By Erika Engelhaupt
None of the scientists in the room so much as blinked when David Keith suggested saving the world with spy planes spraying sulfuric acid.
Keith, a physicist at the University of Calgary in Canada, was facing an audience not likely to be shocked: nearly 200 other researchers, some of whom had their own radical ideas for fighting global warming. His concept was to spray a mist of sulfuric acid high in the stratosphere to form particles called sulfate aerosols, which would act like a sprinkling of tiny sunshades for the overheating Earth.
Keith’s idea may sound outrageous, but it is just one of many proposals for bumping the global thermostat down a couple of degrees by tinkering directly with the planet’s heating and cooling systems. Plans to cool the Earth range from shading it to fertilizing it, from seeding clouds to building massive supersuckers that filter greenhouse gases from the air. The schemes are all part of a growing field known as geoengineering: a subject once taboo for all but the scientific fringe, but now beginning to go mainstream.
So far the tinkering happens mainly in computer models, where researchers are trying to figure out geoengineering’s potential side effects. Yet some technologies are in the prototype stage, governments are starting to consider geoengineering seriously and budding geoengineers are working out how to proceed safely, and ethically, with real-world experiments.
“It truly is asking giant questions which nobody really knows the answers to,” Keith says — “like how we manage the whole Earth.”
In March, Keith and other experts met in a dimly lit chapel-turned-auditorium at the Asilomar resort near Monterey, Calif. In 1975, molecular biologists met at the same resort to write landmark guidelines to regulate DNA experiments. This time around, cloud physicists, legal scholars and government bureaucrats debated the relative merits of brightening clouds versus building artificial trees. In the end, the meeting-goers concluded that geoengineering research should cautiously proceed, in case Earth’s climate proves broken beyond the current means of repair: ratcheting down fossil fuel use.
Researchers have kicked around the idea of large-scale climate manipulation since at least the 1960s, when Soviet scientists suggested damming the Bering Strait as part of a scheme to warm Siberia and free shipping lanes of sea ice. But mainstream scientific attention began only about five years ago.
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“Keith’s idea may sound outrageous, but it is just one of many proposals for bumping the global thermostat down a couple of degrees by tinkering directly with the planet’s heating and cooling systems.”
Keith’s idea may sound outrageous, but some people think there are fairies at the bottom of their gardens.
Keith’s idea may sound outrageous, but that Kool-Aid sure tasted good.
Keith’s idea may sound outrageous, but what did you expect from Post-Modernist Science?
“bubbagyro says:
[…]
I said “simple” electric motors, not big dynamos with brakes, governors, etc. I am trying to save us on costs. More like a Dremel hooked up to balsa blades.”
Ah, a Bosch. I see.
The book opens with an explanation about how people in the Kingdom of Didd still talk about “The year the King got angry with the sky,” and how Bartholomew Cubbins, King Derwin of Didd’s page boy, saved the Kingdom…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomew_and_the_Oobleck
Speaking of stuff that may seem scientific but isn’t…
Sorry, this is OT, but it is making my brain want to shriek out in terror and run away to the safety of a university library.
AP by way of Yahoo:
After fix fail, a dispiriting summer of oil, anger
By the graphic I saw, the “junk” was getting injected near the BOP, where up in the pipe it would help clog up any tight spots. And “the gash in the seafloor”?
The what?
Cue the Greenpeace/WWF theme!
Underwater deluge? Biblical allusions? And crude oil falling from the sky as if rain across several states? I don’t think James Cameron could get me to imagine that.
Does this sound familiar? This may be why:
*whimper*
David Ball says: May 30, 2010 at 11:40 am
(…) They say we are well funded and well organized (…)
Having only just got my winter fuel bills (UK) I am fast leaning toward the US standard of “well funded and well armed”.
Al Cooper says: May 30, 2010 at 12:07 pm
When I was about eleven, I poked around inside the circuits of a five tube radio using a screwdriver with disastrous results (power on)
Ever considered a career in Earth Sciences? (Specialising in “geoengineering” of course)
ShrNfr says: May 30, 2010 at 12:18 pm
All that is old is new again. They were going to spray the Arctic with soot to lower the albedo in the “oncoming ice age mania” of the 1970s.
But let’s suppose that most of the more recent warming (and earlier cooling) is just part of a natural process that we barely understand, that nature has simply been quoted out of context. Geoengineering is permanent employment. Could be several “cycles” before our cabbage politicians wake up to the game. Indeed it is hard to think of any combination of future actions and “reactions” where a smart geoengineer can’t keep the funds flowing. Relying on natural changes, I have a 50/50 chance of controlling climate using only a deck of tarot cards (if the next card is one of (…) the climate will cool/warm for 30 years)(cue spooky music)
Vincent says: May 30, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Tells me they are all competely insane.
Many of us said that when the EPA declared CO2 a pollutant. I seem to remember that my response involved “lunatics”, a “take over” and an “asylum”. After several years of observing this comedy I can only promise you that worse is to come. It’s the frustration of watching children playing with a gun and having no way to prevent the inevitable outcome. Take one gun away and the parents simply give them another.
Feet2theFire
You are thinking of Samuel Pierpont Langley not Otto Lilienthal.
Although it must be said that Langley’s internal combustion engine was a masterpiece. His aero and control systems weren’t up to what he was trying to do unlike the Bishop’s boys who had figured that out and had a relatively crude engine that was just up to the task.
As for the zipline to GEO this is a serious proposal for space transport(and solar power sats) and materials technology now is such that the material strengths required are just about in reach.
For those who were following the penguin/ice question, I think I figured it out.
Most penguins nest on land in summer. The emperor penguins nest on the ice pack in winter. So they have to choose a nesting spot far enough back from the ice edge that they don’t get caught by ice break up in the spring before the chicks are ready to go for a swim. So they start 50 or 60 clicks from the ice edge. The males incubate the egg and the females go to sea. The females return about the time the eggs hatch and the males leave and go to sea. But by that time it is later in the winter and the sea ice has been growing, so now it is 100 to 200 km to the sea. Oddly enough a really cold year is really hard on the emperor penguins because the ice extent is so large, and in a really warm year the ice extent may retreat so rapidly in the spring that the chicks drown.
What an odd bird!
3×2 says:
May 30, 2010 at 11:16 am
“There are several Engineers here – Q. Have you ever “tinkered” with a system (or device) that you didn’t understand (possibly as a child) and could you describe the end result?”
I would take the geo-engineers up in a small helicopter with no auto pilot. I would explain the controls to them and allow them to ‘control’ a system they don’t understand. I would have to leave by parachute, of course, because they would be dead in 30 seconds at best.
It takes lots of practice to ‘control’ an unstable system, unfortunately we would probably ‘crash’ the earth many times before we worked out how to do it.
My suggestion is to detonate nuclear bombs beneath active volcanoes, stimulating them into activity. Then the volcanoes do the dirty work of spewing up aerosols to cool the planet, as e.g. Pinatubo did.
We seem to have an excess of nuclear bombs at the moment. So this method kills two birds with one stone. Just set one off, wait a couple of years until it gets warm again, and repeat.
Foolproof. What could go wrong?
P.S. Nobel committee(s): please contact me via email to arrange for the medal award.
So if they finally struck out with one of their insane ideas and manage to lower Earth’s global average temperature with no adverse side effects other than not being able to know which parts of the world gets the brute force of the too low temperatures will they take responsibility for in worst case mass murdering people by freezing cold or starvation by lack of food due to uncanny cold?
Jbar says:
May 30, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Not madness. Just very shallow thinking processes.
EL Chichón produced slight and maybe some temporary cooling (only affecting the northern hemisphere – remember that global warming is, well, global) after injecting 8 Megatons of sulfur dioxide in 1982. It did not alter the whole 1978-1998 warming cycle, though. Mt. St. Helens did 1 Megaton and did not do anything of significance to temperature.
How many planes did you say you think we need to spread enough aerosol to “counter” the putative non-warming CO2 event? I figure that you would need a Krakatoa amount, say around 0.1-0.2 Gigatons of sulfur dioxide. Lets call that amount of SO2 a Krakaton. So we may need 2 or 3 Krakatons a year to stave off (non-existent) AGW from CO2.
And, I guess you, or someone originally at the Molson-drinking skull session at U of Calgary, did figure that all the ozone would disappear. The real funny thing is, technically you guys don’t even have the chemistry right. (This is a real hoot). SO2 with water produces sulfurous acid, not sulfuric. Reaction with molecular oxygen, especially that from ozone, irreversibly destroys the ozone and produces sulfuric acid.
It will be a degree or two cooler, but we can’t step into the carcinogenic sunlight to enjoy it.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Do we have to continue to dignify Keith’s beerstorming session?
DirkH says:
May 30, 2010 at 3:14 pm
“Feet2theFire says:
[…]
Every time I think of government funded scientific efforts I see in my mind Lilienthal’s plunge into the water, ”
What gives you the idea that Lilienthal didn’t fund his experiments with his own money?
From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Lilienthal
“While his lifelong pursuit was flight, he was also an inventor and devised a small engine that worked on a system of tubular boilers. His engine was much safer than the other small engines of the time. This invention gave him the financial freedom to focus on aviation. “
That would be because he has Lielienthal confused with Prof Langley who
was funded by the U.S. Govt….and who did splash into the waters of the
Potomac.
For God’s sake. These guys only have a general idea of what gravity is and you’re going to give them matches?
The only way this is heading is another world war. But this will be a war of civil wars as each country turns on itself. The malthusians will finally get what they want
If they want to put sulfur into the atmosphere, then why do I suddenly have to pay a lot more for diesel fuel because it is “ultra-low sulfur”
How about leaving all the sulfur in the gasoline, diesel and heating oil, lower the price by 1/2 and we can all go home happy – problem fixed, no need for carbon credits, taxes or idiotic research.
Of course this is not such a new idea of David Keith. I recently read of it in a Budyko’s Climatic Changes which was translated by the AGU in 1977. He goes as far as specifing the altitude and the necessary volume etc. Up to this time there were a lot of fears that the USSR would go it alone and use climate engineering for their own ends, usually for war or warmth – they could certainly do with a bit of the latter!
“There are several Engineers here – Q. Have you ever “tinkered” with a system (or device) that you didn’t understand (possibly as a child) and could you describe the end result?”
About a month ago… thought I understood what was going on and wired up a relay bypass to a power supply. It didn’t work, now I had a busted power supply… no biggy. Just bought a new one. Where do we get another Earth?
Eric Dailey: B
Because the people who believe in them are bats**t insane and there’s no point in arguing with the insane?
Sorry, but I don’t find this so shocking. Isn’t the idea of brainstorming to determine all possible solutions, including radical ones, from which are gleaned the few feasible ideas that meet specific criteria? This proposal could reduce temperatures so should be on the long list, although most people would agree it should not make the short list.
Perhaps in a future meeting of the earth engineers, they will stumble on the idea of placing cyanide pill dispensers in warmist zealot enclaves worldwide. Surely the true believers will be willing to “take one” for the planet. We’ll put up a nice plaque for them when the cooling starts.
This insanity won’t make it to first base. There are too many grubby snouts in the carbon credit trough.
Sorry Keith, Mother Nature is about to do the job for you.
Volcanos erupt in Ecuador and Guatemala
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/latin_america/10189244.stm
Let’s not forget Iceland’s contribution to the correction of “Global Warming”.
http://zamaanonline.com/iceland-volcano-causes-flight-chaos-3727
the meeting-goers concluded that geoengineering research should cautiously proceed
200 researchers decided research should continue, ha ha.
Send the NIMH researchers up there too to make some observations which may actually benefit humanity somehow, by advancing human understanding of syndromes, manias, delusions and criminal behaviors.
If they can’t make it to Canada, pretty much any University campus should provide research subjects of equal interest. They all have tenure. Those are the ones!
Apparently many of today’s “scientists” were inspired by a bearded lady in a circus tent.
How long before people dial 900-CLIMATE for their climate future?
Spy planes & sulfuric acid. You gotta be kidding me.
Interesting
I can only conclude that after so much talking about Man destroying the geosystem, people now want to actually go and do it
All with the best intentions of course…and we all know where that pavement leads to