Simulated volcanoes and man-made 'sun blocks' can rescue the planet

[dbt]

It would be 100 times cheaper to shield the Earth from sunlight with a man-made "sun block" than to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. This is one of the reasons why the world needs an international project to investigate ways of safely manipulating the global climate in addition to cutting greenhouse gases, scientists have said.

Simulating a volcanic eruption by putting man-made aerosol particles into the atmosphere to reflect the Sun's heat would rapidly lower global temperatures and could provide a vital respite from global warming until cuts in carbon dioxide emissions begin to have the desired effect, they added.

It is important to start tests in "geoengineering" now rather than leave it until a full-blown emergency, according to three environmental scientists who argue that governments should establish a multimillion-pound fund to pay for research into solar-radiation management – techniques for shielding the Earth against sunlight. (snip)

The latest call by David Keith and his colleagues emphasises that there are serious potential problems with building a solar shield, and that it should never be seen as an alternative to cuts in greenhouse gases. Nevertheless, they argue that it is better for an international research project to be established rather than leaving it until a "rogue state" decides to go it alone.

www.independent.co.uk/news/science/simulated-volcanoes-and-manmade-sun-blocks-can-rescue-the-planet-1881336.html

See also Sunscreen for Planet Earth by Edward Teller.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. total crap

[SpiralHawk]

2. Utterly total industrial-think materialist FAIL crap

likely from the same kind of 'minds' that created the problems.

[pscot]

5. Edward Teller

Father of the "H" bomb, space based defense (star wars), thermonuclear geoengineering. People who think along these lines really should be put away somewhere, so they can't do any more damage.

[IADEMO2004]

3. kudzu, cane toads, Asian lady beetles

edit spelling

[Javaman]

4. I've written on this topic before...

And I will play devils advocate to your devils advocate...
Posted by Javaman in Environment/Energy
Tue Nov 07th 2006, 04:54 PM

Suppose we do deploy this hugely expensive band-aid. And suppose it works wonderfully.

But also suppose that, oh say, 20 years from now, it develops a problem and since the earth's population was living on borrowed time, suddenly has to deal with global warming quite suddenly instead over several years to actually fix the problem?

The global shade is perfectly ridiculous idea. The amount of money that it would take to develop, deploy and maintain such a thing could be used instead to develop solar and other alternative technologies to ween us off fossil fuels. Instead of blocking a source of free energy, we should be doing our best to exploit it.

The solar shade is a band-aid on a broken arm. Once it's up there, do you honestly believe people will suddenly act responsible???? Heck no, proof is in the sales of SUV's. When the price of gas went up, people were screaming for fuel efficient alternative powered cars. Since the price of gas has dropped, no more demand and the SUV's are once again selling at a brisk pace.

People(in general)don't learn. People don't care. People don't want to do the hard work anymore. People just want their plastic fun box to watch. People will die because of their stupidity.

Until death comes knocking on their doors, people will continue to eat twinkies.

[dbt]

6. I'll see your devil's advocate and raise you a hidden agenda.

There are Certain Topics than simply cannot be discussed if Certain Words are used to describe, say, the introduction of aerosol particles into the atmosphere as Teller and others have proposed. If these Words are employed, any rational discussion is immediately derailed and the thread is either locked or moved out of sight.

I am in total agreement with your position as outlined just above. I find it very interesting that the concept of "sunscreen" is still alive and well.

Cheers!

[TxRider]

7. Not to mention

The fact that we do not even understand the climate enough to really know the sensitivities and feed backs, we're guessing at a lot of this.