Is it time to release sulphur into the stratosphere, yet? (Oh crap!)

[lutefisk]

A Nobel Prize-winning scientist has drawn up an emergency plan to save the world from global warming, by altering the chemical makeup of Earth's upper atmosphere. Professor Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize in 1995 for his work on the hole in the ozone layer, believes that political attempts to limit man-made greenhouse gases are so pitiful that a radical contingency plan is needed

In a polemical scientific essay to be published in the August issue of the journal Climate Change, he says that an "escape route" is needed if global warming begins to run out of control....

...A fleet of high-altitude balloons could be used to scatter the sulphur high overhead, or it could even be fired into the atmosphere using heavy artillery shells, said Professor Crutzen, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1205975.ece

[sakabatou]

1. Sulphur? Acid rain?

[Aviation Pro]

3. Not in the stratosphere....

...most of the weather (stuff that falls from the sky) occurs in the troposphere where the standard lapse rate occurs. In the stratosphere, the lapse rate reverses and actually warms with height. I don't know what the chemistry would look like with saturated pockets of sulphur, but I have to guess that such an effort would probably create a reflective quality and bounce radiation back into space thus cooling the denser, lower atmosphere.

[dipsydoodle]

10. Sounds right

would cause global dimming to offset global warming. Probably only a short term solution though and not quite the same as curing global warming.

[Swamp Rat]

2. And Nobel Peace Prize Nominee George W. Bushler has another plan...

:hide:

[ForrestGump]

4. I'm doing my part...

[Aviation Pro]

5. That would be methane....

lol

[ForrestGump]

6. Good point

Maybe I should be adding cruciferous vegetables to my burritos. :D

[alfredo]

7. Hard boiled eggs

[ForrestGump]

9. One egg, cauliflower, and black bean burrito coming up!

Something like that's gotta be hard to keep down, for that matter.

The new Taco Bell Atmospherizer. Make a run for the border bathroom!

[alfredo]

14. Need a beer to wash it down.

[LeftyMom]

8. This proposal brought to you by the Highlander II reinactment society

:eyes:

[bloom]

11. That's interesting.

"It would cost between $25bn and $50bn - or about $25 or $50 per head in the developed world - to launch sufficient sulphate to last for up to two years.

But this high cost should be measured against the much bigger costs of environmental disasters, such as coastal flooding, caused by global warming, he said.

Side-effects could be an increase in the destruction of the ozone layer and whitening of the sky, although the particles would make sunsets and sunrises more spectacular, he said."

_____________________

It seems that they must have considered this - but you never know:

Acid waters, dissolving shellfish (ocean pH more acidic due to CO2)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2423283&mesg_id=2423283

[Sinti]

12. "an increase in the destruction of the ozone layer" - um okay

WTF? It actually wouldn't surprise me if they do it. Perhaps they really are aliens slowly terraforming our planet, ala The Outer Limits. :scared:

[Cobalt-60]

13. A desperate Gambit

If our planet needs a terraform job to remain habitable we have to try it.
I'm glad someone sharp is actually on the ball rather than the Bush Co payroll.

[Sabriel]

15. That we are at a point we need to consider this is incredible!...n/t

[Minstrel Boy]

16. But to believe governments would spray things in our atmosphere

is just crazy...right?

Los Angeles TV news report "Toxic Skies"