THE Royal Society is backing research into simulated volcanic eruptions, spraying millions of tons of dust into the air, in an attempt to stave off climate change.
The society will this week call for a global programme of studies into geo-engineering — the manipulation of the Earth’s climate to counteract global warming — as the world struggles to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
It will suggest in a report that pouring sulphur-based particles into the upper atmosphere could be one of the few options available to humanity to keep the world cool.
The intervention by the Royal Society comes amid tension ahead of the United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Copenhagen in December to agree global cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Preliminary discussions have gone so badly that many scientists believe geo-engineering will be needed as a “plan B”.
Ken Caldeira, an earth scientist at Stanford University, California, and a member of a Royal Society working group on geo-engineering, said dust sprayed into the stratosphere in volcanic eruptions was known to cool the Earth by reflecting light back into space.
“If I had a dollar for geo-engineering research I would put 90 cents of it into stratospheric aerosols and 10 cents into everything else,” said Caldeira.
The interest in so-called aerosols is linked to the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. The explosion blasted up to 20m tons of tiny sulphur particles into the air, cooling the planet by about 0.5C before they fell back to earth.
The Royal Society is Britain’s premier science institution and its decision to take geo-engineering seriously is a measure of the desperation felt by scientists about climate change.
read the rest of the story here
It ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Leave it alone…
having flown right by Mt Pinatubo as it was erupting in 91 on a flight to Hong Kong I doubt we have the technology to create an explosion of that size and ferocity unless it’s nuclear.
Is there any evidence that the 1000 nuclear blasts that occurred in the 50s and 60s had any effect on global temps?
And what happens if a real one erupts in the meantime and causes too much cooling?
Like this for example.
But this moronic behavior is what we are going to get with people brainwashed into believing there actually is unnatural warming going on.
But if the world is cooling down because of lower solar activity, wouldn’t this be a very bad idea.
Thank goodness for negative feedbacks in the climate system.
This idea has been around for a while: Dr Tim Flannery in Australia’s resident chief warming alarmist, raised this issue a year or two ago.
Perhaps I am completely wrong, and it is a good thing to investigate. More likely however, it is just a really dumb idea, designed to fix a “problem” that doesn’t exist (ie the climate change now occurring is an extension of the last 20,000 years of warming since the last Ice Age, and its a good thing).
Talk about the law of unintended consequences, pumping sulpur into the atmospere in any other context has a single name: pollution. And you just know whatever the outcome, it wouldn’t be good. I wonder if these guys have ever heard of acid rain, for starters?
“spraying millions of tons of dust into the air”
“pouring sulphur-based particles into the upper atmosphere”
Haven’t the developed nations spent many years and dollars to prevent dust and sulphur-based particles from entering the atmosphere?
Are these folks new to planet Earth?
Looks like the lunatics have taken over The Royal Society as well.
Interesting article on the Indonesian mud volcano, Anthony. It’s a small world: I worked with Richard Davies in the mid nineties – we were doing field mapping in eastern Venezuela. Natural mud volcanoes are quite common both in Eastern Venezuela and Trinidad.
More press releases like this will help reveal these people as the crackpots they are.
The Royal Society has gone bunkers.
I am not so sure that I could support the spraying of one of the components of acid rain into the atmosphere. It seems that the United States in the past 30 years has gone to great expense to stop the emission of these same chemicals into the atmosphere. Also if we are going to make great expensive experiments into the cooling of the planet maybe we should look at the current empirical evidence. I mean the recent evidence that suggests that the earth is very possibly not warming and may actually be cooling. I have great doubts that we are any where near a tipping point. Understand that I am not a scientists but I do read and try to keep myself informed. In my severely limited opinion we have a great deal to learn about climate before we should try to do any engineering to change something that we do not fully understand.
Great job Anthony keeping us informed on the upcoming foolishness being proposed by these climate “scientists”. The climate is complex in the extreme and very chaotic in nature. I suspect that it will cure itself if we will just leave it alone.
I personally think that we would be better stewards of our wealth if we would concentrate on pollution that we can do something about, real pollution. We should be more concerned about the availability of good usable fresh water, plenty to drink, plenty to keep clean with, plenty for agriculture/food production, and plenty for industry. CO2 isn’t a pollutant it is a natural gas that has been produced and absorbed and stored by nature since the earth was formed. We have other things that have a very much more sever impact on on the health and welfare of the animal and plants on the earth.
Thanks for listening to my rant,
Bill Derryberry
Are these guys nuts? This geo-engineering to solve an imaginary problem leaves me utterly speechless.
And what amazes me is that the they are trying to solve a supposedly man-made problem with yet another man-made solution!
Leave the world alone and let if find its natural balance. “What’s so good about the climate we have now that we can’t let it change?” asked George Wills.
Lying behind this and all other absurd attempts to change the weather is the most staggering degree of arrogance.
I say “weather” not “climate” deliberately because there is no prospect whatsoever of any of these feeble exercises in navel gazing having a long-term effect. But that is not what I really want to say.
I want to point out the breathtaking self-importance of those engaging in it. “Look at us, we are so powerful that we can influence the climate. Do you see how very important we are?” It amounts to nothing more than that.
The effects of their proposed course of action are simply unknowable. There is nothing against which they can be measured or even estimated to any sensible level of accuracy. It is yet another futile gesture designed to fool the little people into thinking that human beings in the developed world – the tiny speck on the planet that we are – have the power to control the environment.
It’s completely nuts.
So much for improving air quality. On so many levels, this is a terrible idea…
Now I’m only a lowly geologist, rather than one of those lofty climate scientists, but it seems to me that volcanoes spew a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere when they are also flinging ash and other particulates about the globe. Wouldn’t that be kind of counter productive to those who buy the “CO2 causes climate change” folks?
The trouble is that sulphuric acid, which is made from SO2, is scarce now and its price has increased. So it is a more profitable to produce it than to send SO2 to the atmosphere. Contradiction is if some factory or sulphide metals refinery were going to send SO2 to the atmosphere it would be punished by green laws all over the world.
Surely this is to be classified as Fun Stuff.
I think first we must know if it is me crazy or you are crazy, or perhaps they are crazy, or we are crazy!
I hope nobody lets them use scissors or matches…
“Ken Caldeira, an earth scientist….” Perfect name, except for the “i” he puts in “caldera.”
Although technically trained, I do not feel qualified to comment on most of the issues on this site, but this is so over the top that I can’t resist shouting “garbage”.
That’s it…it’s official…the looneys are in charge of the asylum!
“janama (17:11:38) :
having flown right by Mt Pinatubo as it was erupting in 91 on a flight to Hong Kong I doubt we have the technology to create an explosion of that size and ferocity unless it’s nuclear.
Is there any evidence that the 1000 nuclear blasts that occurred in the 50s and 60s had any effect on global temps?”
You’d be surprised;
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Trinity.html
The Matrix (redux ) ” We know who burned the sky.”
On the other hand sulfur is needed for crops such as corn, and it is in short supply lately and getting worse. http://www.dtnprogressivefarmer.com/dtnag/common/link.do?symbolicName=/ag/blogs/template1&blogHandle=production&blogEntryId=8a82c0bc22ad9a1201231462321c052a . And: http://www.dtnprogressivefarmer.com/dtnag/common/link.do?symbolicName=/free/news/template2&product=/ag/free/news/rightnow&vendorReference=0702E648&paneContentId=2002&paneParentId=70104 .
So sulfur isn’t all bad. No sulfur, no corn. No corn, no ethanol (among other things) . Sort of like CO2. Confusing isn’t it? Those damn unanticipated consequences just keep getting in the way.
The Royal Society is now officially a “credibility-free zone”.
See: http://australianclimatemadness.blogspot.com/2009/08/uk-royal-society-officially-credibility.html
Simon
Australian Climate Madness
What is truely scary is that I suspect this is feasible and for a few hundred billion dollars (far less than the cost of Cap and Trade) could be done on a scale that actually effects the climate. Think tall chimneys which would have a natural updraft due the temperature difference between the ground and altitude, or had fans to pump air upward. Then inject dust or aerosols into the rising air.
I’ve seen these kinds of chimneys proposed as a way of generating ‘clean’ energy and as way of getting iron into the ocean to promote algal growth and capture carbon.
I thought this lunacy couldn’t get any worse. This proposal is utter madness.
Oh yeah, and they’ll inadvertently vaporize limestone releasing that magical mystical gas and send us into the depths of …
I guess all the genius’ are coming out to get on the gravy train.
Simple: They’re nuts.