Posted on 10/24/2007 8:44:33 PM PDT by neverdem
DESPITE growing interest in clean energy technology, it looks as if we are not going to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide anytime soon. The amount in the atmosphere today exceeds the most pessimistic forecasts made just a few years ago, and it is increasing faster than anybody had foreseen.
Even if we could stop adding to greenhouse gases tomorrow, the earth would continue warming for decades — and remain hot for centuries. We would still face the threat of water from melting glaciers lapping at our doorsteps.
What can be done? One idea is to counteract warming by tossing small particles into the stratosphere (above where jets fly). This strategy may sound far-fetched, but it has the potential to cool the earth within months.
Mount Pinatubo, a volcano in the Philippines that erupted in 1991, showed how it works. The eruption resulted in sulfate particles in the stratosphere that reflected the sun’s rays back to space, and as a consequence the earth briefly cooled.
If we could pour a five-gallon bucket’s worth of sulfate particles per second into the stratosphere, it might be enough to keep the earth from warming for 50 years. Tossing twice as much up there could protect us into the next century.
A 1992 report from the National Academy of Sciences suggests that naval artillery, rockets and aircraft exhaust could all be used to send the particles up. The least expensive option might be to use a fire hose suspended from a series of balloons. Scientists have yet to analyze the engineering involved, but the hurdles appear surmountable.
Seeding the stratosphere might not work perfectly. But it would be cheap and easy enough and is worth investigating.
This is not to say that we should give up trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ninety-nine percent of...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
SIMPLE SOLUTION TO GLOBAL WARMING:
NUCLEAR ENERGY. LOTS OF IT.
I know lets stop giving paper bags at stores and switch to plastic. That will save the trees. Then we can sink a whole bunch of old tires into the ocean and it will form a new coral reef. Then we stop controlled burns because that just pollutes the environment and kills plants.
Yes envirowacko ideas work all the time.
and they interfere - then another Volcano lets loose and we're plunged into a 2-3 year ice age of failed crops etc...
Leave things be! The earth - and the sun, which has the most effect of what happens down here - has been adjusting and readjusting for millions of years - cycles within cycles - and doing a far better job that man does at anything...especially government.
Government screws up everything it touches - these nuts have to be corralled
We would need to ‘cool’ the Earth if we could determine what the actual temperature of Earth was supposed to be.
I’m sure somewhere Nostradamus or Da Vinci or De Sade wrote down the exact ideal temperature of the entire Earth and we’ll only need to adjust it to get back to that point.
I sure hope it wasn’t the perfect temperature back in the 1600s because it was really, really hot back then.
Do we really want to toss a bunch of stuff into the stratosphere and then find out a few years down the line that, oops, we really screwed up and it’s getting very cold?
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there’s a part of me that says “better to get a bit too cold than continue to let Al gore push new taxes to screw the economy forever.” I mean, just end the issue now and say goodbye to gore.
This is not to say that we should give up trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ninety-nine percent of the $3 billion federal Climate Change Technology Program should still go toward developing climate-friendly energy systems.
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why???????? why if you admit it won’t make a dent?
Because. Must. Worship. Gore.
Must. Screw. Economy.
Om.
And we’re taking the sulfer out of diesel.
And yet the most accurate data shows that the Earth hasn't warmed since 1998.
If carbon dioxide has driven and caused the past warming and it's "increasing faster than anybody had foreseen" why aren't we in the midst of runaway global warming?
Just one of several thousand things the global warming religion can't explain.
My first thought was, 'Let me guess this idiot is going to want us to start tossing ice into the ocean to cool it off.'
Here, I'll put on my own mad scientist hat, here's my cure to global warming:
A Cure To Global Warming
Place all the nuclear weapons on the planet at a central location near the equator. I'll let the politicians squabble on the specific location. When the Earth's rotation is such that the weapons are in direct alignment with the sun, detonate them. The tremendous force will push Earth out of it's current orbit, resulting in a new orbit further from the sun. Hopefully the location isn't too far away. If it's a bit too far away we can always toss out the Kyoto protocol and rewarm the atmosphere enough the good old-fashioned way.
Conservative analysis that CO2 historically follows, not precedes warming = total heresy and unacceptable climate impacts.
Liberal activist nutjob climate mongering = can't fail - let's do it now - A-OK.
These people are dangerous and insane.
How about if we just spend the 1%, and save the rest for feeding people who are starving due to ethanol production.
I really don't think they have, and this sort of plan sounds VERY dangerous. The liberals are going to get us all killed...and if it isn't terrorists it'll be them throwing junk up into the sky.
Ironically, they’ve already tested the theory of high-altitude particulates causing “global cooling” ......
Measurements of average temepratures in wide areas between 9/11-9/12-9/13 2001 when aircraft were shutdown showed a measureable RISE in earth’s temperatures of about 1/5 of one degree:
Thus, we are ALREADY combatting the 1/2 of one degree global warming by using jet airplanes to artifically cause cooling that opposes the warming. At a profit.
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