PLAN B FOR GLOBAL WARMING?
Mar 8th 2007
Environment: "Geo-engineering" is the direct use of technology tocounteract climate change. The idea is highly controversial
IF MAN is inadvertently capable of heating the entire planet, surely itis not beyond his wit to cool it down as well? Although most climatescientists do not like to talk about it, cutting greenhouse-gasemissions is not, strictly speaking, the only way to solve the problemof climate change. Just as technology caused the problem, it might alsobe able to help reverse it. The use of planetary-scale engineering tocounteract climate change is known as "geo-engineering".
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The article then goes on to describe a couple of these cooling/shading methods - here are a few -
- Placing a giant "shade" at a point in space where it will maintain it's position between the Earth and the sun
- Sprinkle reflective particles in the ocean so that the water does not absorb all of the sun's rays
- Form a low-lying marine cloud by spraying droplets of ocean water into the air
- Place huge reflectors (mirrors?) in the desert to reflect light back away from the Earth
Why not work on solving the problem? Let's cut way back on CO2 emissions and develop alternate technologies. See where we can get in 20 years and *then* look into these far-out methods.
1 comment:
Of those options, the most viable is the sun shade. That same approach has been discussed for terraforming Mars... the idea of using reflectors to concentrate more sunlight on Mars to help increase its energy budget, and thus support plant life and more earth-like climate. Of course, there's nothing on Mars now, so you're not risking too much when trying something like this.
However, you are putting your eggs in one basket with something like that... and you're changing the overall energy balance of the *planet*. Who knows how the upper atmosphere would react to less incoming energy... here the Precautionary Principle would seem wise to follow.
So... good idea for Mars, but maybe not so good for Earth. But given a choice between catstrophic climate change and the risk of a sun shade... I'll pick the sun shade.
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