msnbc.com on Friday reported (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33495560/) on the momentum among scientists to discuss the feasibility of geoengineering the climate to keep Earth from warming further. Below, Ben Kravitz, the co-author of a new geoengineering study, is joining a discussion on the pros and cons.
Should society invest in geoengineering the climate?
Thu Oct 29, 2009 1:22 PM EDT
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Should society invest in geoengineering the climate?
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My name is Ben Kravitz from the Rutgers University Department of Atmospheric Science. I'm a coauthor on the recent paper on geoengineering that msnbc.com will be reporting on Friday. Here's the full study: http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl0919/2009GL039209/
Do you think Congress should fund more projects to research engineering? I'll be dipping into the discussions today and Friday, so I'd be happy to answer some questions about the science as well. Thanks for reading!
no Ben...I do not think we need ANYMORE field tests on the population.You know ,just as well as I, that this has and continues to go on.Their is no plan "B"...its plan A and it is already in effect.Thanks for your time.
If you want government documentation I have that too{patents,Congressional docs for/against}.Some folks already beat you to the punch...as far as geoengineering is concerned.You are in a position to do something unique that most of us can't do...expose it.Again,thanks for your time.
Global warming hasn't been proven, but even if it is, people are not responsible. The scientists at Kyoto knew that, and MIT scientists recently said the same thing. Gore did not invent the internet, but he sure as hell did invent the global warming panic! He changed one paragraph, which changed the meaning of the Kyoto paper. The temperature of the earth changes all the time. It did it before people, and it will do it after people. CO2 and other hydrocarbons have little or nothing to do with it. The lefty fear mongers need to come clean on this one, and quit insiteing the uneducated O-bots.
The Earth is obviously on a runaway warming trend, due to CO2 from humans. They should geo-engineer anything they can to save the planet.
41 states have had their high temp records broken since 1980, and the world all-time high temp record was set in 2007. The north american high was set in 2005.
Oops, I fibbed. 41 states high temp records were set "before" 1980, the world high was set in 1922, the north american high in 1911.
How come the leaves peak in mid October still? Shouldn't they wait till November? How come I still have to walk the same distance from the beach cabin to the water?
The reason is simple.
these AGW people are nuts . . . modify the climate to cool the Earth? If government screws it up, like they screw most projects up - we're into an ice age or at least period of deep cooling.
ALL the plagues that have affected humanity happen during periods of cooling - times of warming mean prosperity and healthier children and adults.
I'm all for it being warmer.
@BUD... stop watching FOX Noise. 97% of scientists agree that the earth is warming and that we are the primary cause. You cannot bury your head in FOX misinformation and continue to ignore the truth.
Savage.. 97% of scientists? Perhaps you should quit listening to just the people who promote your agenda. The number of true scientists that question the validity of so-called global warming hugely outnumber the 97% you think to be the experts...
Agreed Savage Princess, turn off Beck and read a book!
Ima Democrat,
How exactly do 3% outnumber 97%? Just curious
Are you also going to suggest next that the number of true scientists who know the Sun revolves arount the Earth outnumbers the 100% of scientists who believe we revolve around the sun?
Leave our planet alone or die!
What I mean is we need to curb our destruction to the planet. We also need the planet to run it's normal cycles. If we play with the planet's atmosphere by geo-engineering it, we may just destroy ourselves sooner. We can't cure the common cold, but we think we can fix the planet...what a joke. Leave it alone!
Governments need to step up and make big corporations adopt environmentally friendly or friendlier technologies as well as put laws into place to force everyone to recycle. There are still many areas that do not recycle or only recycle certain products. I live in South Florida and I throw all my plastics in the recycle bin. Sometimes the recycle guys will pick through and separate and leave some of the plastics, which I have to throw in the normal garbage.
If you want to geo-engineer a planet suffering from global warming, maybe we should go to Venus instead of Mars.
Everything we do changes the environment. Massive cities change temperature and wind flow and even cause earthquakes. Some of these so called "green technologies" must be thought through because if you put up 1,000 wind turbine generators, it will change the normal wind flow and temperature in that area. If you put large under water turbines on the ocean floor, it will change currents, possibly leading to a massive global climate change in a very short time. Not to mention the destruction of the environment that billions of fish live in.
The way I see it, solar, nuclear and clean burning chemicals are the only way we can go in the near future. Solar sort of acts like a plant or tree and if we can add some sort of oxygen generator to simulate plants and trees, this may help as well. Of course, the best way to clean up the atmosphere is to plant more trees and plants and curb our usage of damaging chemicals.
In a way, an extinction event would be the best thing for this planet. For sure, we are the worst thing that has ever happened to it.
Ben, Sorry now is not the time for at least two good reasons: 1.)We can not afford speculative spending when vast #'s of people are jobless. 2.)We do not know enough about weather, climate variations, ect. to experiment with trying to modify the global weather. Sounds like play God without now where near enough information. Let's spend money on cancer or AIDS research or......
Kevin
Correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that the presence of sulfur in the atmosphere is what causes acid rain. If that is correct, how would earth's biodiversity fare with more sulfur resulting in more acid rain?
On a different note, how can we know for certain what amount of global warming can be attributed to human activities opposed to the Milankovitch cycle? We are still in the natural temperature upswing of an interglacial warming period that has yet to peak. What irreparable damage will we be doing to the earth by meddling with natural cycles?
I see advantages to spending seed money for better research and data. I don't think anyone could be hurt by that. In fact, it's a great way to produce jobs in this weak economy. The worry I have is every time we've meddled with any ecosystem, we've found vast unintended consequences.
Blasting Sulfur into the air can have a variety of effects that could ultimately be detrimental:
1. Psychologically: the effects cannot be measured until the sulfur is already in the air. It could range from minuscule to devastating for the individual and the family. It is an awfully big risk to subject 6-8 billion people to this kind of experiment.
2. Politically: Knowingly causing droughts in other countries will never increase global security or stability especially in two regions of the world with the fastest population growth.
3. Environmentally: Reduction of UV light can certainly reduce the global temp, but it also reduces photosynthetic activity. Doesn't that risk exacerbating our current problem?
These are potential problems that everyone can think of. As with any new technology, the unseen problems are often the most devastating. Won't that concern end up trumping any perceived benefit, at least concerning sulfur blasting? Am I completely off base here?
The best way to rid our planet of Carbon Dioxide is Plant More TREES!!! We have miles of highways that we could plant trees along and between that would suck the carbon dioxide out of the air and replace it with Oxygen. What a wonderful idea. Really can't you use something that has worked for eons, until we started cutting them all down. And switch to electric vehicular transportation.
Sorry but you should not do anything. I've reviewed a number of idea's and the downsides can be substantial. If you want to help, lobby for solar panels on roof tops.
This money would be better spent on increasing incentives for homeowner generated electricity. Change the tax credit to 50% and offer low interest loans. Give more incentives for Volt like cars, etc.
I can't believe a scientist is even considering some of the schemes I've seen!
Putting sulfur into the atmosphere is criminal. One major volcanic eruption will put us in our place.
I've actually done work on the acid rain question. If we were to put enough sulfur in the stratosphere to cool the planet, the amount that came down would be about 1% of what we're already doing in terms of urban pollution. There would be a negligible acidification effect.
One might be able to argue that planting trees is also a form of geoengineering, although it's attacking the problem from a different side. I can tell you right now that planting trees alone won't work. They do eat up a lot of carbon dioxide, but not enough. This is along the same lines as people discussing ocean iron fertilization to cause phytoplankton blooms. (Which, by the way, has some dubious results.)
One might be able to argue that planting trees is also a form of geoengineering, although it's attacking the problem from a different side. I can tell you right now that planting trees alone won't work. They do eat up a lot of carbon dioxide, but not enough. This is along the same lines as people discussing ocean iron fertilization to cause phytoplankton blooms. (Which, by the way, has some dubious results.)
Dear Messrs. Kravitz and Llanos,
Kudos for addressing the drowning elephant in the room, and for braving the onslaught of replies that is coming your way.
I am writing to add my uninformed two cents to the discussion. The sulphur aerosol idea seems too risky to me. In my humble opinion, messing with any level of the atmosphere in such a way should be out of the table. It’s one thing if Mother Earth does it to itself from time to time through volcanic eruptions, but quite another if we start intervening on such a large scale in our relatively closed environment.
Aside from all the risks already cited on the study and the MSNBC article, there’s the not-so-small problem of sunshine deprivation in high latitudes. Directly dialing down the amount of sunshine received in the tropical and subtropical areas may not be such a big issue from an environmental standpoint. In northern climates, however, it may be quite a different story. Scandinavians, Canadians and Russians (as well as the animal and plant species that share the environment with them) may be quite accustomed to the cold and the relative lack of sunshine. But what little sunshine reaches them in those latitudes is arguably more critically needed that the much larger amounts we receive in lower latitudes. Further depriving the Arctic and subarctic regions of sunshine might have enormous unintended consequences for those regions and for the planet at large.
Having said that, I have read about and given a lot of thought to the idea of using space-based solutions for partially filtering the amount of sunshine the Earth receives. As you’re probable aware, a number of procedures have been proposed, such as using geostationary shields made of nanoparticles that can be made to let the sun through or not, much as we do with window blinds. This approach may be extremely costly, and it may even turn out to be technically unfeasible. Yet, at least in principle, it does have the advantage of being controllable, targeted and removed from our planet’s environment.
Because of the above, I would side with those who think that geoengineering of the weather, if done at all, should be done from space. That way, it won’t have a direct polluting impact on the environment and, arguably, it will be possible to turn it off or discontinue it more easily.
Now, if nanoparticle shields are a bit on the costly and unfeasible side, what about experimenting first on a smaller scale with more affordable, less-high tech materials? As a start, we could create a dust cloud or strip –a long brush-stroke of sorts– in space, along the Earth’s orbit and a few thousand miles off it, toward the Sun. This strip would be centered on the tropics and subtropics. Then, as our planet moves along its orbit, it would enter this sun-shielded or filtered area for a few days, eventually coming out of it. The effects of such momentary shielding would then be observed and measured, giving us more data to work with to determine the usefulness of such an approach.
If deemed useful, the procedure could be replicated on a gradually-larger scale until the desired cooling effect is achieved –or until the idea is abandoned– without having polluted the atmosphere or having had such a direct impact on our environment. If it turns out to be a reasonably good solution, then both the scientific support and the political will would be there for moving on to much costlier initiatives, such as the above-mentioned nanoparticle filters or similarly high-tech solutions.
Of course, one of the important considerations to be kept in mind with any space-based sun filter or shield is whether it can be removed or destroyed at will. We wouldn’t want it to remain in place if it turned out to be useless or harmful.
Forgive me if I have been long-winded or if what I have said turns out to be nonsense. I just thought it wouldn’t hurt to think out loud on this issue, as so many others have done.
If we finally decide to try to counter global warming on a large scale, I hope a good solution is found that does not involve even more atmospheric pollution.
Best regards,
Ramón
from Miami, FL
Attacking Al Gore doesn't prove anything. Al Gore actually had his day in court in Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills in September-October 2007 in the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. The plaintiff sought to prevent the educational use of An Inconvenient Truth on the grounds that schools are legally required to provide a balanced presentation of political issues. The court ruled that the film was substantially founded upon scientific research and fact and could continue to be shown, but it had a degree of political bias such that teachers would be required to explain the context via guidance notes issued to schools along with the film. The court also identified nine errors in the film, and ruled that the guidance notes must address these errors specifically.
Please note : The court ruled that the film was substantially founded upon scientific research and fact.
I think they should prove they can fix something as simple as the US economy before completely trashing the world for everyone on earth.
I like the weather just fine the way it is. No need to go around messing with things. Global warming is a crock made up so that the people who will benefit from trying to save the planet, can make a buck. I'm not falling for it. Look how much Al Gorey has already put in his pocket and he's a big phoney.
Ramon -
I agree with you that geoengineering isn't a great solution to this problem, and that we really should try other means first. As far as your solar shade idea, other people have looked at this. The first thing that comes to mind is a paper by Roger Angel.
Ben
we shouldn't try anything! geoengineering is as stupid as it sounds. let's really screw things up! there is no agw. it is a natural cycle in the earths' climate. for god's sake people, get it through your thick skulls. it's a SCAM! they don't care about climate, they care about control. that is all this is about. we are about to lose our freedom and sovereignty if obama signs at copenhagen and all you can argue about is a nonexsistent problem cooked up to install a global government. fight the real enemy! hint, it's not the climate.
They are already doing this, spraying the skies. It's being done and what some call it as Chemtrails and using airplanes to deliver this substance. I think they are trying to find a way to continue this same process without spending so much money such as the balloons . They must think that Americans are that dumb or wish for us to be that stupid to not know this has been going on for a very long time already. I am not surprised though. (they being the UN and also the NWO).
They are not chemtrails silly,those jets are just making pretty fluffy white clouds for us to enjoy!{sarcasm and vomit}Its funny ,I remeber as a late teen looking up at the sky one day and saying to my friend "What the F*ck is wrong with that jet?! Look at the smoke from it...its trailing or on fire".Which leads me to assume it wasn't always like that{chemtrail vs. contrail}
Game was up even then i guess...
For a detailed history of CHEMTRAILS, just go to: http://www.carnicom.com/contrails.htm. You'll get an education you wish you hadn't.
gee, chem trails to distribute chemicals to control the masses. there's only one problem with that. they must be gassing themselves too. how does that work? dumb, dumb, more than dumb!
They are not fooling anyone,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11353619/Official-USChemtrail-Patent-From-1990 ... This has been going on for at least 20 years now.
Stop your sickening of us through{chemtrail} dumping aluminum,barium and thorium...and stop the HAARP projects NOW!
so we're being sickened by chem trails that are dumped into the atomosphere by "them" or "they". tell me, how can that be possible when "they" breathe the same air we do? i don't see "them" walking around with gas masks. are "they" genetically engineered not to be affected by chem trails or are they aliens that aren't suseptible to those chemicals in out atmosphere? you people that believe in that kind of crap are truely whacked.
Isn't it odd that this important topic has garnered few responses? I think that's why we are in this situation to begin with.
Proof that aluminum,barium and thorium...along with food chemicals/mind contol TV propaganda and flouride in the water, is doing its job...dumb down the masses.F*ck critical thinking...Dancing with the Stars is on...and the Yankees are in the World Series !
Fluoride in the water? I mean, I know there is fluoride in the water, but I have been drinking it for years, am very intelligent, and could care less about Dancing with anyone... I did watch Game 2 of the Series though.
...you missed the point,but thats cool anyway,Yanks pulled it off in game 2.
4] Crutzen [2006], Wigley [2006], and others who have suggested that geoengineering be considered as a response to global warming have emphasized that mitigation is the preferable response and that geoengineering should only be considered should the planet face a climate change emergency
taken from the study...at what point and who decides its "climate change emergency"?
Obama has already shown a preference to "Declared emergencies" so why would this be different? If it would give him the power to suspend more of our constitutional rights he would do it in a minute! His hero is obviously Julius Caesar, the man that changed Rome from a republic to an empire. That seems to be where he is headed. Remember, the writers of the constitution said the reason we need the right to bear arms is to defend ourselves against a government that has become to powerful. Also everone please tell all military and police officers that they can be prosecuted for following an illegal order. Encourage them to check out the Oath Keepers. Knowing the law could save thousands of innocent lives.
Right there with you...thanks for the reply
I'm not religious, but "amen brothers"!
I am decidedly a liberal and care far more about the entire planet than just this Financial and Warrior Complex we call the United States. However, even I would suggest you attempt to prove your theories on planets other than our own. Then when it is as common as changing a tire we can consider doing it on the planet on which we live and breath. In the meantime, the world should pressure the US to cut it's emissions in half or face global sanctions.
Benet, how do you propose to prove this theory on another planet? None of the planets in our solar system have atmospheres like ours, let alone the ecosystem.
benet, we can start cutting our gobal emissions by first having you quit driving your car, stop using the computer you posted with, shut off your electricity, take cold baths using collected rain water, walk all the way to work and back (i can and do), grow all your own food and use the by products for clothing and finally but not last, QUIT BREATHING!
I find the evidence that the present rate of climate change is catastrophic to be very lacking. Most of the recent adverse effects have more to do with the exponential human population growth. The north American glacier from the last ice age retreated at an average rate of 500 feet per year. Obviously that retreat was not at that constant rate. What we have now is excellent year by year detail data for the last 30 years and we have pretty good trending data for the last tens of thousands of years. However, what is needed (Including, urgently, a new polar observing satellite.) is more study with open minds and moderating both energy use and population growth.
The fact that the Northern passage was a shipping lane for the first time in naval history opened my eyes a bit...
Jen-619159
You're seriously misinformed about the "opening" of the Northern passage as a shipping lane for the first time. Even a minimal amount of fact checking will show that this is demonstrably false. It has been used as a shipping lane routinely throughout modern times and in fact it's use is well documented throughout the last 100-150 plus yrs. There is also considerable evidence of its use prior to that point as well.
Please people...the information is not hard to find. If you really care, you'll take the time to fact check any and all alarmist info.
Although I believe we are contributing to climate change, a few hundred years of ships using the Arctic Ocean and for the first time in that history it is passable, is hardly reliable information. We do know that the Earth has had these cycles throughout it's history. No doubt, we need to clean up our act, but we can't ignore environmental history in the process.
Remember, at one time in relatively recent history, Utah was beachfront property. Utah is the third highest state in the union with a mean elevationof 13,528 feet above sea level. Its lowest point is Beaverdam Wash at 2,000 feet above sea level. This would basically mean that at one point, there was likely ZERO ice on the planet. How else would you get the oceans that high?
The world can get very warm and still flourish. I just prefer we are not a contributing factor to Earth's natural climate processes and I prefer we stop dumping toxins into the air, water and land we need to live.
The planets going to do what she wants too. There have been multiple cooling and heating cycle throughout the billions of years. This is a huge scam with the likes of Al Gore raking in the dough from idots willing to buy "carbon credits".
Hi Everyone -
Thanks for all of your comments.
As far as the chemtrails go, I don't really think this is the proper place to discuss this topic. While heavy metal poisoning is a very serious issue, this was meant to be a forum on global climate change and ways of dealing with it. (And yes, I'm familiar with the above link to the patent. Assuming this technology was used for mitigating global warming, it didn't work.) Although you may feel free to post more on chemtrails, consider this a request to stop the discussion on this topic. This is the last comment I'm going to make on chemtrails.
As far as geoengineering experiments actually taking place, we do address that issue in the paper. In order for us to determine whether an experiment worked, we have to be able to notice a significant cooling above and beyond the natural variability of the planet. First, that rules out localized experiments. If you make a cloud over South Carolina, that will hardly affect the radiation budget of the planet in any significant way. Since we're talking about global warming (the key word being "global"), the global radiation budget is what geoengineering is trying to modify. Second, in order to get a noticeable climate signal that you can absolutely guarantee is due to geoengineering, you would either need to geoengineer a lot (in terms of sulfur dioxide injection, on the order of several megatons per year), or you would need to do a little (but still above a certain threshold) for a long period of time. The experiments that could have been done are much too small, because there haven't been any measurable effects.
Ben
Thanks for the clarification Ben,good article and good topic.As like true science,always debatable,and in constant change...
As far as localized ,I am a bit confused,what part do you use as a control and what is not?
In order to have experiments that will actually produce results,I guess the question is,what size and scope will this be placed on?
Rather than using a "fix" that might cause more problems than it solves, what if we just cut emissions. Don't get me wrong, we are behind the curve on this one... but how late is too late for us to accept such consequences as being acceptable?
Ben,I will check back on more clarity as to the "HOW" these experiments will be done,thank you.
I am just not understanding.
Rick -
The point I was trying to make is that this is something of a unique problem in science. In normal scientific questions, you come up with a hypothesis, you do some calculations, and then you do some kind of lab test. With climate change problems, our lab tests can't go farther than computer simulations. This is useful, but it obviously isn't going to give us 100% confidence in our answers. We can't just go out and geoengineer the planet. First, because it's our only atmosphere, and we can't afford to test out our theories on it. But second, if we were to test geoengineering, we would have to test it at scale. An experiment in geoengineering would have to be as large as if you were actually doing geoengineering, since that's the only way to test whether it's having a climate (which implies "global") effect. So as far as how these experiments would be done? I would say they can't.
My guess is that it would be cheaper to put solar panels on every roof in America and put a Chevy Volt in every driveway than to pay for planet scale engineering.
A good example of this is the joke called fusion energy. "Free clean energy!" With all the money they have wasted on this, they could have paneled half of Europe over with solar power. They are still talking 50 years to commercialization and then the plants have to be built, etc. In 50 years, what will solar panels cost?
There are all kinds of wild schemes that will actually work but why not just take the easy root and spend the money to solve the problem with current proven technology.
I know that you want to cool the earth but by reversing fossil fuel use immediately, I think we would be better off than the years and billions it will take to even try something else.
$1 trillion would buy 500 gigawatts of solar. That's a lot of power! Moreover, the public would pay for it instead of electric bills if low interest loans were available so the actual cost to the government would probably be less than $10 billion. We could be done with this by the time any planet scale scheme could be ready to even try.
thank you for the reply...
Where do you suggest we discuss the chemtrail issue? Chemtrails=aerosol programs and aerosol programs=chemtrails. Maybe it's the purpose of chemtrails that is controversial? Can you say "Cloverleaf"? Reference: http://www.carnicom.com/contrails.htm
So all those aerosols we were using in the 80s & 90s that were putting holes in the ozone layer were actrually good for us?
Sorry propeler heads but you guys don't have a clue as to what's good for Mother Earth. Let's leave her alone and she'll fix us one way or the other.
Look up Bernie. Chemtrails are still being plastered in our skies.
If you want to test the atmosphere in your own home be my guest, but keep your meddling hands out of our skies.
At least once a century there is a massive volcanic eruptino that results in serious earth cooling. Pinatubo in 1991 was a 'small' eruption. Kratatoa last blew in 1883. There were two eruptions in 1809, Tambora and now another unnamed eruption has been discovered in that same year. The 1809 eruptions turned the entire earth frigid for a period of ten years. Of course there are the general idiots who ask after each disaster, "Can it happen again". The answer is of course, No. All earth cooling eruptions have ended. So lets test the 'Butterfly' effect and see what happens when we try to 'change' the climate. Earth 1, Humans 0.
I happen to know quite a bit about volcanic eruptions and their effects on climate. I can tell you right now that a large, earth cooling eruption _can— happen again. There were two very large eruptions recently: one in August, 2008 and one this past June. The one in August, 2008 probably didn't perturb the climate too much (at least as far as we can measure). The one this past June? I'm not sure yet. That's an open topic of research that I'm working on.
I think he was being sarcastic. If you watched the movie, the more the protagonist tried to interfere the worse it got. Hence the final line.
Plan B could only be useful as a desperate last gasp attempt to save the planet. Intentionally reducing monsoon season rains and creating droughts in some areas of the earth to benefit others may lead to revolutions and wars. Affected countries and peoples might be motivated to acquire and/or use WMD to counter what they would consider American/Western oppression. Famine, war, and disease created by Plan B could create a misery different from but equal to that created by global warming.
Currently, we are operating on Plan C, continue on course and hope for the best. That didn't work for the captain of the Titanic. It probably won't work for us, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Plan A, reducing CO2 emissions by cap and trade or reducing our consumption of carbon-based energy resources, remains our best option. It will cost money, more than I care to spend, and could slow or damage economic development, and may create its own adverse environmental impact. However, over the long haul (which might not be that long), it will cost less and create less economic and environmental havoc, than either Plan B or Plan C.
Crap and trade is a disaster that doesn't limit pollution, just sells it. Utilities will just charge more to cover their costs and we will pay more to make Gore richer.
Too bad one of the options wasn't " This is all B.S. The Earth always changes its climate, and we happen to be getting colder, unfortunately. This article sounds as if it came straight from the biggest eco-nuts of all time, Hitler's Germany.
you mean John Holdren ...the science Czar in the administration right now.
the guy who stated back in the 70s the population will be drastically reduced for fear of global cooling?...and ways of implementing that reduction.
classic works from a class act
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-722-Conservative-Politics-Examiner~y2009m7d16-Science-Czar-John-P-Holdrens-disturbing-beliefs-about-America-capitalism-and-humanity
gotta love the eugenicist Nazis...they pop up everywhere
More fear-mongering. Lets scare the crap out of the American citizens so they will pay us any amount of money not to go to our completely insane plan B! And whatever we do, lets not tell them that no matter how much they spend it won't make any difference b/c not enough countries are scared of climate change, and definitely don't tell them we will help to bankrupt the economy with our BS.
BOO! Happy Halloween!
It is fine if you choose to play ostrich so that you don't have to worry about what kind of world we are leaving your children. Not having a plan B (just in case the "fear mongers" are right) is like dumping your life savings into lottery tickets and expecting to have your winnings to fall back on in hard times...which is to say it's rather assinine. At least this way, we have an option besides hiding in the cellar and kissing our backsides good-bye when our consumerism comes crashing down!
Chemtrails? You want me to go along with chemtrails? No. Absolutely not. I'm sick of being sick from them. Anyone that answered "Yes" needs to (a) LOOK UP and see what's going on over your head, and (B) turn off the *&#@! TV and (C) WAKE UP!!!!!! So much research has been done already... just go to YouTube and type in "chemtrails."
the author will no longer discuss chemtrails as he deems it irrelevant to the topic{as stated above}even with the patents I sent in regards to chemtrails and global warming.his words"they didn't work"...you be the judge,I just want straight answers as to how these "New experiments" will be implemented.
Adding mega doses of pollutants to the atmosphere, whether they are aerosols or mechanical is just plain insane. It's equivalent to 18th and 19th century blood-letting to cure disease. Reduction of current CO2 emissions through the use of alternative energy sources, and a carbon tax on emitters, is already a doable method of reversing global warming. We just need our representatives in congress to get off their duffs and do the right thing; namely, reject corporate polluters bribes and pass a carbon tax. And increase subsidies for alternative energy developers.
Note to Ben, who doesn't want anyone discussing chemtrails...
Ok Ben, let's talk about global warming. I've been investigating it for over 10 years. I've read all the research. And it's a funny thing. The scientists supporting man-made global warming all seem to have some sort of financial involvement. Why is it the only forum allowed climate experts without a financial interest is YouTube and alternative radio? How come the climate change associated with natural planatary and sun cycles, which is in the original research, is never discussed? Why does cap and trade favor the rich and threaten to wipe out the middle class? Why do the "experts" want to tax my dog and cow farts? I'd love an honest discussion on global warming, but it sure is difficult to find one.
I hope his response wont be the typical "consensus" type.If i hear one more word about the science is done...the debate is over,it no longer becomes science,but irrelevant psuedo-science and mere ploys for financial /geo political motives. We will see...I will respect his response,although I get the feeling I won't agree.
Geez are you guys behind. It's not global warming any more, it's climate change. "They" got tired of being laughed at when they would tell people that global warming leads to global cooling.
You offer a scientist enough money, he will tell you what you want to hear.
It does not matter how much we cut back b/c the rest of the world won't.
WakeUpChildren - "Why do the "experts" want to tax my dog and cow farts?"
I nearly rolled out of my chair on this one. Hell, we should get paid to bottle farts as an alternative energy. That's it, I'm eating nothing but beans and getting off the government's grid!
It's solar and bottled bean farts for me!
All right. I'll clear this up for everyone. I've been investigating global warming, too. (And I still use that term.) In fact, I'm a scientist who studies global warming for a living. I am certain that global warming is happening, and that it is our fault. I'm not being paid to say that. The only money that I get is to investigate scientific problems. I don't decide on my conclusions before I investigate the problem.
That said, the overwhelming mountain of evidence says that anthropogenic activities are responsible for global warming. The solar cycles don't explain it. Cow farts do, at least in part. (Methane is 23 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but there isn't enough of it to overwhelm the warming effects of carbon dioxide.) In fact, the recent IPCC report, which serves as the consensus for the scientific community, studied everything they could possibly think of. They put it all into different climate models which represent the best understanding we have of the climate system. We also compared the gathered data to the current body of scientific knowledge of the climate system. The only way to explain what is happening is human activities. As far as I'm concerned, it's not a debate.
And let me pose this question to you. Do you realize how famous I would be if I disproved global warming? I would love to be able to do that. I can look for motive on both sides of the "debate".
Global warming is happening, and it's our fault. The only question now is what we're going to do about it.
OK, broken record time! Solar power and electric vehicles. Instead of spending billions on research and development, spend it on incentives. We already have the tools in hand, they are just half a dozen years from break even. Incentives will hasten that.
Being a scientist myself, it's always tempting to sink ones teeth into a juicy problem, especially when someone else is paying for it. Again, I go back to fusion. It certainly is a juicy problem and someone else is paying for it, but it will NEVER be viable! By the time it's ready, energy will be too cheap to fund the power plants. But I'm sure if you talked to the scientists involved, they will absolutely swear on their mother's graves that we NEED it! BBBBBSSSSSSSS! They are perfecting the ultimate buggy whip.
"The only way to explain what is happening is human activities. As far as I'm concerned, it's not a debate."
losing scientific credibility here Ben...science,is always questioned and recalculated,never a fixed "fact".Conclusions always require new and relevant data.{gravity vs.neutrino effect...string theory...as examples}
You know that in your line of work,don't shoot your self with that comment...just be careful,thanks for your time.
Agreed! Let's also investigate and discuss EMF and ELF to see how much they contribute to "warming" our planet.
How about an option "No, the climate doesn't need any fixing for global warming."
Ask the people in Colorado this week, plus those that actually read data that indicate we are in a COOLING period.
We're actually in a warming period, which has been determined by both climate scientists and independent statisticians (who in a blind study were given data and told to determine trends without actually telling them what the data was).
And you can talk about Colorado, or Minnesota, or Sweden. The operative word in global warming is "global". That means you average all of the temperature data across the entire globe.
The problem is there are both alarmists and nay sayers. Somewhere in the middle is the truth. If you are up on climatology, then share you knowledge about one item. How fast has the ocean been rising, and at even double that rate how many millennia will it take for the water to rise 30 feet?
I've been freakin' freezing for years here. I have to laugh when I see references to global warming. Maybe it's more like "shifting of the poles"? I dread the day I see a polar bear in my backyard rather than the black bear I now see!
I want to take this back to the question about how it would be possible to conduct a controlled experiment of geoengineering. It seems to me that you would need a good model that predicts with some accuracy what the current conditions are (and the near term future conditions will be)--then you could conduct your geonengineering intervention on a global basis and compare the observed values (actual weather for some period) against the model's predictions. Do we have any models that are that accurate that could be used in such an experiment? I thought that the state of the art in terms of this type of simulation was less developed than that. And if you had a simulation model that was as accurate as that, why not run the entire experiment just on the model? What worries me about proposals like this is that we never really understand all the ramifications of what we do clearly enough that we can be sure that some type of unanticipated consequences won't creep in and leave us all worse off than before.
That was the question I was flustered to put into words...thank you
Jack, great question. Didn't all their models assume significant increases in sunspot activity begining in Nov/Dec? The highest cycle since 18-something? Why yes, I think they did. Curious.. when the reality is the lowest sunspot activity ever seen by humans.
And let's not forget the backdrop of history. Ice core data provides information on Earth's past vs. the "record" temperatures reported on the nightly news, which looks at data 30 - 100 years old. That's simply irrelevant to the discussion.
And oh wait.. are we going to factor in the bit where the entire solar system is warming at the same rate? Must be all that human-produced CO2.
WakeUpChildren, I'm liking your logical sarcasm more and more. I agree, the biggest influence on our weather, the sun, often gets ignored by most. Even many scientists ignore it. As you pointed out, there has been recent data that the whole solar system is in a warming trend. There is only one thing powerful enough to do that and that is good ole Sol.
We haven't even began to understand about climate changing influences that come from outside our solar system. There is definitely more to climate change than is being perpetuated in the media and by many scientists. We are missing some important parts to the formula and until we tie all this together, we will have these "activists" contemplating the dumping of chemicals into our atmosphere to curb global warming. The Earth has had a history of being a lot warmer than it is now, so I don't see why we need to do anything with the exception of cutting the toxins we put into nature.
Jack -
Thanks for your very well thought out questions. I actually answered a little bit of it above, but I'll put the rest here. The models at our disposal are very good at studying climate. Climate deals with forcings and dynamic responses. It can also describe weather behavior as an aggregate. However, weather is a chaotic system which is driven by processes which are, effectively, totally random. We can predict weather to a certain point, based on the forcings and current weather patterns. However, beyond that point (which at a maximum is about two weeks), we have no clue what the _weather— will be. We know that in December in Michigan, it will probably be quite cold. But that's not to say they couldn't have a week-long period which is in the 60s.
So this is all about what we want to predict. If we want to find what the cooling due to, say, 5 Tg of sulfur dioxide injected into the stratosphere will be, we can answer that question. If we want to figure out how that will affect the Indian monsoon, we can. If we want to figure out whether on one day we'll get 3 inches of rain when we would normally get 1, that's a question that cannot be answered. Not just now, but ever.
My current thinking is the same as yours, in that all of the geoengineering experiments should be run on climate models. (I talked about why I believe this in a previous post.) It will never be as accurate as going out there and doing geoengineering, but it's a lot safer, and the results we get will still be very useful. It will also help us determine some of the unwanted consequences, if not all of them.
Again, I have to come back and ask, instead of spending all our money on studying a problem to death, (which the rest of the world is also doing), why don't we leave the research to them and spend our money to incentivize clean energy instead? Much as you might think that studying a problem to death is part of the solution, it is not.
If you reallly believe that humans are causing the problem and CO2 is the major issue, then focus all your efforts on beating up on our government. Global "solutions" can have negative global consequences, fixing our own house first puts us way ahead of the rest of the world and will make us more prosperous, not less.
There was an old saying around Bell Labs, "There comes a time in the life of a project when you have to shoot the engineer and begin production!" If you truly believe all the facts are in, focus on reversing the problem, not introducing perhaps a far worse one.
This whole global warming this is a smoke and mirrors event. Their is no proof that anything humans have done has had a significant impact on global warming, and even less proof that any measures we take to alter our environment would have a desired impact. The arrogance of some of these scientests is hard to believe. Global warming is the "Big Lie" of our generation. If enough people talk about it, the the chances are more people will believe some of it, just because people are talking about it. Global warming was a sham to begin with and it is still a sham even though the proponents have generated a lot of buzz about it.
Agreed! The "science" is faulty and unsubstantiated. Global warming is nothing but a HUGE lie propagated to open the door to legislated behavior.
Climate change? Yes, the climate changes, as real science has documented. It is cyclical and it will continue to cycle back & forth and there isn't one damned thing humans can or should do about it.
Global warming? No such thing ....
And this geoengineering idea is insane. Not wrong or a bad idea or unachievable, just downright crazy !!! What in God's name makes these so called scientists think they should "fix" something that doesn't need fixing?
There is no one at Fox who would be able to comprehend a "smoke and mirrors" event.
If you think we have problems now just go screwing with Mother Nature and see what kind of trouble Man CAN WROUGHT!!! How dare this man even suggest that we attempt to alter the skies. His ego is bigger than all outdoors already!!!