesn't it mean that we should be very careful with implementing measures that would have results on a global (not local) scale? If it goes wrong somehow, by the same thought process, it would be nearly too late by the time we realized it and did something to correct it. And that correction could also go wrong. We could end up with large magnitude global temperature oscillation! (just kidding, maybe)
As you can see, I am not in favor of action of the kind given in this article based on cost, the need is NOT a certainty, and the result of said action is not even certain.
Mulholland proposed that scheme in Los Angeles around the same time he designed the aqueduct that greens the entire basin; the notion was shot down as being too expensive and grandiose.
Water vapor is then a pollutant.
why not giant air filters while they’re at it.
F’n dumb. Thats just me.
You know those that are selling these things don't have to believe in this stuff. They just need to get the panicked public to buy it.
All you have to do is say it will help the environment and then take it to the bank.
of course we have to be careful though it should be easy to remove some of these pipes if they work too well.
but think of the Algore side. They would be opposed to anything that would solve global warming because they see it as their issue to hang on for years to come. They won’t stop until everyone lives in straw houses and ride bicycles instead of cars.
So imagine if a bunch of private investors come and say “problem solved! No need for stupid taxes!” Al won’t have anything to do anymore and maybe finally do something productive with his life.
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