Posted on 05/12/2010 8:26:26 AM PDT by NYer
The first trials of controversial sunshielding technology are being planned after the United Nations failed to secure agreement on cutting greenhouse gases.
Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire, is funding research into machines to suck up ten tonnes of seawater every second and spray it upwards. This would seed vast banks of white clouds to reflect the Sun’s rays away from Earth.
The British and American scientists involved do not intend to wait for international rules on technology that deliberately alters the climate. They believe that the weak outcome of December’s climate summit in Copenhagen means that emissions will continue to rise unchecked and that the world urgently needs an alternative strategy to protect itself from global warming.
Many methods of cooling the planet, collectively known as geoengineering, have been proposed. They include rockets to deploy millions of mirrors in the stratosphere and artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide from the air. Most would be prohibitively expensive and could not be deployed for decades.
However, a study last year calculated that a fleet of 1,900 ships costing £5 billion could arrest the rise in temperature by criss-crossing the oceans and spraying seawater from tall funnels to whiten clouds and increase their reflectivity.
Silver Lining, a research body in San Francisco, has received $300,000 (£204,000) from Mr Gates. It will develop machines to convert seawater into microscopic particles capable of being blown up to the cloud level of 1,000 metres. This would whiten clouds by increasing the number of nuclei.
The trial would involve ten ships and 10,000sq km (3,800sq miles) of ocean. Armand Neukermanns, who is leading the research, said that whitening clouds was “the most benign form of engineering” because, while it might alter rainfall, the effects would cease soon after the machines were switched off.
(Excerpt) Read more at technology.timesonline.co.uk ...
Don’t worry, Justice Kagan will write the majority SCOTUS opinion that individuals can not be sued when their actions are intended for the benefit of the global community.
***It will develop machines to convert seawater into microscopic particles capable of being blown up to the cloud level of 1,000 metres.***
The technology already exists and is in use now! They are called POWER PLANT COOLING TOWERS!
Wonder what fuel will drive those ships. Sails?
And for his next sunshielding technology idea he will put trees on all ships at sea.
If the law was just and blind, sure.
But then, Cal EPA, CARB, EPA and the late Rachel Carson would be in prison for MTBE, ethanol, and mass murder of children by a biological WMD.
(1) Pure insanity to start messing with the climate based on a hoax.
(2) Assume arguendo that AGW is real. Well, here’s a £5M solution from the private sector that solves the problem. Compare to the multi-trillion dollar and freedom crushing government solution.
How much diesel fuel will these ships be burning to pump all this water up into the sky? Are they run by solar collectors? Windmills? jesh
The big question now is “Who is getting the money?” Another good ole boy club member?
At least he’s spending his own money on it, though...
Love the Kate Bush album cover!
I’ve got a garage full of clouds I’d be happy to sell.
Me too. We live in the humidity belt.
People are friggin’ nuts. That’s about all I have to say about that.
I’m not a marxist or anything like that but has anyone considered the possibility of taking money away from stupid people for their own safety?
Here’s a good link explaining the lunacy:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/12/every-silver-lining-has-a-cloud/#more-19413
“what we have here is a non-viable non-solution to a non-problem. I wouldn’t want to comment either, especially since this non-solution will burn about 27 billion litres (about 7 billion US gallons) of fuel per year to supposedly “solve” the problem supposedly caused by CO2 from burning fuel …”... Willis Eschenbach
I don’t agree with the basic premise of intervening to deliberately affect world climate at all, but what the heck, these people just can’t help themselves. So, here goes.
Why don’t they just spend $5 billion on desalinization plants, to send seawater to arid regions? No need for “artificial” trees in that instance. A side benefit would be agrigulture to feed those incapable of feeding themselves, and it would help prevent shortages and keep prices in check for the balance of the population.
Of course, this is just too rational and too simple. We’re talking about lofty, self-absorbed types here, enraptured by their own presumption of brilliance, who have always greatly preferred a goldplated boondoggle. So, we’ll probably be deploying space mirrors and artificial trees and artificial clouds. Such fakery doesn’t aid in supporting the current population, let alone enable an increase in that population, and that’s a good thing for these neo-Malthusians.
On top of it all, this stuff comes from the putatively concerned, over manmade climate change. Grasping irony is just not their strong suit, but creating it is.
I think you’re right about water vapor being the most plentiful GHG.
THen again, definitions do change.
Who said it first, this Algorism: Words mean exactly what I want them to mean. ANd they do change.
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