Naomi Klein: Geoengineering: Testing the Waters

[marmar]

from the NYT:




By NAOMI KLEIN
Published: October 27, 2012


FOR almost 20 years, I’ve been spending time on a craggy stretch of British Columbia’s shoreline called the Sunshine Coast. This summer, I had an experience that reminded me why I love this place, and why I chose to have a child in this sparsely populated part of the world.

It was 5 a.m. and my husband and I were up with our 3-week-old son. Looking out at the ocean, we spotted two towering, black dorsal fins: orcas, or killer whales. Then two more. We had never seen an orca on the coast, and never heard of their coming so close to shore. In our sleep-deprived state, it felt like a miracle, as if the baby had wakened us to make sure we didn’t miss this rare visit.

The possibility that the sighting may have resulted from something less serendipitous did not occur to me until two weeks ago, when I read reports of a bizarre ocean experiment off the islands of Haida Gwaii, several hundred miles from where we spotted the orcas swimming.

There, an American entrepreneur named Russ George dumped 120 tons of iron dust off the hull of a rented fishing boat; the plan was to create an algae bloom that would sequester carbon and thereby combat climate change. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/geoengineering-testing-the-waters.html

[limpyhobbler]

1. good one. nt

[Nihil]

2. Frightening

> For well under a billion dollars, a “coalition of the willing,” a single country or even a wealthy individual
> could decide to take the climate into its own hands.

> “Geoengineering says, ‘we’ll just do it, and you’ll live with the effects.’ ”

> Imagine this: North America decides to send sulfur into the stratosphere to reduce the intensity
> of the sun, in the hopes of saving its corn crops — despite the real possibility of triggering droughts
> in Asia and Africa. In short, geoengineering would give us (or some of us) the power to exile
> huge swaths of humanity to sacrifice zones with a virtual flip of the switch.

Scary shit because we all know that there are indeed people out there with both the financial means
and the psychopathic attitudes to view this as "a good thing".

[GreenGreenLimaBean]

3. We already are geo-engineering

How about the hundreds of millions of tons of Carbon we pump into the atmosphere every year. This article is the worst piece of rubbish if read in a long time. We are past the point of stopping GW, our only hope is geo-engineering along with carbon abatement.

[AverageJoe90]

4. Not quite.

We can still stop GW, it's just a matter of when.

[Nihil]

5. Yeah ... and look how well *that*'s turning out ...

> This article is the worst piece of rubbish if read in a long time.

That's what happens when you sleep for years on end: your memory and your judgement fail.


> our only hope is geo-engineering along with carbon abatement.

Yet another vote for Business As Usual supported by the fantasy of Clean Coal, Natural Gas
and Last Minute Venture Capital Gains Inc.

Go back to sleep - you're not convincing anyone ...