Using geoengineering to combat climate change?
It seems that desperate times call for desperate measures. Even somewhat weird measures.The first stage of actively battling global warming is already in effect. Researches aboard the Weatherbird II are sailing the ocean, seeding it with 600 tons of granulated iron ore. The purpose? Iron is a key nutrient for plankton. The sea creatures apparently also consume a lot of CO2, but have been dying off. The
Other steps include manufacturing thousands of artificial trees - basically large CO2 filters - to supplement our existing vegetation, as well as infusing our stratosphere with sulfur dioxide, simulating volcanic eruptions, blocking some of the sun's rays. The real kicker to me is the plan to launch 16 trillion (yeah, that's their real figure) "refractive shields" into orbit to shade the earth, each one being three feet wide. Right. Oh, and these 16 trillion shields would refract... wait for it... 2 percent of the sun's rays. That certainly seems worth the effort and expense.
But in all seriousness, global warming is a real, serious, urgent problem. Any ideas on combating it are welcome and up for discussion at this point. So feel free to put your ideas in the comments. And your jokes.
[Source: Popular Mechanics via Instapundit]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
kballs 8:47PM (5/24/2007)
Sulfur dioxide? Yeah that's what we need, ACID RAIN!
So all those plankton will also eat up a lot of oxygen, in turn killing off the fish populations (all that extra food means nothing if you can't breathe) and destabilizing the entire food chain.
Though a project of this scale would be just as easy or easier if it were to dramatically reduce our carbon output in the first place.
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Joseph 12:42PM (5/26/2007)
They're actually starting these stupid plans???
Shouldn't they make sure that the effects of adding iron to the ocean, or the effects of extra plankton, won't destory some sort of delicate balance?
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Tony Belding 9:36PM (5/24/2007)
I have a couple of problems with this.
First, I don't believe that "global warming is a real, serious, urgent problem". The debate on that issue is far from settled. In fact, for a while now the arguments I've been seeing from the skeptics have been more convincing.
Second, the money put into these crackpot schemes would be better applied to funding research such as Dr. Bussard's fusion reactor. It could make the majority of carbon-emitting energy sources obsolete in a pretty short time.
The right way to address global warming -- if we ultimately find that it needs addressing -- is by moving away from burning coal and oil for fuel. These are things we should be doing anyhow! Even without the whole global warming issue, burning coal produces a whole laundry list of noxious pollutants, and oil is going into global depletion. So in that sense the question of whether global warming is a real crisis is almost moot.
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Sebastian 9:53PM (5/24/2007)
Global Warming is real. What was debatable was whether humans were the cause and, according to the scientific community, it's 90% likely that we are the cause.
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haqitman 11:22PM (5/24/2007)
Kballs is on the right track. You come up with a patch to treat the symptoms of the problem and introduce more unknowns and possibly spawn even more problems. What effect would reducing sunlight by 2% have? Anyone know? What about billions of mirrors surrounding the planet? What if they get the calculations off and mess things up? Reduce CO2 emissions and start sucking out some of what's in the atmosphere now to avoid really big problems down the road. This problem is treatable
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DoYourResearch 10:57AM (5/25/2007)
Actually, the concept of seeding phytoplankton blooms in the central ocean basins would not result in fish-killing anoxic conditions for several reasons. First, the open ocean is 6km deep, plankton blooms remineralize across this entire depth, whereas blooms near shore drop to the shallow sea floor immediately, requiring much more oxygen. Second, there is little sea life on the sea floor in the middle of the ocean--almost 99% of all ocean life exists in the upper 100-200m photic zone.
Remember, 86% of all the world's carbon is stored in the deep ocean-- the precise result of mechanisms exactly like this. and the additional carbon we have added to the atmosphere will eventually end up in the deep ocean anyway-- it is a question of now or later. faster is clearly better.
This is the most sensible project in the world.
Look at the science advisory board of this company: climos.con
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Val 11:10AM (5/25/2007)
The idea with the mirrors looks a bit absurd, although some scientific research points that all the winds on the planet are caused by 3-4 percent of the solar energy reaching the planet, so 2 percent is stilla huge amount. But the plan with the mirrors sounds unfeasible. And 600 tons of ore is not that much, considering that not all of it is iron and they say thats what the plankton needs. As long as it does no harm, i see no offense with that.
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BILL 12:51PM (5/25/2007)
I agree with Sebatian that humans are 90% responsible for global warming. We need to begin thinking about a plan to thin out the number of humans that does not require war, pestilence, and famine - voluntary suicide! There was a Star Trek Next Generation episode involving a planet with a policy stipulating each person, upon reaching the age of 60, would have a really big party with family and friends and then commit suicide. This may not actually solve global warming, but it would get Teddy Kennedy out of the U.S. Senate.
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Dave S 3:27PM (5/25/2007)
I'm not saying it won't work, but do we know why there is a smaller than usual population of plankton? Maybe there is something else at work here other than a lack of iron. I'm concerned that what is really out of whack, will be knocked farther out of whack.
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Manu Sharma 6:48AM (5/26/2007)
BBC produced a documentary on all these solutions - Five Ways To Save the World.
I find the synthetic trees idea the most credible and least risky.
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rick byerly 3:51PM (6/05/2007)
i don't believe the crazy projections of us shriveling away like al gore does but what about the possibility of pumping manmade O2 into areas that have high pollution?
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