Here’s an excerpt of an AP story posted on Brietbart by President Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, suggesting putting particulate matter into the air to reflect sunlight.
It seems like we’ve already tried that and then cleaned it up in the last century.
Excerpt:
The president’s new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth’s air.
John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.
“It’s got to be looked at,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”
Full story here
Note to commenters, while this is a political story also, please keep the discussion limited to the science. – Anthony
h/t to Mark Danner
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As I just said in the sea level post: but there is no need of it, nature and its volcanoes are already working in 24 hours non stop shifts to reach the next temperature negative feedback tipping point.
So the Hauytaputina eruption VEI=6 heralded the Maunder Minimum.
Adam (London, England) (11:43:53) :
So, from your links, it seems to me they are looking for other reasons than warming to tax us to death on carbon dioxide emissions. The CO2 warming theory failed miserable, so now they are looking at other reasons to still blame CO2.
When will it stop?
So who do the Siberians sue if they prefer a warmer climate?
Holdren’s aerosols would cause severe economic damage to all concentrating solar power plants! See:
A Hitch in Plans for “Sunshade Earth”
i.e. The 3% reduction in solar insolation would cause a 15% reduction in concentrated solar thermal power.
It would also severely harm farm production and food availability. With growing world population, Holdren’s aerosol efforts would be directly responsible for causing millions of deaths from malnutrition and starvation.
Mao Tse Tung reduced China’s population by 60 million by 30 million famine deaths and consequent 30 million lower births caused by his “Great Leap Forward” in 1959-1961.
Today’s grandiose misguided efforts to control climate change will likely cause much greater famines from the economic harm and reduction in agricultural output.
Flanagan:
If this is a rumour, it was started by Holdren. In the full article, linked above, Holdren said he had raised the idea in Administration meetings.
Reply: Flagged for possible deletion because contents not discussing the science, but politics ~ charles the moderator
This is good news indeed! No more “cap and trade”, no more “no smoking”.
More seriously: Volcanic eruptions and ozone layer:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/2006/chapters/Q14.pdf
Smokey (11:35:00) :
Holdren’s astonishing idiocy will no doubt make him propose that China should build a new coal-fired power plant every week until at least 2024. Oh, wait…
And the ultimate irony will occur when environmentalists unite to propose further polluting the planet to save the planet from… pollution.*
Mark
* They call CO2 pollution, not me. 😉
Reply: Flagged for possible deletion because contents not discussing the science, but politics ~ charles the moderator
How arrogant is man. First we believe earth is the center of the universe, and hold this belief as a ‘conscientious’ for centuries, now we believe we can set the planets thermostat like we do in our homes. This is only the 5th most idiotic thing I have ever heard, but that does not make it a good idea.
“Brawndo has what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes, brought to you by Carls Jr.” Secretary of State in 2506
Reply: Flagged for possible deletion because contents not discussing the science, but politics ~ charles the moderator
I’m having alot of trouble thinking of anything scientific to say about such an unscientific idea, so maybe I’ll just ask a question or two. Do scientists have anything comparable to the Hippocratic Oath that doctors have? Is there anything within that document (if indeed it exists) that says, first, do no harm?
Thanks,
Mike Bryant
PS This approach is like speeding toward a cliff in the fog with no brakes.
Throughout his career Holdren has predicted catastrophes that never happened. Maybe he needs help to resolve some deep anxieties that he keeps projecting onto the environment. Paying for his shrink would be a lot cheaper than geoengineering.
Pair this with Romm’s meltdown online over his failure in his little TV debate with Morano and its beginning to look like the global warming crowd has issues and should not be leading anyone anywhere.
Reply: Flagged for possible deletion because contents not discussing the science, but politics ~ charles the moderator
I seem to recall that “the father of modern climatology”, Reid Bryson kind of kicked off the whole anthropogenic climate change thing with his concerns that all of the dust kicked up my mankind’s activities could plunge the Earth into a new ice age…It would be almost funny if we did do just that sort of thing in an effort to avert an imaginary anthropogenic greenhouse gas-driven global warming.
People like Holdren are dangerous. He hasn’t been an actual “scientist” in abou 40 years. He’s spent most of the past four decades running a “touchy-feely” interdisciplianary program at UC-Berkeley. UCB’s Energy and Resources Group is essentially a program for non-science majors to learn how to sound scientific whilst advancing political agendas. It’s even worse than Jeffrey Sach’s Earth Institute at Columbia (not to be confused with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory).
Flanagan [11:28:57]
Yes, Holdren does in fact suggest shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun. Try reading the excerpt once again.
That said, I don’t know why Holdren thinks the US should go that route: the IPCC says the suns has no influence on golbal climate and in any event China and India are already putting enough particles up there to cover all of usl…
Reply: Flagged for possible deletion because contents not discussing the science, but politics ~ charles the moderator
This will take us back to the Ap index…
So just think how long the cooling effect of a Mt St Helens type eruption was, and how much energy was involved in that eruption.
So how often does Holdren plan to set off one of these dirt bombs. It will take more energy to do than we will have available; given all the prohibitions on using existing US energy sources.
This is what happens when you don’t have adults running the ship.
“Another geoengineering option he mentioned was the use of so-called artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide—the chief human-caused greenhouse gas—out of the air and store it. At first that seemed prohibitively expensive, but a re-examination of the approach shows it might be less costly, he said.”
Hmmm, I guess real trees are out of the question. Too bad Freeman Dyson is not available for the science post.
I know, Why don’t we get a volcano to do this for us…. Oh wait Mt. Redoubt already did that.
“”” Flanagan (11:28:57) :
Is it ok if I summarize things like that:
– Holdren never said the sentence which is proclaimed in the title
– He only said that at last resort, geoengineering should be considered.
What is the scientific word for “trying to spread a rumour by lying about someone’s declarations”? “””
What’s the scientific term for lying about the clearly available evidence that what you (Holdren) are claiming is wrong. How about the scientific term for the most senior science advisor to the entire United States government proposing a solution to a non problem; that even an 8th grade high school science student would know is quite ridiculous; even insane; and certainly isn’t going to work.
Reply: Flagged for possible deletion because contents not discussing the science, but politics ~ charles the moderator
The politicians and greens have to do something QUICKLY — so they can take credit for the coming cool decades.
Otherwise, the coming coolness may cause people to “wise up” to AGW extremism — and all that carbon-credit tax money will be lost.
Reply: Flagged for possible deletion because contents not discussing the science, but politics ~ charles the moderator
Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.
Would that last resort be similar to a final solution ?
From the book Ecoscience Holdren co authored with Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich.
“Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable…not only in the atmosphere and oceans, but in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes…The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade…The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits…the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits. (p. 943.)”
Reply: Flagged for possible deletion because contents not discussing the science, but politics ~ charles the moderator
Fortunately Jim Hansen has given us permission to take direct action if we don’t approve.
Reply: Flagged for possible deletion because contents not discussing the science, but politics ~ charles the moderator
Obama is a bright, high IQ person, but he has surrounded himself with “science” advisors who are over-the-edge believers in the carbon dioxide warming theory, so there is no chance he will hear contrary views from within the administration. He will only be told realistic climate facts by political opponets, whom he will automatically not believe. What can start the enlightenment?
Reply: Flagged for possible deletion because contents not discussing the science, but politics ~ charles the moderator
Mr. Holdren has been up to this nonsense before when he was an advisor to Paul Ehrlich in the 70s, when Ehrlich made a bet with Julian Simon in regard to consumption of the earths resources and runaway population growth.
Ehrlich lost the bet on every count. Very much worth the read.
See
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021302514.html
Anthropogenic global warming does not exist. No basis exists to destroy global climate.
I hope that they are watching the effects of mt Redoubt. It seems to be seeding the atmosphere with plenty of particulate matter. A real science experiment in real time.
Yep do that – Tambora pops then Novarupta.Or Yellostone-Got coal?…