Reprinted from totallytopten.com
The solution to climate change lies not in the hands of politicians, but some seriously nutty scientists.
For the uninitiated, Geo-engineering is easiest explained as the plan B in the fight against climate change, in case our politicians and world leaders fail. And as the Kyoto agreement is due 2012, with both Bali and Copenhagen settled disappointments, it is perhaps time for drastic action.
Scientists all over the world are already on it.
10. Ocean Iron Fertilization
“Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age” ~John Martin, discoverer of the Ocean Iron Fertilization Idea.
Introduce iron into the ocean’s upper layer and increase the amount of phytoplankton (plant plankton) in the ocean. This in turn will increase the amount of food for ocean life, strengthen the ecosystem and most importantly, take in CO2 and release
oxygen. The problem however, is not just the process but the scale on which it has to be done to make an impact.
9. Cloud Reflectivity Enhancement
Making clouds whiter. How? Apparently the “viable plan” by Stephen Salter of the University of Edinburgh is to have 1500 special ships known as Flettner ships to spray ocean water into the atmosphere. The ocean spray would work within a concept known as the Twomey Effect. The biggest problem is the lack on ocean nuclei needed due to pollution.
Problem: 1500 honkin’ ships shooting water into the air.
8. Scatterers – Stratospheric Sulfate Aerosols
Release microparticles into the atmosphere at the rate of 1 million metric tons a year through the use of jumbo jets and military artillery. The idea is to reflect some of the sunlight entering our atmosphere, thus reducing warming effects and helping us keep nice and cool. Read more at Wikipedia.
Read the rest of the article here
Walking the line on the San Andreas Fault. 4.5 in San Jose on the 4th of Jan, and this 6.5 off the coast of Eureka. This is where the San Andreas turns out to sea. Aftershocks can go on for weeks, or be the portent of a rarer bigger one. At least with Earthquakes, we know how they act, we just can’t predict the patterns or why. Too bad about climate, 20-30 years squandered in Search of Global Warming tales. If we only knew about Climate and Earthquakes what we know about Volcanoes. Someday, at least if we can keep the Frankenstein Monster experiments under lock & key, we will.
David Corcoran (21:03:24) :
Oh, but we are burying trees. Ancient plants & trees turned to hydrocarbons, then made into plastics, buried in landfills everywhere.
rbateman (18:26:54) : there’s been three more aftershocks, 3.0 to 4.5 range, since my comment[…] Does anyone here understand earthquakes and aftershocks? Is this many aftershocks normal?
Well, for starters, you don’t know if these are aftershocks or foreshocks…
I had a geology class where we went over this in some depth. I, of course, took the bait and asked how you could tell which was which. The answer was “they are all aftershocks… until you get a bigger one, then they were foreshocks.”
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/faq/?categoryID=1&faqID=99
I especially like this phrasing:
“Foreshock” and “aftershock” are relative terms. Foreshocks are earthquakes which precede larger earthquakes in the same location. Aftershocks are smaller earthquakes which occur in the same general area during the days to years following a larger event
So, yes, you can have swarms of aftershocks for days. Or weeks. Or months. Or even years. Unless they become foreshocks. Or a main shock. Or not…
Isn’t science wonderful 😉
hunter (20:41:04) :
<i.Fertilizing the oceans could be very good for increasing marine productivity.
I know these things start off with good intentions. But really, IMO, man just isn’t smart enough to try to engineer Nature. Mankind does not even understand Nature. So how can Mankind think he knows ways to improve something he does not understand?
This lecture by Michael Crichton makes some good points about man trying to improve Nature. I hope you find it worth your time:
53 minute video in Google Video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2795753336403393538&hl=en#
This is truly scary, putting serious stuff in the hands of these religious fanatics who are convinced we’re already in a runaway greenhouse hell.
The folks advocating those ideas are only interested in seeing if their theories work. They couldn’t care less about the consequences — they just want to know if what they think will happen actually happens.
Many years ago, I knew a welder who worked on the tower for the Trinity Project. He told me the physicists were placing bets on whether or not the explosion would result in a chain reaction that would would ignite the atmosphere, and evidently they put the odds at 50-50.
He also said the ones who were betting on the worst-case scenario were pretty eager to see if it would actually happen, just to satisfy their curiosity.
Remember the CO2 filters on Apollo 13?
I reckon all alarmists should install these on their rooftops, strap em on to their car roofs, even smaller versions worn as hats etc whilst they’re out doing their power walks.
They can hold “Earth Picnics”. Their kiddies running around with CO2 scrubbing toy windmills.
They can spend 1day per week with NO power, there’s 14% saved.
It’s all easy when you put your mind to it 🙂
Now wheres my grants?
but… but… “they” are already doing atmospheric experiments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory
photon without a Higgs (19:05:50) :
Does anyone here understand earthquakes and aftershocks? Is this many aftershocks normal?
—
Reply: Forces in the earth build until they reach the breaking point and an earthquake is the manifestation. These forces are generally from the relative motion of the major plates that make up the mosaic of plate tectonics–as these plates collide or move past one another, they do so irregularly because none of the plate edges are lubricated. Typically the strongest individual quake will occure in the first several and it dies down after that because the stresses have been relieved so subsequent quakes are generally less intense.
After a long while, measured in months or years or even decades, the stresses build up again until the forces overcome the strength of the rock along the plane of greatest stress again, resulting in another series of earthquakes.
Earthquakes are unpredictable because, even while forces are somewhat constant, configurations vary greatly and include a number of factors such as different rock types, structural complexities, triggering mechanisms (internal and external) and so forth, associated with seismic zones. Some earthquakes have abundant aftershocks and some don’t; they all differ to some degree. However, there are generally more and bigger aftershocks after a significant quake like the one just reported than smaller quakes, obviously. I think we’ve probably seen the last big earthquake for a while, at least around that epicenter.
Number 8. Release microparticles into the atmosphere at the rate of 1 million metric tons a year through the use of jumbo jets and military artillery.
Heh. Max ordinate (the highest the shell will reach) for a 155mm howitzer (the largest artillery piece still in common use) is about 16,000 feet. In order to get the microparticles into the upper atmosphere using artillery, they’ll have to fire them from the jumbo jets…
First: Do no harm.
Cold stuns Florida:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100110/ap_on_re_us/us_winter_weather
Across Florida, the weather was freakishly cold for a state that’s a winter respite for so many. There were snow flurries spotted in several parts of the state, as far south as Naples on the gulf coast. In Miami, the temperature was forecast to drop just below freezing overnight and threatened to break the record for low temperatures in the city.
In suburban Atlanta, which has seen an unusually long stretch of low temperatures, two teens died Saturday after falling through the ice on a partially frozen pond. The surviving teen was in fair condition at Gwinnett Medical Center, said hospital spokeswoman Andrea Wehrmann.
The two boys who died were in the frigid water for nearly an hour before rescuers could reach them, said Gwinnett County Fire and Emergency Services Capt. Tommy Rutledge. He said the three, ages 13 to 15, were playing and sliding on the semi-frozen pond when the ice broke.
And
An ice jam along the Mississippi River prompted the National Weather Service to issue a flood warning for southwest Illinois and northeast Missouri. The weather service said the river was near the 16-foot flood stage in Hannibal, Mo., on Saturday.
And the ferry that serves as the only connection between western Kentucky and eastern Missouri was shut down Saturday afternoon because of ice in the harbor and Mississippi River. Kentucky Department of Transportation spokesman Keith Todd said with temperatures expected to remain below freezing, operations for the Dorena-Hickman Ferry would be evaluated daily to decide when the crossing can resume.
Amtrak said some trains between Chicago and Denver and between St. Paul, Minn., and Seattle wouldn’t operate Saturday and Sunday because of cold, high winds and drifting snow.
E.M.Smith (21:47:39) :
Fascinating. I am humbolted, or should I say…shocked.
Bill Tuttle (21:54:10) :
That is truly scary, only in this case they are proposing applying a vector force to a chaotic system that they don’t have the slightest idea of what is currently intending to do, to which once applied, they have even less of an idea of how to undo the uninended consequences.
I cannot see how there will be no harm. It will certainly do great damage somewhere, and maybe to too many somewheres. It may even unwind whatever cycles are in play and send the whole climate system on a violent rampage.
All this over a concocted stunt.
Nothing to worry about. What could go wrong?
I like the whole plankton, bottom of the food chain thingy.
Let’s build a huge heat pipe. Heat pipes are systems that use evaporation and gravitation to create a cooler. These are used extensively, for example, in computer coolers. See more http://www.heatpipe.com/heatpipes.htm
If we think about building a cooler/thermostat for Earth, we need huge amounts of a liquid that removes heat from the surface by evaporating at Earthly temperatures. Water is a good candidate for that because it rises up naturally and condenses to clouds and rains back to surface. Obviously we could use oceans as our super cooler, especially because of its price – zero.
If you think that oceans are not large enough for our purpose, we can find a place in Eastern Africa, the East Africa’s Great Rift, where evaporation is high and the land is below sea lever. See http://geology.com/articles/east-africa-rift.shtml. Now, to geoengineer something you can build a canal (with power turbines .-)) from the sea to get water in.
Dr. Jasper Kirkby Explains Chemtrails
lmg (18:49:34) :
“1. The most simple solution would be off course to launch a few nukes, you don’t need a full exchange of the nuclear stockpile.”
You only need a single nuke if you target the next International Climate Conference.
********************
I’m not very well-versed in nuclear warfare. Is the 14C02 generated in such a reaction from the errrmm “substrate” ??
If so, it would be peculiarly ironic if we were to confirm the half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere of 9 – 12 years, literally using Hansen et al.
Tenuc (15:29:43) :
None of the ideas are as daft as trying to reduce CO2 levels. We know this one won’t have any effect at all!
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LoL….. Touche`
I have been suprised, when this subject came up before and this time, by the hostile reaction to geo-engineering proposals. They may not be a good idea in themselves, but the idea of them may be useful: let me explain.
Take a political party with all its little would-be leaders jostling for position. For decades now the place to be has been the warmists camp, trumping each others proposals with ever more ludicrous bids — “we’ll build ten windmills a year, we’ll cut carbon by ten percent, we’ll build fifty, cut by twenty, hundreds, eighty percent…” And on and on. But there are power-hungry people in the party who are waiting to see, as the cracks appear in the AGW facade, whether they can leverage it into a new appeal to the electorate.
You are not going to get rid of politicians — fun though it is to claim you want to hang them, they will just be replaced by new ones — but we might be able to turn them away from their anti-civilisation, starve-in-the-dark ideas. Give the underdogs, the one who were too late on the AGW bandwagon, a reason for stiopping the ludicrous bidding war and we might buy enough time for the science to correct itself. Having gone from an initial trusting soul who thought the scientists were onto something, I’ve now reached full dissenter stage where I don’t even know if the Earth has warmed at all. Politicians need time to go through the same process. We need to buy time.
Any proposed bio-engineering solution must be as cheap as possible — remember that if this really is pseudo-science then any money spent is effectively wasted — easily reversible and quick. Salter and Latham’s ships use seawater in tiny amounts compared with the natural processes which move spray into the boundary layer, and if you don’t like the results you just turn them off. In a week the salt particles fall out and you won’t be able to tell that they were there. The tiny amounts of salt will do no harm to anything because the oceans are already pumping millions of tons into the air anyway, it’s where you place your ship that makes the difference.
Imagine the calculation if you were a politician (no insult intended, it’s just a pretend — I’d not like to insinuate that anyone here would really stoop so low). You can’t get any higher without some of those above you getting knifed in the back. The wheels are coming off the global warming bus, but people are still scared by all the propaganda they’ve been subjected to over the years. Here’s the solution: put cap and trade, emission ceilings etc on hold for a few years while you check the science and, just to be on the safe side, we’ll build a confirmation-of-concept prototype cloud ship. You can even tell the warmistas, who will shriek, that it’s just an application of the precautionary principle, just in case those other countries you don’t trust are planning to cheat on their emissions.
Result? Trillions saved, budgets balanced, new leverage, a place at the top table. And when the sceince comes in and says that climate sensitivity is about .6 degrees, that much of the warming has been caused by oil pollution/UHI effect/solar changes/stochastic movement of ocean currents then you will be the greatest politician of the last fifty years, a world statesman, praised by all humanity.
Give the little weasels the chance to see this prize. It will save millions from poverty and starvation, stop governments helping themselves from your wallet in the name of dubious science and will cost pennies.
What’s not to like?
JF
photon without a Higgs (21:48:41) :
hunter (20:41:04) :
<i.Fertilizing the oceans could be very good for increasing marine productivity.
I know these things start off with good intentions. But really, IMO, man just isn’t smart enough to try to engineer Nature. Mankind does not even understand Nature. So how can Mankind think he knows ways to improve something he does not understand?
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Photon without a Higgs…… We improve upon nature all the time. The point is, that we should do it for OUR benefit.
This is why these airy fairy ideas won't work…. They don't actually benefit. If spreading iron on the sea made commercial sense for indutrialization of a certain fishery….. We would do it…. Should do it.
Effects would become apparent, harm minimization would be implemented, usually because the harm impacts both the industry and people…. The practice would then continue in it's new improved form for as long as a benefit was extracted cost effectively.
Agriculture would be one such example… Man was smart enough clearing land, adding minerals, exctracting a continuous food supply. Nature didn't fall in a heap when we did that:-)
Nature isn't a thing…. It's an environmental set of changable conditions determined by circumstance.
If they have to geo engineer, number 9, cloud generation with the ship from the ocean, gets my vote, because it can be stopped on a penny, nothing irreversible.
I have one question for you Mr Gibbs. Do you know, that we know, that every word coming out of your mouth is BUll [snip]?
Gibbs: Worldwide Record Cold Result of Climate Change
http://hotairpundit.blogspot.com/2010/01/robert-gibbs-worldwide-record-cold-is.html
They’re not as crazy as claimed.
Canberra Australia had contrail sowing going on in the week before Copenhagen. It seemed quite effective and must have been paid for by someone. It was probably not the government; they claimed to know nothing.
Sulfur compounds are not the only seeding agents being tested there are bacteria and sugar peptides molecules that seed clouds. There were a half dozen proposed combinations. Now they’re being tested.
The marine Iron fertilisation is on the same scale and cost as farm fertilization and there are a dozen funded studies. It doubles fish yields and has no detectable adverse ecological effects. Greenhouse may be a non problem but certainly in the case of marine fertilization it looks like a winner. The key is to come up with an Iron dispenser that fits into a fishing trawler and dispensed a little ‘seed’ plankton and perhaps fry with the iron. This turns the open ocean fisheries onto a protein farming system. The largest problem is that we still have a neo-Marxist law of the sea that disallows the ownership of marine properties. If such sea steading and private fisheries were allowed we would have a lot more food very quickly. I’m in the sea steading institute and various space societies. Big projects are possible if your creative and have rights on the wealth produced.
Rex Murphy pushed to the Post
http://www.mediastyle.ca/2010/01/rex-murphy-pushed-to-the-post/
Just a thought. There was a lot of shipping sunk in the sea during WW11.
There was a period of cooling soon after. Any connection?