Guest essay by Eric Worrall
With the prospect of trillions of dollars of climate cash well and truly fading, researchers seem to be bidding down the price tag for saving the planet.
Blocking out the sun to fight global warming: Bob McDonald
Solar geoengineering is controversial but proponents say we have no choice
By Bob McDonald, CBC News Posted: Mar 31, 2017 5:55 PM ET Last Updated: Mar 31, 2017 5:55 PM ET
In light of the new U.S. administration’s decision to cut back on environmental protection and cultivate the coal industry, carbon emissions are unlikely to go down over the next four years.
So scientists are considering a scheme to shade the atmosphere from the sun and cool the Earth to compensate for global warming. It’s a risky plan.
The concept is called Solar Geoengineering. One of the ways it could work, scientists say, is by injecting tiny particles high into the atmosphere, where they where together they would act as a sun shield, reflecting sunlight back into space and cooling the planet.
…
When Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, 20 million metric tonnes of sulphur dioxide was blown into the stratosphere. There the molecules reacted with water vapour to form tiny particles that were carried on high altitude winds, producing a global haze. The average temperature of the Earth dropped by 0.5 C for more than a year after the eruption.
The geoengineering project would do the same thing on a much smaller scale, using a fleet of aircraft to spray 250,000 metric tonnes of sulphur dioxide, or some other material such as calcite into the lower stratosphere.
…
Scientists estimate that by brightening the atmosphere with these particles, they could reflect one percent of sunlight back into space and provide enough cooling to balance the warming effect of the carbon emissions coming from industry.
Harvard Professor David Keith estimates the project would have to be an international effort and cost about $1 billion to $10 billion per year. That sounds like a lot, but it pales compared to the U.S. military budget, for example, which is expected to increase to $639 billion dollars in 2017.
…
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/bob-macdonald-blocking-sun-global-warming-1.4050149
While it might seem tempting to take this special offer price for saving the world, I suggest if we wait a bit longer, we might see even more extraordinary price cuts. Who knows, next year’s price for saving the world might be a 100K research grant and a few packs of smokes.
That scheme really is scary. A slight miscalculation and it could be “hello ice age” Still, as long as they use our reliable models to work everything out we should be OK.
Hey, I don’t know how a car engine works but I have some tentative theories, would you like to pay me tons of money to repair your car which is currently fine obviously going stop working before the end of the century ( according to my computer model of a car engine, which I am in the process of developing ).
Well how much damned use is that if we have a century scale problem?
BTW did you notice what happened AFTER the temporary cooling effect ? Oh, wait, it got a lot warmer. Maybe there is something we have not understood yet.
Since you want to play stratosphere physics have a look at what Mt P and El Chichon eruptions did to the stratosphere and how long it lasted.
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/uah_tls_365d/
Oh ,errr, it did not last long did it.
Now flip that and compare to what happened to the lower climate.
When you can explain all of that with a predictive model which predicts something which has not yet happened and works, get back to us about 10 billion for screwing around with the planet.
When it warms up from your C02 in 50 years, you’ll be dead and owe us Trillions for the damage you did.
[well, so will you…flying to Japan and Korea etc. -Anthony]
The problem is that if we could set the temperature at any level we want, the maximum benefit for all the people on earth would be warmer than it is now. However, every interest group in every country would have a different view of what is best for them. China, Russia, the U.S., the Mullahs in Iran, Mugabe in Zimbabwe, France, Britain, Norway, and Mauritania would all have different views and some might be willing to go to war over it.
War, especially nuclear war, might cool the planet. However, I’m not in favor of that.
In fifty years?
Do tell.
I suppose the dangerous little CO2 beasties will be sunning themselves at the same exotic beach vacation spots the Climatestrashians hold there yearly frequent international gab fabs?
Just sunning themselves for the next 50 years so they can pop up one sunny days and heat the Earth?
One extra CO2 molecule per ten thousand atmospheric molecules will warm up the atmosphere, the planet’s surfaces, both ground and oceanic…
Yeah, right.
Yep. Anthropogenic global cooling would be a technological “piece of cake.” Controlling or reversing that AGC would be tricky, if not impossible.
Since AGW is about 67% mythical, any geoenigineering schemes designed to reverse it would be genuinely catastrophic.
Agree David.
Eric Worrall concluded above:
“While it might seem tempting to take this special offer price for saving the world, I suggest if we wait a bit longer, we might see even more extraordinary price cuts. Who knows, next year’s price for saving the world might be a 100K research grant and a few packs of smokes.”
Actually, I’ll do the job for a bottle of good single malt – anything from this list except the smoky Islay’s.
http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/food-drink/spirits/best-single-malt-scotch-whisky-a6781316.html
Here is enough information for now:
EVIDENCE SUGGESTING TEMPERATURE DRIVES ATMOSPHERIC CO2 MORE THAN CO2 DRIVES TEMPERATURE
September 4, 2015
By Allan MacRae
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/
Observations and Conclusions:
1. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. The rate of change dCO2/dt is closely correlated with temperature and thus atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record
2. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
3. Atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
4. CO2 is the feedstock for carbon-based life on Earth, and Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are clearly CO2-deficient. CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
5. Based on the evidence, Earth’s climate is insensitive to increased atmospheric CO2 – there is no global warming crisis.
6. Recent global warming was natural and irregularly cyclical – the next climate phase following the ~20 year pause will probably be global cooling, starting by ~2020 or sooner.
7. Adaptation is clearly the best approach to deal with the moderate global warming and cooling experienced in recent centuries.
8. Cool and cold weather kills many more people than warm or hot weather, even in warm climates. There are about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths every year in the USA and about 10,000 in Canada.
9. Green energy schemes have needlessly driven up energy costs, reduced electrical grid reliability and contributed to increased winter mortality, which especially targets the elderly and the poor.
10. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society. When politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer and die. That is the tragic legacy of false global warming alarmism.
Allan MacRae, Calgary
Re the Ozzie allegation of Sharknado – this was a shark on a flooded roadway after a storm – most likely it was stranded as the water receeded – this is much more probable than “it dropped from the sky”.
But even a Sharknado event is much more probable than WWF or CAGW. 🙂
Can you imagine that I, in my previous life, when I was still doing engineering, we installed desulfurization units on coal fired power plants! If we only listened we might have saved the world by leaving the things as they were!
Thanks for the smart people however, we can correct this grave mistake now. Phew!
10B a year is reasonable price tag for saving the planet, even Republicans would agree!
Typo Janus100 not Januss100
That’s right Janus. All we have to do is bypass all of the SO2 scrubbers currently in operation. We can do that for free, we will even save money by not having to pay O&M expenses to run them. Customers will save money and we do not have to spend the $1 – 10 billion. Problem solved!
I believe that injecting the SO2 into the upper atmosphere is different than just having more of it in the air of the lower atmosphere.
As a bonus, we get those pretty sunsets when the upper air is tampered with.
In AGW land the solution would be to float all the coal plants up to the stratosphere and pipe oxygen to them.
I’ve heard the suggestion that the warming observed in the 1970s and 1980s was largely a result of reducing particulate air pollution.
Counter proposal; let’s scrub any mention of global warming, anthropogenic climate change, or anything that smacks of weather control through collective political action, out of the histories, and outlaw it ever being mentioned again under threat of severe civil penalty and long prison sentences.
Kidding. Of course.
{Unless there’s a work around we can do with that pesky free speech thing in the constitution}
Nah Kidding!
{A new amendment maybe?}
Okay Kidding.
Janus100/Januss100 (sorry, one is right), All,
Plainly, the ‘Science is settled’ – except where it is not.
Not by a country mile, I think!
This, despite Nobel Laureate, Multiple Olympic Gold-medallist, Citizen-of-the-Year-awardee for Montauk AND Durban, SA, and BAFTA-Award-winner M. Mann seeming to think otherwise.
Auto – still astonished at self-delusions
This article was meant to appear yesterday, April fools’ day?
It is very difficult to tell in the world of warmism if something is an April Fool’s prank. It seems like everyday is April 1 for most of them.
Just imagine that this was done, on a large scale, and then along came a big volcanic eruption. Oh dear, double cooling, on top of a cooling sun! Food supply to the growing world population would be a major challenge, especially with all that land diverted to biofuels.
Biofuel crops are just as good raw material for spirits production. Moderate consumption of spirit apparently protects from excessive cold, or at least that is an excuse I’ve heard often .
By dilating the blood vessels in the periphery of a persons body, ethanol does make a person feel warmer for a time. But the net effect is to remove heat from the body core which is then lost to the environment.
I know you was just funnin’ us some, son, but we be talkin’ science here!
Notice that drinking booze is analogous to a sort of personal el nino effect.
Very edumacational!
Menicholas “we be talking science”?
I thought we were talking climate science. Or client science as Griff likes to call it.
This is the basic premise behind the movie “Snowpiercer”.
A recent study concluded that 97% of global warming alarmists:
a. believe the movie “Sharknado” is real, based on the scientific evidence;
b. believe that the action in professional wrestling like WWF is genuine, not faked;
c. believe that CO2-driven manmade global warming is very scary and dangerous.
I know it is difficult to accept the truth and to give up long-held beliefs.
Sorry folks, especially about WWF and Sharknado.
Sharknado hits Oz.
http://abc13.com/news/real-life-case-of-sharknado-in-australia/1828239/
@Allan – just a note for the future. The fake wrestling outfit is now “WWE” – the fake scientists over at the World Wildlife Fund made them change it a while ago.
Thank you observer.
WWE, WWF, all much the same to me: Purveyors of fictional mayhem.
I’ve heard professional wrestling be aptly described as “soap opera for men”.
And the lack of bruising on the wrestlers’ faces after a match is a dead giveaway that they aren’t throwing real punches. 😉 When there’s cuts, they’re usually self-inflicted with a hidden blade in the wrist strap.
That’s wonderful news.
At only 1 billion to 10 billion per year to reap all the benefits of stopping global warming, private investors will be lining up get in on the action.
People like Bill Gates would be able to pick up the whole thing with just his beer money, and make himself the worlds first self funded Trillionaire.
And there will be no need whatsoever for world government bodies to be involved in any way.
Well you can count on my vote to have the UN turn the whole thing over to free enterprise. Think of all the unnecessary jobs it will eliminate, and launch an economic boom era, the Entrepenocene !!
G
Hire me, I’ll do it for only $100K per year.
99K/year, here.
Free Market Economy – right?
Auto
Who do we sue when it inevitably goes wrong?
Yes, the models have been super accurate, so lets go for broke! 🙂
Easy to blot out the sun. Not so easy to ramp up the sun if we head in to a Maunder Minimum and worldwide freeze.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xVTUNHdLY-o/VaQEXzQsWjI/AAAAAAAAiEI/AG9Up1_pPtQ/s1600/planet_earth_set_to_shiver_through_mini_ice_age_3.jpg
We do not have the wisdom to do something so drastic. There are too many unknowns…many of which we do not even know about. The factors that go into what makes the climate what it is are insanely complex, and trying to blindly attempt to control what we think we can control is monumentally stupid. The law of unintended consequences can be brutal.
super blizzards in last week of march all over the USA & now :
http://notrickszone.com/2017/04/02/winter-continues-to-plague-us-in-april-also-data-show-february-getting-colder/#sthash.HRdiZfA9.dpbs
WINTER Continues to Plague almost the entire US in April..& last year it was still snowing as late as May 15 in MUCH of the USA, even as far south as Tennessee with the north-east getting inches of snow in mid may-meanwhile china got hit by blizzards in mid may last year
And these idiots do not think the world is ‘cold enough’ .. morons
That is a bad plan. Better would be hanging parassols in space. Even better: wait for another 50 years and improve climate models. A new little ice-age may come to the “rescue”.
“Even better: wait for another 50 years”
That’s the ticket!
There’s no evidence there is a problem that needs solving. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And our illustrious CAGW-promoting climate scientists have not demonstrated that anything is broken.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Pratchett’s Vetinari, Lord Patrician (Primus inter pares) of the city state of Ankh-Morpork, pretty much sums that up. [From that Wikithingy that I can edit, but reflects well the books. Which latter I have hugely enjoyed]
“Lord Vetinari’s political philosophy can be summed up by his belief that what people wish for most is not good government, or even justice, but merely for things to stay the same; the Vetinari family motto is, after all, Si non confectus, non reficiat (“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”) This does not mean that there are absolutely no changes, however; things that don’t work are fixed very quickly, even if it does not look like they are at first.”
I don’t think Tony B.Liar ever read any of the Discworld books. Ever.
Auto – not enamoured of all our past Prime Ministers.
Not least Ted Heath, who took us in to the EU imbroglio.
““Lord Vetinari’s political philosophy can be summed up by his belief that what people wish for most is not good government, or even justice, but merely for things to stay the same; the Vetinari family motto is, after all, Si non confectus, non reficiat (“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”)”
Thanks for that cultural aside, Auto. Very interesting. The Vetinari family sounds like my kind of people. 🙂
Isn’t there a stable stationary point directly between earth and the sun, and close to the earth, so we could put a big Eclipsing shield there that only needs to be a couple of degrees maximum in extent, to block the sun completely.
Well it would reflect it back to the sun to keep it from getting too cold on the surface of the sun, just as GHGs reflect LWIR back to earth to keep it from getting too cold.
g
Yep, it’s called a Lagrangian point. It’s about 1/100 the distance to the Sun. I suggested this over ten years ago as a distant future project when the Sun’s brightness starts evaporating the oceans, which some claim will start in about 100 million years. It’s harder than you think, though. Even with the slimmest materials, the mass of a useful shield would be prohibitive with today’s technology. Also, the L1 Lagrangian (the one we are talking about) is unstable, like the crest of a hill: if you move just a small distance (such as a millimeter) off the stable point, you accelerate ever further away, meaning the shield needs control systems and a power source to continually make small corrections to stay on the balance point. I doubt it is possible (yet), but as our technology develops, there is no reason we can’t be here all the way to when the Sun becomes a red giant.
Put them in low earth, polar orbits. If you put them in an equatorial orbit, they would cool the equator and not the rest of the planet, which would impact weather patterns. In a polar orbit they cool the entire planet.
Second point, make sure that the material reflects visible light but is transparent to innfrared, otherwise it would reflect back a portion of the IR energy trying to leave the earth and would result in heating instead of cooling. (The satellite relects sunlight for less than half it’s orbit, while it reflects IR for almost all of it’s orbit. Assuming the shield is fixed so that it always faces the sun, when the satellite is over the poles, it’s reflecting sunlight that wouldn’t have hit the earth anyway, and since it is edge on to the planet, is reflecting very little IR at the same time.)
Mirrors have already been suggested. They are probably more durable than parasols.
Don’t need durability in zero gravity. The only thing it has to withstand are micro-meteorite strikes, and those would be equally damaging to a mirror and a parasol. The parasol is a lot lighter and easier to get into orbit.
Procrastinocene ! ?
The Star, Toronto, Canada, Sept.27, 2015
‘Is David Keith’s climate solution genius or madness?’
“He was named Hero of the Environment in 2009 by Time magazine and he is an adviser to Bill Gates.”
Article includes interview and photos at:
http://www.thestar.com/news/insights/2015/09/27/is-david-keiths-climate-solution-genius-or-madness.html
Should be: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/09/27/is-david-keiths-climate-solution-genius-or-madness.html
The leftist don’t want solutions to their “Domination of Nature” idea. They want radical change of society. Since the working class didn’t rise up and make a revolution they have are using other surrogates like culture and “domination of Nature”
O Baby…..+100
If 20 million tonnes dropped the temperature 0.5C for a year then 250,000 tonnes should only drop the temperature 0.000625C, probably not enough to counteract the warming effect of the CO2 of aircraft used in the project.
However, it is probable that, as usual, no one has thought the idea through. If, (and it’s a big if), the idea did work wouldn’t it screw up the solar renewables industry?
David C, …. you beat me to it, …. but will post anyway.
YUP, shur nuff, ….. “on a much smaller scale,” ……. like 80 times smaller in scale.
(20 million metric tonnes) / (250,000 metric tonnes) = 80
(0.5 C degree temperature decrease) / 80 = (0.00625 C degree temperature decrease) in each year’s calculated average global temperature
So, does anyone know of anything that would be affected by a 0.00625 C decrease in the calculated “average” near-surface air temperature?
That is, other than, all of the “fuzzy math” calculated fear mongering claims of the adamant believers/agitpropers in/of CAGW.
…. yes, the bank balances of the people pretending to do that. How kind of them to be so thoughtful for us all and pretend to make us colder.
They screech when 2 people are killed in a tropical cyclone (even if its through Darwin Award stuff like trying to drive through a flood).
Presumably everyone who dies in a snowstorm during this geo engineering experiment will be treated as a victim?
Collateral damage. To be expected.
eggs for the omelet 🙂
Leftist, globalist totalitarian-types want Darwin Award candidates to survive – much easier to dupe and control. It’s those smart apes that cause all the trouble.
Eric,
You are 24 hours late with this story.
Nice try though
I think it’s another April Fool joke, just a day late. Just think how much more fossil fuel must be burnt in order to blast those materials up that high! You’d think they would find a way simply to let the stuff evaporate from the ground, making Mommy Nature do the work for them.
” Just think how much more fossil fuel must be burnt in order to blast those materials up that high!”
No problem. Google Inc has developed a “wind power” solution to these kinds of problems. It’s called “Google Wind”. Quite amazing. Really. :-]
Yep
google sure blows
Mockery is a good sign that the pseudoscience of climate, and the big picture young scientists, havelost respect. The are starting to laugh at them.
So good.
” Just think how much more fossil fuel must be burnt in order to blast those materials up that high!”
We already have machines for spreading aerosols into the stratosphere, they are called commercial airliners.
They’re all too busy spreading chemtrails for that other conspiracy, and you know how whiny the chemtrail guys are about people messing with their system…
Yes, but the disinformation campaign to discredit the people who noticed our chemtrails has worked like a charm…no one pays these observational genii any mind whatsoever.
heh heh heh…
Just build really tall smoke stacks from our coal plants
It’s a no spat day here . . just the occasional dinky trails by the occasional north/south bound plane, as the flight schedules suggest. Many days, a host of planes appear at some point, flying high in many directions, to and from all the airports scattered all over the Western US and north Pacific . . ; )
You want stuff in the air, just take all the old tires from cars and trucks and instead of recycling them, make huge piles and set them on fire. The next step is to convert all our power plants to dirty ones imported from China that burn coal…that should do it.
I read a paper many, many years ago, that we could adjust the height at which planes were being assigned in order to maximize or minimize the contrails. Based on whether we wanted the planet to cool or warm on that day.
Why do we force the industry to smoke desulphurization, then artificially blow particles into the atmosphere? This is like when a doctor gives a blood pressure lowering agent, after which he prescribes a blood pressure increasing agent because the blood pressure has decreased too much.
Sulphur dioxide is toxic, and it reacts with water to form sulphuric acid which then can cause acid rain.
The difference
is that in climate engineering it will be injected into the stratosphere, so that it will take much longer (several year) for it to dissipate and fall back to earth, while burning sulphur-containing coal creates SO2 and acid particles near the ground and they fall quicker.
“Sulphur dioxide is toxic, and it reacts with water to form sulphuric acid which then can cause acid rain.”
This conjecture works perhaps in planet GIGO. But on Earth they both form salts very quickly.
Sulphur oxide gas is particularly reactive. How could it escape a furnace intact? And even by letting imagination run wild, how could it linger outside reacting selectively with water vapour only?
That’s why I call once digested grass on this scare too. One of the key reasons why I have, do still and, unless reliable new evidence emerges, will object to any geo-engineering ideas.
In the meanwhile farmers spread sulphur salts on the fields to improve crop yield. http://www.farms.com/field-guide/crop-diseases/sulfur-deficiency-in-plants.aspx
Sorry Sobaken; you just don’t understand the process.
Sulphur dioxide has NO cooling function whatsoever; the amount of sunlight it would scatter is completely un-measurable.
What SO2 ” aerosol ” WILL do, is act as nucleation sites for WATER droplets that form clouds, and it is the clouds that block incoming sunlight that are responsible for any Temperature decline, not the SO2 particles.
OOoops ! I forgot, that only works if you put those SO2 particles in the same place as some H2O molecules, from which actual water droplets are made.
And those water droplets; once started continue to grow until they re too heavy to be supported at that altitude by natural convective updrafts, and fall as RAIN.
And inside each of those raindrops, when it hits the ground, you will find one of those Sulphur Dioxide particles, so you will just have to keep on putting up more of them.
There was a paper a few years ago, where somebody back east devised a way of capturing near the ground, individual rain drops, and ensconsing them in a safe place where they could be carefully analyzed to see what was in them, besides H2O molecules.
In this particular instance the result was that a great abundance of those individual raindrops contained their own private microbe colony; which had developed from the very first microbe that acted as a suitable substrate for that water droplet to condense onto.
So nyet on that idea of sulphur dioxicating the dry stratosphere. You need the water, and it automatically gets rid of the aerosols.
G
Cows cough up their cud in order to chew it again. So wouldn’t that be twice digested grass?
Exactly we regulate SO2 emission so we don’t have these particles in the atmosphere and now some “green” engineers want to inject tons back in? I guess now pollution, rather than dilution, is the solution.
The inventor of this method is an agent of the coal industry…..one only needs to enlarge the smoke stacks and blow unscrubbed (undesulfurized) combustion gas into the higher atmosphere….. there were already calculations made 2 years ago, how the Chinese, with lots of coal combustion, already lowered the the
temp increase from the MODEL 0.2°C increase per decade into the present plateau…..Thanks to the Chinese, we do not suffer from excessive heat by now. Lately Trump starts to lower temps further by stimulating US coal, hopefully unscrubbed emission to get a good sulfur action – temp decrease – out of
his orders…. We therefore do not need 1. stratospheric plans, 2. clean scrubbed emissions 3. Paris agreements …..and temps will lower themselves by the action of SO2. And this action can easily be controlled so that there will be no danger of a new ice age coming soon.
“Scientists estimate that by brightening the atmosphere with these particles”
Didn’t getting rid of aerosols gives us global brightening?
And all those SO2 clouds in Venus atmosphere prevent its (her?) surface from warming?
The cooling of the stratosphere a few years after the eruption was probably a combination of sulphate aerosols destroying the ozone layer and also flushing out accumulated human pollutants at that level. This lead to the late 20th c. warming.
PS, cooler stratosphere usually means more transparent stratosphere, ie more solar energy making it into the lower climate system.
Greg. NOAA claims about 60 °C natural variation in the stratosphere at any given time.
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/atmos/images/atmprofile.jpg
How do you think the average stratospheric air temperature is measured with 0.1°C precision in 1980 or today for that matter? Oh boy I want to see the equipment. Scotty beam me up!
jaakkokateenkorva – April 2, 2017 at 5:38 am
OH my, jaakkokateenkorva, …. I thought everyone knew, …… it’s PFM “magic” equipment that was provided to NASA/NOAA by the Flying Spaghetti Monster for easy measurements of atmospheric air temperatures at various altitudes above the earth’s surface. Measuring atmospheric temperatures via balloons with thermometers are so “old fashioned”, ya know.
That same “magic” equipment is also used for measuring the EXACT atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities at any desired altitude or location above the earth’s surface.
And in most every case, that “magic” equipment can even determine the difference between naturally emitted atmospheric CO2 and anthropogenically emitted atmospheric CO2.
YUP, that “magic” measuring equipment is stashed inside those orbiting satellites and NASA/NOAA won’t let just anyone see it …….. unless you are a Certified, peer approved, abstract publishing, CAGW touting, Degree awarded Climate Scientist.
And here is actual, factual “satellite visual” proof of what I stated above, …….. to wit:
Well, there’s a data source linked on the graph, follow it up and make an informed comment, or write a paper debunking John Christy’s method of extraction.
I rather use my limited lifespan to promote secularism in the democratic institutions. Although in my opinion everyone is free to believe in whatever they want. Including John Christy in the average global outside air temperature readings with surrealistic precision and subjective anomalies thereof.
Let’s have some actual warming first, before we take steps to try and combat the non existent/minimal warming that we have seen since the late 1930s/early 1940s.
I suspect that for less than US$100K per year we could stop tampering with the thermometer record, and thereby stop creating warming which for the main part is nothing more than an artifact of data handling.
Just bring integrity back to science and that will do the trick.
+ 100
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“Blocking out the sun to fight global warming: Bob McDonald”
Oh dear,
It was only back in the 1970’s, during the global cooling “Ice-Age” scare/crisis that UN (expert consensus) scientists wanted to melt the Arctic by spreading black soot it!
https://climatism.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/1972-un-scientists-wanted-to-melt-the-arctic-by-spreading-soot-on-it/
Sadly, we are still living in the age of collective scientific madness. Literally.
Bad news for Canadians, Russians, Alaskans, astronomers, and those in lower latitudes who have installed solar panels. And maybe for manufacturers of sun-block as well. While we’re tinkering with the environment in order to save it, we might as well use particles that block UV.
Good news for ski areas though.
Anyone else seeing ‘man-made’ Dark Ages cooling here? One mistake and *BOOOOOOOOM!*
Yep.
Anyone with half a brain knows the human race knows f*ck all about how the climate works and these numptys propose f*cking with something they know nothing about.
And can anyone tell me when, precisely, weather becomes climate?
I hear lots about the difference, and claims of weather events being climate change indicators, but as humankind can barely predict the weather 5 days out, does that mean on the 6th day it turns into climate rather than weather?
Or is it a month, or a year? or must it be embedded in tree rings and rocks before it can be called climate? In which case, what’s the inbetweeny bit called, somewhere between 5 days and 25 years?
These people are as nutty as a fruit cake and yet whilst they berate us for condemning their children to the fate of a climate, they condemn the children of sceptics to that fate of their insane geoengineering experiments.
This sort of crap can only end badly.
Sorry, rant over.
I remember Dr John Martin, aka Dr Ironseed. His hypothesis of ocean fertilization to reduce carbon dioxide is still valid and proved by that same volcanic eruption. The sulfur oxides made iron oxide dust bioavailable thus seeding ocean water and causing measurable atmospheric carbon dioxide decrease.
Dr Martin’s catch phrase of ” give me a supertanker of iron and I’ll give you an ice age” frightened the CAGW acolytes to the reaction of banning all large scale testing. We now know iron is rapidly removed from the surface ( herbivory by vertical migration species, slime sedimentation..).
If the problem is carbon dioxide, fix that. No, CAGW acolytes are only looking to population control as they are Fabian socialists. Who use a nihlistic perversion of science to justify their existence.
a word to describe these “people” sprang to mind
and I’d be censored if I used it..
starts with F ends with T
🙂
But isn’t that 2 words???
Why are they trying so hard to kill all plants on Earth?
First they want to reduce their source of food, CO2, and now they want to reduce their source of energy, the sunlight.
Solar geoengineering is controversial
The road to hell is paved with ‘good intentions’.
There are no “good intentions” here, they have the hubris to want to play God and greed to want paying billions for playing.
Reflecting incoming radiation will reduce the energy available for photosynthesis, thus lessening the CO2 consumed by plants.
Want a cooling effect? That’s easy. The coming nuclear world war will solve all problems of mankind once and forever.
That ship in the picture. Does not look particularly stable in a storm.
“Researchers”? More like Grantologists who I suspect are composed of primarily frustrated science fiction writers.
If they are not science fiction writers, they should be.
Stop it.
Good science fiction writers have to make their stories believable, these belong in the “magical unicorn fart” category.
I guess I was thinking more in the genre of Fantasy than science fiction.
You know, they ruined the science fiction magazine publishing business (at least the reading part of it), imo, when they started including fantasy stories in the same issues.
When I was a young one, I used to read those science fiction magagzines from cover to cover, every story, ever month. My mind soared at the possibilities! Then they started including fantasy stories in amongst the good stuff, so it got to where I would skip two or three stories per issue, and then it seems to all go to fantasy-type themes and I lost interest, and had to tranfer my interests to science fiction books.
I read all the science fiction books at my local library. And then I would go back a week later and there would be new science fiction books on the shelves, much to my delight. This happened over and over again.
I didn’t realize until later that the librarians had noticed my interest in the subject and had taken it upon themselves to see that I was well supplied by being sure to order plenty of new science fiction books. Those beautiful ladies will never know the good influence they had on my life. Little acts of kindness sometimes go a long way, and are long remembered.
I agree with you, Climate science is more like Fantasy than Science Fiction, at least good science fiction.
Ta, I had a similar problem when they lumped fantasy in with SciFi. I still have that problem now. Extremely annoying.
As an aside, I have a worse issue with ‘hip hop’ (what an ugly but suitable name) being lumped in with rhythm & blues. Ho hum…
My my my what a difference an election makes. One moment they are talking 100s of trillions of dollars, and then next they are begging for scraps. Gotta love it.
Just How Much Does 1 Degree C Cost?
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/25/just-how-much-does-1-degree-c-cost/
Another crackpot idea to deal with a non-existent threat. I cannot decide who is more stupid, the “scientists” who discuss this drivel or the civil “servants” who authorise the funding.
Cancelling All Anthropogenic Warming Will Only “cost about $1 billion to $10 billion per year”
Is that per person?
Give or take a $trillion. “Saving the planet” can be expensive, but it’s worth it. It’s the only one we’ve got.
Actually we have lots. Every computer model works on a different planet. That’s why none of them can predict the temperature on Earth, they don’t model the Earth.
On the other hand, Earth is the only planet with donuts, so it’s worth saving. Start a hashtag now to #SaveTheEarthFromGeoengineers
https://youtu.be/8-4P1WPE-Qg
Pinatubo destroyed between 5% to 10% of the global Ozone layer (with higher local amounts on a temporary basis).
If we do this every year or every few years, then the Ozone layer is gone. The sulfate cooling proposal will wipe out the Ozone layer.
These people are insane, like the insane scientists from the James Bond movies. They are obsessed with trying it even though they are supposed to know what the impact is.
Furthermore, it is illegal under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity which almost every country has signed to even experiment on it. Even the UN knows how dangerous this is and how stupid it is to even experiment
And I would add, it appears to take 25 to 30 years for the Ozone to rebuild after these stratospheric sulfate volcanic eruptions, so you can’t spray sulfates on this level into the stratosphere on a continuous basis because Ozone Depletion lasts for decades.
Good point Bill but what you fail to mention is that with less ozone you’ll get more warming not more cooling. That is why 4 to 5 years after Mt P, when the aerosols dispersed we got a decade of warming and it ended up hotter than before the eruption.
These fools have discover the tick-over adjustment screw on a carburettor and think that means they understand how the whole engine works.
You are right Greg. Once you lose the UV absorption of Ozone in the stratosphere, you get more UV solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface
And that is going to make it warmer until the Ozone rebuilds. Nobody has ever run the numbers on what the impact should be.
But your above chart suggests it is in the 0.3C to 0.4C range for each eruption. These guys want to do an eruption-like volume every year or two. It would have an additive impact I imagine. Give us all cancer, cause many UV-susceptible species to decline in numbers AND make the Earth even warmer. Good plan.
The biggest enemy of an ozone molecule is another ozone molecule. Hard to find another more reactive molecule in nature. Fortunately sun’s rays create perpetually new O3 from the abundant O2 of the atmosphere. I
Billions will die.
Please calculate a more precise figure if you want to be taken seriously. (No need to show your workings).
Billions is all there are.
Worksheet:
A. Assumptions: when Man takes control of the atmosphere, Mankind* will die.
B. Current world population: 7.5 billion.
C. Conclusion: Billions will die.
Any questions?
*As well as myriad other species.
Gamecube, don’t encourage them.
They are using passive aggression. “If we have to, we can always do geoengineering, which we know you hate and which could be dangerous. So don’t make us go there.” Even Greenies hate the idea, though for different reasons.
Yes, it is a form of coercion.
If you don’t listen and do what we say we will “be forced to” do something really stupid and dangerous that you will not like AND IT WILL YOUR FAULT.
“. . . or the puppy gets it!”
Holding a gun to his own head: “Don’t move or the n*****h gets it.”
When Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, 20 million metric tonnes of sulphur dioxide was blown into the stratosphere. There the molecules reacted with water vapour to form tiny particles that were carried on high altitude winds, producing a global haze. The average temperature of the Earth dropped by 0.5 C for more than a year after the eruption.
And here just north of Milwaukee, I had frost damage in my garden on June 21st that year. Oh yes, let’s inject tiny particles high into the atmosphere, to cool the planet.
Yes, some 20 million tonnes, for starters!
given the current state of climate modeling.. this sort of meddling might actually cause extreme human induced change to weather patterns. I do not jest when I say they have literally no idea what impact blocking sunlight over oceans will have on ocean cycles and climate, la ninas could be devastating
Apart from everything?
I don’t know about you, but I’m still living on this planet and plan to continue doing so for many years yet. And I really don’t want these bozos mucking the place up while I’m still using it.
On the other hand, maybe it really was just an April Fools Day joke.
Climate engineering is a real thing, not just an April Fool joke.
History teaches us that warm periods are good and cold periods are very very bad. The idiots who try to prove the opposite using computer models are apparently illiterate. Here’s a paper about the Chinese experience. The European experience was very similar.
commieBob
Absolutely.
“History teaches us that warm periods are good and cold periods are very very bad.”
Spot on. No quibble.
Even thinking about another very – thus: –
“History teaches us that warm periods are good and cold periods are very very VERY bad.”
Shouting – yeah, but the emphasis is needed. Badly needed, so the Citrullus sp. folk can see and learn.
[I wish.]
I do not, personally, enjoy warm summers – but the loss of life in the UK in Cold Winters is in the thousands, if not terns of thousands.
A bit – or a bit more – due to fuel poverty enforced by manic surcharges for ‘green’ power, that is in no way economic without subsidy.
NB a bit of hydro is useful, even if in La-La-Land, Ca., it is ‘not renewable . . . .’
Solar at 50 (or more . . . . . . ) degrees North? – the latitude of the southernmost tip of the UK is about 50 N – about eight miles south of Presque Ile, Canada.
London is about 51.5 N; Newcastle is about 55N – within 700 (Nautical) miles of the Arctic Circle.
Aberdeen is about 57 N – Moscow is about 56 N.
And wind – well, the ever-reliable wind – except when it is needed . . . .
Auto – not entirely happy, as might be implied, with the greenies trying to reduce human populations to hundreds of millions – so many billions of deaths – the survivors consisting mostly of their mates.
But nobody to do any work.
I know how that will work out.
Bit of a rant. But heartfelt. FCOL Solar in the UK???
The speculators made their plays on geengineering start ups a few years ago and want ten times their money back.
Simple as….
Murphy: if anything can go wrong, it wil. MacGillicudy: And at the worst possible time that costs the most to fix.
Les’s addendum: Murphy and MacGillicudy are hopeless optimists.
Bob McDonald is a “science” journalist of CBC Radio Quirks & Quarks fame but his lips are stained with the Klimate Kult Krazy Koolaid (probably because his job depends on it). The only climate-sane CBC journalist seems to be Rex Murphy.
http://s27.postimg.org/u0wpnukir/bob_and_rex.jpg
Rex looks like a cousin of Art Garfunkel.
Although Rex is not as immensely talented as his cousin.
Bob McDonald is a complete sham. His “science” CBC blog was so thoroughly debunked and ridiculed, that he and CBC banned all comments on his blog and column. If one cannot stand the heat of critics, one should get out of the B.S. kitchen. His problem is he accepts all the poor science of climate, as absolute truth, without any critical thinking. A very useful idiot. GK
I have written to ( politely ) both Bob McDonald and Jay Ingram of the Discovery channel providing information as to the uncertainties of the climate science they are presenting.
Blocked and no reply.
Funny that only climate realists credentials are crucial
Take a look at this recent piece by Rex Murphy regarding the Premier of Ontario.
http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/news/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/rex-murphy-actually-witchcraft-is-a-pretty-good-explanation-for-all-thats-happening-in-ontario&pubdate=2017-04-01
Bob McDonald is a very nice, likeable intelligent guy that does a decent job on his radio show Q&Q, with dozens of other science subjects that he does a great service for. But when it comes to CO2 induced global warming/climate change issues, he is as inflexible to any new ideas as can be regarding any divergence from the stated academic majority view, and continues to spout the same old tired line about CO2 being the main driver of human induced climate change with every chance he gets. I sort of feel sorry for Bob, because I think he really believes it and refuses to even consider having intelligent guests on who may have a diverging opinion/facts that could lead to an interesting discussion. He appears to have lost his own intellectual soul in parroting the ‘official’ line of the supposed 97% consensus and the MSN outlets that he is part of. Sad…
Yes, I used to listen to Q&Q but the constant bleating about pending thermocalypse made me stop.
McDonald ermits the use of the D word on Quirks and Quarks when he covers climate changed .
We were alive and thriving before we removed all those nasty particulates and sulfur from the air. What if we just turn the emissions dial back to 1950 recreating “global dimming” Wasn’t that an actual theory at one point in all of this. Wonder whatever happened to that.
May have already been said, but one big risk would be that any effect of this sort of tinkering would be very difficult to measure without a control group. If you want to check whether something affects a system, the best way is to have another system where that something is not present.
So, how to measure whether this possible huge investment is even paying any dividends?
That’s what models are for.
Extra helping of sarcasm required.
“Harvard Professor David Keith estimates the project would have to be an international effort and cost about $1 billion to $10 billion per year.”
How about liberating Harvard Professor David Keith et al to the open job market right now and let the tax payers decide themselves on the spending of the billions? At least it will keep Finfolk off Orkney coasts.
Who funds David Keith?
http://keith.seas.harvard.edu/funding
Do these global warming fanatics live in a bubble? Do they really believe, with the cost of li ion batteries
nearly cheap enough and battery charging capabilities fast enough to compete, that any auto maker
would continue to produce the current, very complicated, with a million parts, gas powered automobile ?
Electric cars are intrinsically superior, a fact well known to Henry Ford and every other automaker.
And who knows. Maybe this time around the govts of the world will show some intelligence and standardize the interfaces and specs of the major components of the vehicles, so we don’t end up in our current situation,
with 2,437 different 2 liter four cylinder engines, none of whom share a single part, making it impossible for competition to enter the manufacturing field in any significant fashion. Imagine : a car business with no proprietary parts monopolies screwing the driving public. Henry Ford once said he could sell his cars for a dollar and still make a profit – from the proprietary parts the owner needed that only Ford could produce. Everything a “dealer part.” “Dealer part” means a part only produced by the manufacturer and expensive beyond all measure – expect its price to be two to 5 times more expensive than a similar quality part produced by an independent manufacturer, except for Mercedes, where the price wil likely be ten times greater. My prediction : this will NEVER happen – govts consist of cowardly types incapable of understanding much of anything.
Bubble logic part two : do these warming morons really think that the world will be producing power using fossil fuels 20 to 30 years from now? Molten salt reactors will dominate by then, if not before, and remove all economic incentive for using fossil fuels to make electricity.
Global warmists are ignoring the technologies about to make all their efforts at carbon reduction irrelevant and incredibly pointless and stupid, economically. Their vision of the future is incredibly ignorant.
Seems to me that would eliminate all innovation.
For that matter, why do we have architects?
Design the optimum house and office building and warehouse and store and just make copies of each from now on.
Same for phones and TVs and every other single thing in the stores.
Settle on the perfect meal with 100% nutrition and we can all just eat that from now on…no need to have
endless shelves of different foods.
So, all manufacturers know how to make a better car that is far superior, but none do because why?
They do not really want to make all the money themselves?
That describes zero of the business owners I have ever heard of.
Why don’t we make just one car and require everyone to drive it.
We could call it the Travant.
I love the way socialists actually believe that the way to perfect the world is to force the world to accept and like whatever it is the socialist wants today.
California is a great test tube for these nitwits. Just look at the decisions they’ve made in CA before anyone follows their advice.
Climate “Scientists” Make the Election Pollsters Look Accurate…and 10x as Smart
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/02/climate-scientists-make-the-election-pollsters-look-accurate-and-10x-as-smart/
Excellent article. How Lord how, do you get away with being wrong 100% of the time. The UCLA prof putting the endless drought study out there should have been laughed out of class by his students. I know the drill all to well. Make scary predictions, propose idiotic solutions to the non-problem, be spectacularly wrong, move the pea, draw the check. Only the last part of that adequately explains what is happening. “Follow the money” never fails.
Yep, thanks a million for the comment. Great question about being wrong 100% of your time. I guess lemmings and sheep never learn.
dunno if you knew it, but the lemmings in that disney film that really launched the myth were shoved over the cliff by the production crew to get compelling footage.
it was much like the documentary on the spaghetti trees, but not funny (least of all for the lemmings killed for disney lore)
A paradox: The most effective way to indoctrinate others is to first convince them that they’re completely independent thinkers.
So how much do they have to inject to balance out the increased temps caused by other forms of anthroprogenic effects, like UHI, land use change, deforestation?
I believe this qualifies as a non-sequitur.
As Steve MacIntyre says “watch the pea”. The conclusion of that statement is independent of the starting premise.
In reality, it IS unlikely that the world’s Carbon Emissions will go down over the next four years, and that has NOTHING to do with Trump’s Executive Order.
As we all know the US output of CO2 has been rapidly falling over the last 10 years. Per the EPA US CO2 emissions:
– 2005 = 6122 million metric tons
– 2015 = 5259 million metric tons
No analyst thinks that all of a sudden coal will magically overtake natural gas in the US because of DJT, driving our emissions back to 2005 levels.
Come back to us in 2030 when China has agreed to CONSIDER slowing down their rate of CO2 emissions and we’ll talk.
Until then, I’ll assume this old story was resurrected as part of the effort by the Consensus Climate Community to undermine the new Administration.
“Solar geoengineering is controversial but proponents say we have no choice”
What do opponents say?
The article says: “The idea is not as wild as it sounds. Nature does this all the time with volcanoes.”
Absolutely true. History is full of periods with rapid cooling after volcanoes. Naturally that follows with a crash in agriculture. Ignoring the food crisis. Who is going to pay the farmers for lost crops? 10 billion to fuck up the planet. 3 Trillion to clean up the mess.
VOLCANOES! Yes, WHO is planning to put a lid on all the earth’s VOLCANOES?
If anything, should atmospheric CO2 concentrations drop dangerously low, we might one day find ourselves detonating nukes under Yellowstone in an attempt to trigger a supervolcanic eruption (hopefully evacuating the whole western side of North America first).
A better solution would be to build a couple of nuclear power plants and use 100% of their power output to cook the CO2 out of limestone.
No need to clean it up…with about two months of global food supply on hand at any given time, a widespread and sustained loss of crops will starve billions in short order…certainly within a few years.
And they will not go quietly…it takes a while to starve to death, especially since the whole herd is now nicely fattened.
So the starving hordes will be sure to kill a whole bunch of the ones that do have some food on hand before they start to eat each other.
I vote we eat the climate scientists first. But not Mikey Mann! I find him distasteful!
From one to ten billion bucks a year to get rid of global warming… I thought it was trillions and the dismantling of western civilization… ya think Trump might be renegotiating this thing?
That reminds me of the plans to spread coal dust over both poles to ward of the planet’s cooing, a remedy proposed in the 1970s. Too many people make living of making scary prognosis.
What was the planet cooing? Why don’t you come over to my place some time?
Well and truly insane!
Sit and think for just a minute….there are actually idiots out there wasting hard earned $$ on this idiocy.
yep.
called ‘taxpayers’
I have an idea… why don’t we quit allowing these idiots to steal our hard earned money?
Just a thought…
Too late for most of the world…the people have willingly already handed over their guns.
Which means they are no longer functionally adult human beings in control of their own destiny, but nothing more than a vast herd of sheeple.
I’ve got plenty of guns and ammo… and so do my neighbors. Most of THEM still give up their hard earned money for government nonsense and accept the bogus government “authority” as gospel. That’s the real problem. 🙁
Yes, and in most of the US the ones who are prepared even have enough spares for their sensible but less prepared friends and neighbors.
But in vast stretches of the civilized world, such is not the case.
Europe, Australia…not sure about Canada.
And then there are places where they never really managed to get large numbers of people up to speed on tyranny prevention to begin with.
What do you think would happen to all of those solar power plants that have been built worldwide over the past few decades? Your not going to block out the Sun are you?
{This message brought to you by “The Big Solar Consortium.” Our motto, “This year’s angels are next year’s devils.”}
My father recommended this idea couple of Olympics ago on this very website.
His reasoning was:
• Politicians need to be seen to be doing something about fears of AGW.
• This is far cheaper than any other response to fears of AGW.
• Actually implementing it is incredibly risky and so won’t ever happen… but researching it may be useful.
Unfortunately most of the comments didn’t realise that geo-engineering was being proposed as a political solution rather than a practical one.
Not many people are interested in poetry, but even fewer have heard of Yevgeny Yevtushenko who died aged 84. In the mid-1990s, he moved to the United States, where he taught at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma
Since the demise of Arctic sea ice seems to be the warmists main concern, just fix that. Changing the axis tilt to about 10 degrees ought to do it. No need to cool the entire Earth. And then all of us who like warm can stay where it is warm and all those who like cold can go live where it is cold. Everybody wins.
Good plan Tom!
We oughta be able to throw the Earth out of whack and get it to tilt over about ten more degrees by tipping over Guam and a few other islands, which will only take the addition of a company or two of marines and their equipment to each of those places.
I know because a member of congress told us so.
Blocking out the sun to fight global warming? Isn’t that an admission that the SUN drives climate Change?
Not sure, but it certainly serves as a tacit and plainly spoken reminder that global warming alarmists are a collection of nitwits, simpletons, jackasses and scientific illiterates, with widely varying but astoundingly low levels of mental stability and educational attainment.
Hold on! There’s something to this (let me explain).
The “scare story” by Gore et al is that there is a “tipping point” beyond which global warming will accelerate and become “irreversible”. If a method existed that could be quickly deployed (at a much much lower cost than attempting to curtail CO2 emissions) then the scare would countered.
I think we all should encourage suggested “solutions” like this one to keep in our pocket until such time as they are needed. This is an effective counter-argument to the warmist exhortations that we must do something NOW (or ten years ago or so).
BINGO!
The end of the world is cancelled…sorry about all the fuss!
Goodnight folks…drive safely!
That was the point of Richard SCourtney’s article 8 years ago.
See the link to the old WUWT article in my comment, just above at April 2, 2017 at 8:07 am.
Likely the idea was stolen from here on WUWT, then. I don’t credit many of the climate bozos of having the inclination to be thinking about solving the ‘problem’ in any other way than to destroy civilization and evil fossil fuel use.
This is precisely the premise of the movie “Snowpiercer”: scientists seeding the atmosphere to produce the desired climate conditions. Needless to say, such eco-tampering does not produce the desired results (see “The Day After Tomorrow.”)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bFpfJNiUDpY
Aah, yes…the brilliant scientific minds in Hollywood have already explored and debunked these notions.
Send the author a DVD someone!
That was my first thought, too. “Snowpiercer” came to mind. The overall theme is about “ordered society” but the setting is refreshingly original (or so it seems to me).
It seems today that if charlatans, i.e. climate ‘science’ types use ‘Geoengeneering’ they can escape the problems with Cloud Seeding, i.e. weather modification that have a very good and proven failure record.
Cloud Seeding attempts have been tried since 1946.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding
“Cloud seeding has never been statistically proven to work.”
“In 2003 the US National Research Council (NRC) released a report stating, “…science is unable to say with assurance which, if any, seeding techniques produce positive effects.”
It was tried during the U.S. Vietnam War to extend the monsoon season to disrupt Vietcong supply lines.
http://www.opsecnews.com/operation-popeye-weaponized-weather-during-vietnam-war/
Cloud seeding did however lead to the signing of the “‘Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques’ or ENMOD was signed in 1976 by many UN member states and ratified by President Carter in 1979.”
Ha ha
What’s with recycling old news. Or perhaps if it appears in Scientific American it’s worth repeating?
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/geoengineering-solution-no-9-the-fl-2008-09-08/
It’s a risky plan.
*****************
biggest understatement in history
Many years ago the complaint about coal power plants was that they produced sulphur dioxide which was toxic and also blocked sunlight. So they installed scrubbers to take the sulphur dioxide out of the flue gas and also switched to low sulphur coal. Now the plan is to deliberately produce sulphur dioxide and inject it into the atmosphere to block the sun and cool the planet. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to take the scrubbers off the coal power plants and let them produce the sulphur dioxide for free, while also reducing the operating costs for scrubbers, and allowing for the use of cheaper high sulphur coal?
Of course it would.
But there’d be no profit in it.
The thinking behind these kind of schemes is the same as that behind most alternative medicine – that it’s safe, because it doesn’t actually do anything. I hope they’re right (or at least that they grab the money and run, rather than try and put their plan into effect!)
I actually did have an Uncle Gus.
If this plan actually worked, they likely would not stop “global warming”, but could easily accelerate global cooling and the next glacial advance.
Why is it these people are terrified of a climate that is warmer, but seem clueless what happens if it get colder.
Forget the climate and work on weather. What if someone could figure out how to put a few of these boats off the coast of Hawaii and thereby make it rain or show in California. That might be worth a Billion or two.
It takes more to make rain that more humidity in the air near the ground.
Ask anyone in the Middle East in Summer.
Compared to solar caused evaporation from the Pacific ocean, you think anything people could do will change anything enough to cause rain to fall where and when it is needed?
Really?
Really?
Sorry Joel, I know that you do not.
Methinks a rain dance would do just as much good.
And if it doesn’t, it’s still good exercise.
BOB McDONALD??? Let’s see what his qualifications are.
Acc. Wikipeda, he has “no formal academic training”. He found his start as a Demonstrator at Ontario Science Centre.
So much for this little opportunistic megaphone-shill for Climate alarmism.
i used to be a dedicated regular listener to noon-time Saturday ‘quirks & Quarks’ on Radio, until I got sickened by his never missing any opportunity to conflate soemthing/anything[?] with AGW.
As for Rex Murphy, by contrast, he is excellent, thoughtful, philosophical, and “Tells it like it is”. I suspect that one hears less and less form Rex, ‘cos he doesn’t subscribe to the AGW clap-trap …. rather he tends to offer (often killing) arguments against it. Rex can best be found in Saturday’s National Post (which makes it a ‘must-read’) and Thursday nights ‘Panel’ [is it] ON CBC TC NEWS (must viewing).
“So much for this little opportunistic megaphone-shill for Climate alarmism.”
Well said!
A very appropriate imaginary solution to an imaginary problem. The only concern I have is that the price is a bit too high. I’ll buy in when a 100% discount is offered.
Better get those Global Warming papers published while you can.
(Might want to weave in something about the Ruskies hacking the climate ; )
Blocking out the sun, we’ve had that technology in the UK for centuries!
I blame Bill’s mother.
As already posted… Bob McDonald writes:
250 years???? Yeah so many SUVs in 1767… That is during Louis XV, Frederick the Great reigns…
Let’s remember that the government funded CBC is member to the so called “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists”, a fuzzy group funded in significant part by US Aid and George Soros’ Open Society. Their claim to fame is the selective “Panama Papers” disclosure which those journalists use as potential blackmail against a group or individuals.
CBC is a climatism mouthpiece and journalists like McDonald are its peddlers.
LMAO. Billions are spent to stop emitting sulfur dioxide, and they propose emitting it. And they’ll need 10 mile high stacks…
It’s not April 1st so here is my serious plan to reduce the temperature of the planet in an entirely controllable way without risking a probably irreversible bit of atmospheric geo-engineeering which might over or undershoot.
The thing we need to deal with is heat. AGW just gives us too much of it. But vast numbers of the humans on this planet are buying masses of heat every year. I know I am in the UK. I am buying most of my heat in the form of central heating oil (like diesel) and electricity. Perhaps I could buy less of this horrible carbony stuff and use the human produced excess AGW heat to keep me warm in the winter. Now how could I do that ?
Hopefully many of you know the answer, some may already be doing it right now ! The device you need is called a “Heat Pump”. Typically with a COP of about 2.5 you can consume just 1kW of electricity from your nasty carbony electricity supplier but suck 2.5kW of heat out of the atmosphere. We just need to subsidise heat pumps, promote them as sustainable AND an antidote to AGW. Of course if we overcook it and take too much heat out of the atmosphere this is easily solved by just burning some more coal somewhere for something or other.
I think my solution certainly beats wasting all that free extra heat by reflecting it back to space .
Would cost less than $10B to restart atmospheric nuclear testing. And, then you would get positive feedbacks as Russia, China, India, Israel, France, etc. joined in.
It would cost less than $10B to restart atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. You would get positive feedback when the Russians, Chinese, Indians, and French restarted, too.
“Research for the Copenhagen Consensus, the think tank I direct, has shown that spending just $9 billion on 1,900 seawater-spraying boats could prevent all of the global warming set to occur this century.”
“People are understandably nervous about geoengineering. But many of the risks have been overstated. Marine cloud whitening, for example, amplifies a natural process and would not lead to permanent atmospheric changes – switching off the entire process would return the world to its previous state in a matter of days. It could be used only when needed.”
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/geoengineering-climate-change-by-bjorn-lomborg-2017-01
It’s seawater. It could start with one boat. Some local tests. Then 50 boats and some regional tests. Upwind of California and the Baja. In the ENSO region. Doing some research. The Greens might support it. Diverting from their attacks on big oil.
Warmer is better, as is more CO2.
It opens up lands to the north an south by shrinking our frozen polar wastelands.
CO2 being higher also greens the Earth and makes arid zones more conducive for plants to thrive.
And a warmer world tends to have less of a contrast in temps from polar to tropical zones, lessening the severity of storms.
Some of the above statements are no doubt controversial to some, but they are all at least as plausible as the nitwit fears of warmistas.
How about instead we just leave everything the hell alone if it is so easy to fix, at least until there is some indication of an actual problem that requires attention?
Maybe these brilliant think tanks could spend some time explaining to everyone just what is to be feared from a somewhat milder world, with less severe Winters, less hot Summers, less frigidly frozen Arctic wastelands, cooler days, and warmer nights?
BTW, lets see the math and the cost numbers for this one or fifty boats that will cool the planet?
Including how the heck anyone would be able to reach any conclusion with a high degree of confidence that it is accurate?
These lunatics don’t even understand the climate mechanisms and they are going to screw with it? Effing genius. What could possibly go wrong.
So having failed to destroy civilization by convincing us to abandon cheap, high density power sources, now they are trying to convince us to screw up the environment badly enough to have the same effect. Or maybe they are just stupid zealots, who knows?
Someone needs to slap these dolts upside their pointy little heads, bless their hearts!
Hmmm the first 10billion could solve 3/4 of the warming by rolling back the adjustments to temperature. Everyone actually knows that record highs from 1930s still reign (no trolls, not just US temps) . Who do I write to to get an application form to get started? I want to get rolling on this ahead of Berkley and other climate strumpets. I haven’t read the fine print. Do the geoenginneers throw in the keeping of temperature data for this price? I’m sure they would oblige.
Actually a free method of putting SO2 up there would be to roll back regulations on smelter and high sulphur coal burning emissions. Dolts!
If you are going to do something that changes the entire planet then surely you have to get the entire planet to agree before you start. I can think of several places which would require substantial palm greasing before they would even think of agreeing. Imagine the law suits if you acted unilaterally! The feeding frenzy when BP had that little oil spill in the Gulf would pale in to insignificance.
The idea of purposely cooling a planet on which one’s whole species depends and which is currently enjoying a brief respite in the midst of an actual ice age is categorically insane.
Idea for Josh:
A picture of the Earth as climate kooks and charlatans want it to lok: covered in windmills and insane smokestack ships pumping pollutants into he upper atmosphere.
Don’t forget lots of ice and starving people!
Trillions down to billions?
Maybe they propose to tilt all the windmills straight up to blow all the hot air back into space?
(Might need to put up a few more over wherever it is that Shumer, Pelosi and their minions hang out though.)
Only a billion? Great. Let me get out my check book.
They are starting to like the crooked kind of used car salesmen.
(You raised the hood and it doesn’t have an engine? How we lower the price to …)
This would be comical if people weren’t actually trying to do it, and obviously seriously upset.
I mean, it’s not the sun’s energy that’s the problem, but we have to block some of the sun’s energy that’s the problem.
We’re damaging the system via massive inputs whose consequences we don’t understand, so the only solution is more massive inputs whose consequences we don’t understand.
I guess once you get far enough down the rabbit hole, nothing else matters but digging.
I’ll cancel AGW and I’ll do it for only $100 million a year, and I’ll guarantee the results – in 40 years you will see that the sea levels have not risen more than 3 inches, and the temperature has not risen more than .5 degrees F, and we’ll still have ice at the poles and snow in the winter.
I will take a cashiers check, or PayPal. But hurry, this deal won’t be around much longer…
In CA they say we need to minimize particles introduced into the air, be it from a wood stove in your living room, a diesel truck on the road, burning of rice field remnants or a factory smokestack, because the increased risk of cardiopulmonary disease to the populace is just too dangerous…….now it’s OK to spew millions of tons to fight AGW?
Cancelling all “AP Warming” costs literally nothing after the bodies all decay.
I know what scares me more than the ever so slight warming caused by CO2 and that is Eco warriors using geo engineering on planet earth….they scare the poop out of me with there crazy ideas…
“Cleanup, aisle five! “
I would have a much better idea. My idea would be to prescribe to everyone wearing a white umbrella 1.5 meters by 1.5 meters. There are also suits, pants dresses, tennis shoes and blouses only to be made of white fabric and white sharks should swim on their backs. Also the wearing of a white Donald Trump cap (in white not in red) is to prescribe. I do not know exactly what area of the earth can be covered with it, but the amount of radiation emitted into space will be considerable. The OLR will therefore increase by exactly 0.00007 percent. In addition, the search for any solar studios should be prohibited, so that in the eventual beach visit unbroken white bodies can radiate LR into space, at least as long as the color is red. And please also think of white mice and elephants.
We have kidnapped your planet. If you want to see you planet alive again it will cost you 10 Billion dollars. Do not attempt to contact the police. wait by your phone for further instructions.
Polluting the whole atmosphere, in order to reduce CO2, crippling all vegetation and reducing all agricultural output, all on the basis of an unproven connecton between CO2 and temperature, what could possibly go wrong with all that?
Here’s David Keith on spraying aluminum:
Do you have a pithy summary for those of us without a spare one hour and forty five minutes?
If that what it takes to shut up the greens……I say spend it
Nah. CAGW funding was zero at the green climate ideal, during the end of the 19th century small ice age. Perhaps the funding has changed the climate?
Let’s cut all funding to the last penny. We can even revisit the matter year 2154. Perhaps the average global outside air CO2 concentration and temperature anomalies will be even closer to zero than now. Worth a try.
Gee, this is so inexpensive, warmista governments and allegedly “at-risk” nations can pick up the tab all by themselves, without US funding. Why would they hesitate? Unless they never really believed in AGW, and it always about redistribution of wealth. Am I too cynical?
Remember when some geoengineering “team” was polluting the ocean with iron back in 2009 when El Nino showed how it’s done the right way? Millions of tonnes of central Australian iron-rich silt were blasted into the Pacific by powerful spring westerlies: a Big Dust such as we get every few decades. I doubt Team even noticed as they were too busy polluting. (Those mineral-rich melty glaciers perform a similar service to Big Dusts…but don’t tell Team.)
Here’s a thought. What if a bit of cooling – there were already major cold events BEFORE Tambora – combined with some volcanism on the scale of Laki or Tambora were to occur just as our geo-polluters were going mainstream with their gunky particulates?
A law suit wouldn’t quite cover it, methinks.
Thermalization/reverse-thermalization and the Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution of gas molecules explain why CO2 has no significant effect on climate. A potentially more important factor to humanity than failing to acknowledge that CO2 has no significant effect on climate is failing to recognize what actually does.
You sure sound like that Cotton guy that used to post nonsense here a lot.
That ‘Cotton guy’ was right about CO2 having no significant effect on climate but he apparently never understood why, and I agree, he posted a lot of nonsense.
Wow, even the Weather Network is changing it’s tune…
“Underwater drought is unprecedented in human history !”
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/beneath-the-dead-sea-is-evidence-of-unprecedented-drought/80848/?intcmp=twn_promo_news4”
They mention “unprecedented-drought”, but 100,000 years ago…
If I was going to attempt something like this, I’d try putting a tiny amount of a cheap, combustible organo-titanium compound in jet fuel, or inject it directly into the engine exhaust. The Titanium dioxide produced should do the job nicely. I’m surprised some crazy hasn’t already applied for a grant to try it out.
I no longer watch news (except Fox; except on weekends) nor read any newspapers ( except the Financial Post opinion on Tuesday thru Friday) so I no longer know what is going on in my country (Canada), so could someone tell me – Have Canadians been informed by their national media that the west coast of Canada just had a winter that averaged 2 degrees C below normal?
So, alarmists claim that we are conducting a planetary wide experiment by burning fossil fuels releasing climate changing CO2 which is dangerously wrong, but this is OK? Humm…
I have no problem with this idea.
As long as they use their own money, not mine.
And as long as they use their own planet, not mine.
No problem at all…