Essay by Eric Worrall
Greens seem to have an obsession with dimming the sun, otherwise known as starving plants of sunlight and stripping away our disease resistance.
Why dimming the Sun would be an effective tool in the fight against climate change
Published: December 7, 2023 2.53am AEDT
Peter Irvine
Lecturer in Earth Sciences, UCLIt’s becoming increasingly clear that we will fail to meet our climate goals. We were already at 1.26°C of warming in 2022 and are on track to blow through 1.5°C in the mid-2030s. Research even suggests that current climate policy will lead to more than 2.5°C of warming by the end of this century.
Warming of this magnitude would devastate vulnerable communities and ecosystems around the world. It’s time we consider something radically new that could stop climate change in its tracks.
After powerful volcanic eruptions, like Tambora (Indonesia) in 1815 and Pinatubo (Philippines) in 1991, global temperatures dipfor a few years. Major eruptions create a hazy layer of microscopic particles in the upper atmosphere that last for several years, dimming the Sun temporarily. We could copy this effect to fight climate change.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/why-dimming-the-sun-would-be-an-effective-tool-in-the-fight-against-climate-change-218670
I don’t get how educated people can convince themselves deliberately dimming the sun is a good idea, when there is an abundance of evidence that it would be a very bad idea.
Last time the sun was dimmed significantly by a series of major volcanic eruptions, the Eastern Roman Empire almost failed. The dimming of the sun during the dark ages had multiple severe adverse consequences for human health.
Volcanic dust veils from sixth century tree-ring isotopes linked to reduced irradiance, primary production and human health
Samuli Helama, Laura Arppe, Joonas Uusitalo, Jari Holopainen, Hanna M. Mäkelä, Harri Mäkinen, Kari Mielikäinen, Pekka Nöjd, Raimo Sutinen, Jussi-Pekka Taavitsainen, Mauri Timonen & Markku Oinonen
Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 1339 (2018) Cite this article
Abstract
The large volcanic eruptions of AD 536 and 540 led to climate cooling and contributed to hardships of Late Antiquity societies throughout Eurasia, and triggered a major environmental event in the historical Roman Empire. Our set of stable carbon isotope records from subfossil tree rings demonstrates a strong negative excursion in AD 536 and 541–544. Modern data from these sites show that carbon isotope variations are driven by solar radiation. A model based on sixth century isotopes reconstruct an irradiance anomaly for AD 536 and 541–544 of nearly three standard deviations below the mean value based on modern data. This anomaly can be explained by a volcanic dust veil reducing solar radiation and thus primary production threatening food security over a multitude of years. We offer a hypothesis that persistently low irradiance contributed to remarkably simultaneous outbreaks of famine and Justinianic plague in the eastern Roman Empire with adverse effects on crop production and photosynthesis of the vitamin D in human skin and thus, collectively, human health. Our results provide a hitherto unstudied proxy for exploring the mechanisms of ‘volcanic summers’ to demonstrate the post-eruption deficiencies in sunlight and to explain the human consequences during such calamity years.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-19760-w
Quite apart from the starvation caused by reduced crop yields, reduced metabolic availability of Vitamin D in today’s world would be a big problem. Vitamin D is a major contributor to immune resistance to influenza and Covid, people who don’t receive enough Vitamin D are more likely to require emergency medical assistance.
Does vitamin D deficiency increase the severity of COVID-19?
E Kenneth Weir, professor of medicine,A Thenappan Thenappan, associate professor of medicine,B Maneesh Bhargava, associate professor of medicine,C and Yingjie Chen, professor of physiologyD
ABSTRACT
The severity of coronavirus 2019 infection (COVID-19) is determined by the presence of pneumonia, severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (SARS-CoV-2), myocarditis, microvascular thrombosis and/or cytokine storms, all of which involve underlying inflammation. A principal defence against uncontrolled inflammation, and against viral infection in general, is provided by T regulatory lymphocytes (Tregs). Treg levels have been reported to be low in many COVID-19 patients and can be increased by vitamin D supplementation. Low vitamin D levels have been associated with an increase in inflammatory cytokines and a significantly increased risk of pneumonia and viral upper respiratory tract infections. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increase in thrombotic episodes, which are frequently observed in COVID-19. Vitamin D deficiency has been found to occur more frequently in patients with obesity and diabetes. These conditions are reported to carry a higher mortality in COVID-19. If vitamin D does in fact reduce the severity of COVID-19 in regard to pneumonia/ARDS, inflammation, inflammatory cytokines and thrombosis, it is our opinion that supplements would offer a relatively easy option to decrease the impact of the pandemic.
Read more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7385774/
We also have evidence from modern times that volcanic eruptions impact crop yields.
Estimating global agricultural effects of geoengineering using volcanic eruptions
Jonathan Proctor, Solomon Hsiang, Jennifer Burney, Marshall Burke & Wolfram Schlenker
Abstract
Solar radiation management is increasingly considered to be an option for managing global temperatures1,2, yet the economic effects of ameliorating climatic changes by scattering sunlight back to space remain largely unknown3. Although solar radiation management may increase crop yields by reducing heat stress4, the effects of concomitant changes in available sunlight have never been empirically estimated. Here we use the volcanic eruptions that inspired modern solar radiation management proposals as natural experiments to provide the first estimates, to our knowledge, of how the stratospheric sulfate aerosols created by the eruptions of El Chichón and Mount Pinatubo altered the quantity and quality of global sunlight, and how these changes in sunlight affected global crop yields. We find that the sunlight-mediated effect of stratospheric sulfate aerosols on yields is negative for both C4 (maize) and C3 (soy, rice and wheat) crops. Applying our yield model to a solar radiation management scenario based on stratospheric sulfate aerosols, we find that projected mid-twenty-first century damages due to scattering sunlight caused by solar radiation management are roughly equal in magnitude to benefits from cooling. This suggests that solar radiation management—if deployed using stratospheric sulfate aerosols similar to those emitted by the volcanic eruptions it seeks to mimic—would, on net, attenuate little of the global agricultural damage from climate change. Our approach could be extended to study the effects of solar radiation management on other global systems, such as human health or ecosystem function.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0417-3
Why do learned people keep cheerleading this crazy geoengineering idea, when the risks so obviously outweigh any possible benefits?
The rationale for geoengineering is that a few degrees of warming will have adverse consequences on food availability, which would justify taking these kinds of risks.
But farming is simply not that sensitive to temperature.
Take Maine potatoes. Potatoes are grown in Maine, a place not known for its tropical weather, but they also grow well in subtropical Bundaberg, a major food producing region in Australia. The only adjustment Aussie farmers applied to grow cold weather food crops in a tropical climate like Bundaberg, is extreme early planting – they plant the potatoes in Fall. The potatoes don’t know our mild tropical winters are actually winter, so they grow vigorously throughout the winter months, and are ready to harvest by Spring, before the tropical Summer heat withers and kills them.
My point is very few plants have such a narrow range that a few degrees of warming would impact yields. Cooling can be a problem, in marginal Northern agricultural regions cooler weather can shorten the growing season to such an extent that crops do not mature in time, but warming is much easier to accomodate. If the climate warms, farmers will simply plant their crops a little earlier in the season, maintaining the optimal temperature range for their growing cycle, or they will switch to other crops if the warming is sufficient that new and more profitable crops become viable.
Global warming, even if it continues, will not negatively impact food availability.
The abundance of evidence that solar geoengineering on any kind of scale would have dire health consequences, and is not justified by any genuine risk to our food supply, should rule out this foolish idea for vandalising our global climate.
Another case of the Green Blob assuming the Little Ice Age was some kind of golden age. If one thinks war, plague, and famine are good things, yes.
Since many Greens say that the world’s population should decline to 1 to 2 billion people, they would say that war, plague and famine are good things.
What could possibly go wrong?
Way back when, it was commonly believed that a comet or asteroid struck the earth approximately 65 million years ago. The smoke from the fires and the debris ejected high into the atmosphere blocked so much sunlight that most of the plant life died, followed by most of the surface life, including the dinosaurs.
Nowadays, we know this was wrong because it was climate change that caused this mass extinction. Climate change, as we well know, causes everything bad that happens.
The moral of the story is climate change is more serious than any possible geoengineering foul-up. We’re much too clever as a species to screw things up, particularly if we put the climate activists in charge. The computer models prove it.
What could possibly go wrong? Just watch the film Snowpiercer.
Makes sense. I think the prerequisite for running for the Presidency- is that the person must be a climate activist. 🙂
“I don’t get how educated people can convince themselves deliberately dimming the sun is a good idea…”
Well they have form.
These are the same people who think reducing CO2 in the atmosphere, the very thing essential for abundant plant growth, is a good idea.
hmmmm…. they’re starting to seem…. Satanic!
dim the sun- starve the plants- impoverish a greatly reduced human race!
Led by Baal Gates?
The Sun has been dimming on its own since about 1960. Because the oceans can hold so much heat, it takes decades to show up as land temperatures.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-incoming-sunlight
They’re on a suicidal spectrum
“”Wynn Alan Bruce, 50, from Boulder, Colorado, who self-immolated on Friday – when the world marked Earth Day – suffered critical injuries and was airlifted to hospital, where he died, a police spokesperson said.
Those who knew Bruce, who had managed a portrait photo studio in Boulder, say he was protesting against inaction on the climate crisis.””
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/25/politics/supreme-court-climate-activist-dies-fire/index.html
All for nothing
The People’s Republic of Boulder…
One less idiot voting for the Socialists.
Bruce tried in 2017 — no reason known, even to his father who attempted to get his son into mental health council. There is a wiki page on this person:
Self-immolation of Wynn Bruce
If he wanted a renewable future he could reincarnate. Come back as a mealworm and my grankids will eat him . A sad case of murder in the first degree Greta Thunberg, Joe Biden Al Gore in the dock
Dimming the sun is a good thing? Maybe if one serves and seeks to curry favor with The Prince of Darkness. Plus make all those acres of solar farms ever less reliable and efficient.
Let’s bring back that good old SO2 air pollution blocking sunlight from the 1970s, and call it climate geoengineering.
Thanks for so many good articles Mr. Worrall — you are the best climate and energy reporter I know of, and I read and read over 20 climate and energy articles every day of the year … including every article you write.
Honest Climate Science and Energy Blog
A far easier way would be to go back to using bunker fuel on all shipping 🙂
The hubris of the warmunists has a natural end play to it … if humans can control Earth’s climate in a negative way (warming?), then ipso facto, humans can also control Earth’s climate in a positive way (cooling?).
Whatever it is that the warmunists want to do, it will fail, fantastically so, with massive amounts of blowback and unintended consequences. Of course, the opposite of hubris is humility, and the warmunists are totally devoid of humility. They believe they are the Masters of the Universe … or at least, if the rest of us would just get out of their damn way, they would be.
If GOVERNMENT could control the planet temperature, they would likely increase it by 2 or 3 degrees to make the planet more hospitable to humans, provide more farmland, longer growing seasons, more tropical paradise to retire to, more rainfall for vegetation, all those good things….
“Warming of this magnitude would devastate vulnerable communities and ecosystems around the world. It’s time we consider something radically new that could stop climate change in its tracks.”
They get crazier by the day. Like, as if they haven’t already considered extremely radical fantasies? Stop the monster in its tracks? I know a shrink- I’ll have to ask him what they use to treat psychotics. But maybe I won’t- since he’s a climate nut job. 🙂
This was a big idea back in the 1970s—it was called “nuclear winter”.
Global cooling, nuclear winter, acid rain, the ozone hole, and global warming were all running in the press at nearly the same time.
Throw enough mud at the wall and finally some of it will stick.
The ozone “holes” were over the poles, where for half the year they get no sunlight, no sunlight that’s involved both in breaking apart and putting ozone together. Without sunlight half the year it’s natural for there to be less polar ozone.
Aside from that, how is a “hole” over the Arctic and Antarctic supposed to have any effect on the amount of solar UV hitting the surface in Los Angeles, Sydney, St. Petersburg etc?
The usual propaganda:
“We were already at 1.26°C of warming in 2022 and are on track to blow through 1.5°C in the mid-2030s.”
And this “fact” (repeated over and over and over and over and over and over again) is known to a hundredth of a Kelvin, sure it is.
Global average air temperature tells very little about climate.
“
ResearchBogus computer modeling even suggests…”Edited for TRVTH.
And who are “we”?
Adding the +/- 3°C wouldn’t make it so scary or scientific sounding.
“Volcanic dust veils from sixth century tree-ring isotopes linked to reduced irradiance, primary production and human health”
No doubt they’re confident that they know the year of some tree rings- but I have my doubts- at least, to the accuracy that the article implies.
Volcanic dust veils from sixth century tree-ring isotopes linked to reduced irradiance, primary production and human health | Scientific Reports (nature.com)
Dendrochronology is quite accurate and useful.
Treemometers, not so much.
Sure, but when you get back that far- I’m skeptical. I’ll have to read your link. They’ll have to have a continuous record of tree rings unless you h ave a tree that is 1,500 years old.
We are being systematically lied to:
______________________________________
______________________________________
1. More rain is not a problem.
2. Warmer weather is not a problem.
3. More arable land is not a problem.
4. Longer growing seasons is not a problem.
5. CO2 greening of the earth is not a problem.
6. There isn’t any Climate Crisis.
The U.S. Constitution should be amended:
Amendment 28
Section 1
Congress shall make no law to regulate,
tax, sequester or license atmospheric
carbon dioxide.
The right of the people to freely emit
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from
any source, from any place at any time
in any amount shall not be interfered with.
Section 2
All activity commercial or private within
the United States and all territory subject
to the jurisdiction thereof for the purposes
of altering climate is prohibited.
The Congress and the several States shall
have concurrent power to enforce this article
by appropriate legislation.
_____________________________________
Or something like that.
The worry is that he is paid to teach other people when he is quite barking. And ‘Earth Sciences’? Smells bad to me.
The rich plan on making trillions from climate change spending which is estimated at $US200 trillion to stop warming by 2020 by Bloomberg’s green research team. Other estimates are similar.
Didn’t Kerry just make one of these “smells bad” comments at COP-28..
Geo engineering is just an unfortunate symptom of climate derangement syndrome. Despite this readily available research, it’s challenging to convince people about the true severity of global warming. It boggles my mind that people don’t take it upon themselves to conduct research and question the acceptance of highly dubious “scientific” claims.
I think any serious attempt to dim the Sun’s light would be a cause for war among nations.
All the “people” advocating for this stupidity should be herded into an abandoned mine and left in the dark for 6 months. Problem solved.
We just have a dimmed sun, by a weather phenomenon usually called fog.
Or clouds !
the vast majority of deaths from COVID had very low levels of vitamin D that the body produces from exposure to sunlight – so killing people may be the real goal
Funny thing about vitamin D is that the FIRST mention of use of it by Fauchi was in September, 9 months after the start of the China Virus talk. I always hopped that, during a committee meeting where he was a witness, someone would ask him why he hated “people of color” so much as to NOT mention the need for them to take D during his first press conference. Then follow up with “Was it more important for to you to make TRUMP! look bad by ensuring more POC die under his watch, their deaths serving the greater good?”
BTW, as a diabetic I take 6000 iu of D a day. I also spend SOME time outdoors, but being at altitude much of the time, I wear long pants, long sleeve shirts and hats to keep from getting burned. 20 minutes at 8600 ft can get you in the summer.
There are some good videos of presentations on the topic of vitamin D.
Bruce Hollis is a good one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrU1yrmNIqc
The long and the short of it: Vitamin D isn’t just helpful in treatment of prostate cancer, it helps shrink an enlarged prostate which is not cancerous.
Despite what many pre-medical professionals are still taught, it is extremely difficult to over-dose on vitamin D. We have evolved with much higher levels than most people maintain today, due to insufficient skin exposure to UV. A constant exposure/dose is important because of the pharmacodynamics of production/dosage versus the long term storage which is effectively unavailable on a short term basis.
Plus, it is far more important for many cellular processes than was originally understood. Medical science is way behind the curve in terms of what would-be Physicians are taught in medical school textbooks.
My wife and I started taking 4000iu of vitamin D daily shortly after the start of Covid.Apart from a short period, approx 1 overlapping week each, where we had a flu like illness which tested positive for Covid, we were fine. We continue to take it daily.
People should be careful about taking vitamin D.
I had a doctor that perscribed 10,000iu a day for me. I, being me, decided that was too much, and instead took about 5,000iu a day.
My doctor retired and my new doctor told me to stop taking vitamin D as I had toxic levels of vitamin D in my system!
And that was with only taking half of what was prescribed for me.
So make sure you need vitamin D before you take any.
I found out vitamin B-12 is also important.
I had a little numbness in my feet, and I kept seeing commercials on tv about peripheral neuropathy, which is where your feet go numb from complications of diabetes.
So, I was thinking maybe I had pre-diabetes or something and went to the doctor and got the lab work done and it showed my blood sugar was right in the middle of the normal range and diabetes was not an issue.
But it turns out that a lack of vitamin B-12 can cause similar symptoms and I was low on my vitamin B-12, and I’ve been taking supplements for a few months now, and my foot numbness is slowly going away.
A yearly doctor’s visit is worth its weight in gold.
Remdesivir did not make sense because it was known to cause kidney failure and yet it was and is still an “approved” treatment.
Health care organizations in their scientific brilliance have concluded that Covid-19 is one of a few viral diseases known to attack kidneys.
Between the autumnal and vernal equinoxes the NHS in the U.K. advise vitamin D supplements of 400 IU/ 10 microgrammes per day. Between the vernal and autumnal equinoxes most people obtain sufficient vitamin D from the sun.
“Good sources of vitamin DFrom about late March/early April to the end of September, most people should be able to make all the vitamin D they need from sunlight.
The body creates vitamin D from direct sunlight on the skin when outdoors.
But between October and early March we do not make enough vitamin D from sunlight. Read more about vitamin D and sunlight.
Vitamin D is also found in a small number of foods.
Sources include:
Another source of vitamin D is dietary supplements.
In the UK, cows’ milk is generally not a good source of vitamin D because it is not fortified, as it is in some other countries.”
The attached picture is a list of EU countries and their vitamin D supplement policies.
“What happens if I take too much vitamin D?Taking too many vitamin D supplements over a long period of time can cause too much calcium to build up in the body (hypercalcaemia). This can weaken the bones and damage the kidneys and the heart.
If you choose to take vitamin D supplements, 10 micrograms a day will be enough for most people.
Do not take more than 100 micrograms (4,000 IU) of vitamin D a day as it could be harmful. This applies to adults, including pregnant and breastfeeding women and the elderly, and children aged 11 to 17 years.
Children aged 1 to 10 years should not have more than 50 micrograms (2,000 IU) a day. Infants under 12 months should not have more than 25 micrograms (1,000 IU) a day.
Some people have medical conditions that mean they may not be able to safely take as much. If in doubt, you should consult your doctor.
If your doctor has recommended you take a different amount of vitamin D, you should follow their advice.
You cannot overdose on vitamin D through exposure to sunlight. But always remember to cover up or protect your skin if you’re out in the sun for long periods to reduce the risk of skin damage and skin cancer.””
“Don’t take more than 4000 IU per day as it may be harmful ”
NONSENSE !
DO A LITTLE RESEARCH !
How much can a person get from sunlight!
Hint … it is a LOT more than 4000 IU !
We do not get enough vitamin D in the UK. We are constantly running at a deficit because of the latitude/angle of the sun. Ask yourself this – why did our ancestors skin colour change from our previously dark brown skin colour to the pale colour we have now in the northern latitudes? To get as much sunlight as possible into our bodies and it still isn’t enough – everybody should be taking 500-1,000 units daily, more the further north you live. I have a vitamin D deficiency so currently take around 3000 units every few days (10,000 units a week, roughly) because, without it, my vitamin D levels drop to just above the danger level.
information that is decades out of date
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. There is every scientific reason to believe that solar geo-engineering can quickly return the earth’s climate to that of the Little Ice Age. And to do it for pennies on the dollar in comparison with Net Zero, which is a fantasy in any case.
The great majority of climate activists in the environmental NGO’s, in government, and in the climate change industrial complex will never support solar geo-engineering as a solution.
The activists will spend money on solar geo-engineering research just to claim they are pursuing every alternative for addressing climate change. But they will never allow it to be put into actual practice. For the simple reason that if solar geo-engineering ends global warming, the climate change gravy train ends with it.
The Marshal Islands are in a life or death struggle against climate warming…they want $35 billion to survive….can you help them?
I would, but I’m in a life and death struggle myself, currently in the living part.
“Browns” versus “Greens”
I am always frustrated with the term “Green”, such as “Green New Deal”. It is a scientific fact any reduction in atmospheres Carbon Dioxide (CO2) would limit plant/tree growth and vitality.
These CO2 reductions would definitely reduce the “Green” and increase the “Brown” on our planet.
I therefore call it the “Brown New Deal” and those supporting as “Browns” and not “Greens”. My non-woke friends are typically amused and in agreement, while woke friends are typically not amused.
By the way, the term “Brown” has second meaning, although crude, when describing this destructive ideology.
Everything these Greens do will turn the world Brown.
Use Brown versus Green
I can with total certainty say that Peter Irvine is stark raving mad. Why anyone would listen to him is beyond me.
See my comment above. Peter,Irvine isn’t stark raving mad. He is a member of the climate change industrial complex and is selling further research into solar geo-engineeriing as his niche business inside climate change academia. He makes a good living pursuing this research.
If someone wants to return the earth’s climate to that of the Little Ice Age, there is little question solar geo-engineering can get the job done.
That said, Peter Irvine has to know that climate activists will never allow solar geo-engineering to be put into actual practice. For the simple reason that if solar geo-engineering ends global warming, the climate change gravy train ends with it.
Why do they want to do it? They know the CO2 crisis warming meme has been brutally falsified by sceptics and Narure herself. Their anomaly forecasts in the heyday of of 1990 for 25 yrs forward proved to be 300% higher than observations. Ditto every other weather metric – floods, fires, droughts, arctic ice – nothing alarming or new.
How do we know that the Dark Side itself knows that they have been horribly wrong? By their behavior and actions. They moved the goalposts of the period of manmade warming back from 1950 to 1850 (when pop. at~1m) to bankroll 0.6°C of natural warming from the LIA. They began fiddling temperatures, now automated to adjust T daily cooling the past and warming the present in fractions if a degree. They didn’t need to do that when the actually believed it would be 5-7 C higher by 2100 with seas rising 19-12 ft.
The frenzy to enact horrible legislation and get geoengineering done is to be able to say they prevented the worst of the harm by their actions. It’s to get ahead of the parade to nowhere. They know otherwise that the untold millions of deaths caused by Climate Policy by the destruction of economies, rampant inflation and destruction of food security will be properly laid at the feet of the globalist billionaire shotcallers – Gates, Schwab, and other WEF gangsters, western governments and the academic useful fools. Yeah, they should be scared.
The Vitamin D3 information is from 2020. The idea was forcefully put in blogs (Jo Nova, others) back then, but this article would have been very helpful had the U.S. CDC promoted it. If they did, I missed it. Seems they were busy convincing folks Ivermectin was dangerous.
From the post: We were already at 1.26°C of warming in 2022 [Peter Irvine, Univ. College-London]
I’m sure he rounded up. The actual number was 1.257839°C. 😏
I moved from Cleveland, Ohio to Los Angeles, California many years ago.
Although it was 20F warmer, it was still comfortable.
After about 5 years I moved back to Cleveland and still like the weather here although in Cleveland you have to bundle up in the winter.
In winter, in LA the rain can be almost constant and hard for days on end. In Cleveland we have colder snowy days and warmer days in the winter. The snowy and rainy days are both about as irritating.
1.5C is nothing. It’s even less than the average difference in temperature between day and night.
“Why do learned people keep cheerleading this crazy geoengineering idea, when the risks so obviously outweigh any possible benefits?”
Because the vast majority of the highly credentialed are not truly learned, they are indoctrinated group-thinkers. They cannot do critical thinking or math.
Yes, if the goal is to control the weather and therefore the climate, then that goal is certain to be missed thankfully. If we were able to control our climate then the last person we would want making the decisions is a lunatic such as this oblivious lecturer who thinks we can and should block out the sun which gives makes all life on Earth possible. Why does it seem that the closer a person gets to higher education and the longer they stay there the lower their capacity for logic and critical thinking?
If we ever get to the point of actually controlling climate I suggest we let farmers, miners and primary producers who live in the real world make the decisions.
On one hand they claim the sun has nothing to do with global warming. On the other hand they want to dim the sun to stop global warming.
Instead of applying this madness on us all, these dimming Sun cultists should migrate to Antarctica where they will experiment what’s an Earth with weak or no sun light, no vegetation, no food (except pinguins) and some cold weather.
Greenland is closer. They could learn what the result of the “Green” dream is really like. Not even any penguins to eat. It was, in the past, so warm the people were living there.
The Sun started a Grand Solar Minimum(GSM) in 2020, so its output should be reduced, which should lead to cooler or colder temperatures.
The last time this happened was about 400 years ago in the Little Ice Age and it led to crop failures and famines.
The Sun’s magnetic field should also be reduced, leading to an increase in Galatic Cosmic Rays, which may trigger more volcanic activity that may also cool the Earth.
It is expected to last around 30 years.
About 13,000 years ago, the Northern Hemisphere experienced a sudden return to near-glacial conditions after a period of warming (Younger Dryas). This was caused by freshwater influx likely by melting from large ice bodies. The Northern Hemisphere cooled 7-9C just within the span of a couple of decades or possibly within a shorter time frame. We are very lucky to be alive in the current pleasant interglacial, but are very unprepared for the uncertain future.
Could you stop calling it a ‘Grand Solar Minimum’ please – it might be a Solar Minimum but you won’t know if it’s a Grand Solar Minimum until it’s duration is much longer than the usual solar minimum duration. If it expected to last around 30 years then it is a solar minimum, not a ‘grand solar minimum’ as they can last hundreds of years. Not every minimum is ‘Grand.’
There was nothing more enlightening than when I realized really smart people don’t have all the answers. It was kind of a let down really. I went to school with people who were amazing, their brains soaked up information like a sponge. I was in awe, but some of these people believed in some of the dumbest things imaginable. Same for some of the professors. It is then that I realized it isn’t how much you learn or know but what you learn and know. That is why I am no longer surprised when I hear people who should really know better say stunningly stupid things.
It also allowed the establishment of Islam by decimating the Roman’s and Persians
Here Mr. Worrall goes off, once again, with his emotional diatribes against the
technology of Solar Radiation Modification [“SRM”]. He uses so many emotive terms,
just like the global warming wackadoodles he is so fond of quoting about the
dangers of SRM while elsewhere opposing, that I don’t want to waste my time
repeating them all. Now it is a supervolcano that went off 1500 years ago,
allegedly the cause then of “starvation” (though who knows if this is true — if
the evidence comes from tree rings this means those trees, despite the cold
and reduced sunlight conditions coming from that supervolcano, survived afterward
enough for us to measure), somehow proving that we shouldn’t rely on SRM today, NOW being under rational, scientific human control and being orders of magnitude
more benign in intensity. He has other axes to grind as well, some of them
eye-popping, like claiming SRM will increase the severity of Covid-19 disease … through Vitamin D deficiency, no less. All this from shaky evidence of 1500 years
ago when, presumably, there was no Covid-19 … nor Vitamin D pills!
Unlike earthquakes, there is practically no limit to the potential energy of
supervolcanoes — the amount of heat inside the Earth is more than enough, if
released abruptly, to end all life on Earth 1000 times over. The irrational fear
HE is creating, not necessarily the SRM advocates, is to fantasize that SRM would
be deliberately used by man to effectuate something vaguely similar today.
Preposterous! It is precisely the opposite. Intelligent man will use the
same principles that are inherent in a volcano cooling the Earth, but in a benign
manner, leading to limited solar radiation reduction, and therefore to the cooling
of the surface of the Earth, in a far more controlled and therefore a far less
dangerous manner. Should we avoid taking advantage of the Sun’s thermonuclear
power by means of using a solar panel generating electricity because the “deadly”
Sun also emits enough power in a day to vaporize the entire planet Earth?
SRM injects aerosols or particulates, or gases that become such, high into the
atmosphere … which invariably produces cooler temperatures at the surface of the
Earth by the measured blocking of some of the energy of sunlight from contacting
and being absorbed by and warming that surface, the ONLY way that surface can be
warmed for our comfort given the nature of the rotissering Earth we dwell on.
Downwelling far infrared radiation emitted (or reflected?) by our tenuous
atmosphere, or the insignificant amounts of CO2 therein, warming the Earth below is
a pure pseudo-scientific concoction, also peddled by those same global warming
wackadoodles mentioned above. Such a haze in our atmosphere might produce warmer temperatures at high altitudes, but this is entirely irrelevant with regards to our weather/climate which, in the context we are discussing here, only refers to
surface conditions at much lower altitudes. That heat up there eventually makes it
to outer space. It NEVER comes down, appreciably, but always goes up. The gentle
cooling is thereby effectuated below. That’s how SRM works.
While cooling the earth now admittedly probably will entail few benefits, at
least it will absolutely not entail any risks, such as the ones Mr. Worrall
suggests in the articles he cites. The controlled, monitored reduction in sunlight
of SRM will not result in any photosynthetic losses nor any reduction in sunlight
that would otherwise have a beneficial effect on any form of life on earth because
it would be done in a way that such outcomes would be quite impossible. Nor is
there any evidence that such untoward consequences would happen.
The multi-trillion-dollar carbon dioxide demonization campaign to cool the
planet that is gripping our world today, peddled, I say again, by those same global
warming wackadoodles who are always attacking SRM, is probably the single greatest manifestation of “the madness of crowds” ever recorded in history. But the science behind SRM represents an utterly different approach to the “problem” of global warming. It is, in fact, as solid as any science ever was and has no elements
against which we need to preach fear. And it is wildly preferable for cooling the
Earth compared to that campaign. The ones running that campaign hate SRM because even they can see how it puts their hysteria to shame.
Admittedly, any SRM program will be run by government bureaucrats, which means
it will be run by idiots who will be extremely averse to shutting it down when it
has outgrown its usefulness. But that’s true of all government programs, bar none,
even the ones we must have to continue to exist (the police, the military, the
courts, etc.). This unfortunate consequence has nothing to do with the simple
science behind SRM.
Otherwise, the enormous advantages, safety, economy, and effectiveness of SRM in
cooling the globe can’t be overstated. And I say effectiveness not because I have
done all the calculations to prove the point, but because nature has already done
all that for us. No one can begin to count how many times we have seen the
introduction of a haze into the upper atmosphere (the form of SRM I am referring to
here), even under the wildly uncontrolled aegis of the random forces of nature,
resulting in the relatively short-term, relatively benign cooling of the Earth
below. If it worked under those uncontrolled conditions, never leading, except in
the worst of circumstances, to positive feedback and catastrophic, long-term
effects, it could hardly be possible that man couldn’t do a better job controlling
the process using modern technology.
You see, gravity is always at work. Whatever is keeping that haze up there
eventually succumbs to that gravity. The force holding it in suspension can’t be
on all the time as gravity is. And the haze, whatever it is, thus must eventually
fall back to Earth. And when it does, no more solar blocking. It’s self-limiting
and ultimately harmless.
David Solan
What guarantees do you offer to support the ‘harmless’ claim? Has it already been trialled and found to be harmless? Has it been used somewhere else and the data you can, obviously, provide will support your claims? No? Then your claims are equally balanced against the claims in the article and it would be sheer guesswork to pronounce it harmless before testing. I do not necessarily assume it would be catastrophic but if there were unintended consequences then they must be identified before widespread use.
Solar dimming would get in the way of the Dyson Sphere that humanity so desperately needs in order to build a truly advanced civilization.
The “greens” and all the other flakes of the climate cult just can’t restrain themselves from showing the rest of us “normies” that ya just can’t “fix stupid”. Over, over, and over again. Amazing bunch of ideological nitwits who continuously display how little they know of the planet and its natural workings. May they pass away and become the fertilizer for their brave dream, long before the rest of us need suffer from their rantings.
Would it not be relatively easy to study the effects of solar dimming on crop production? Growing trial plots in variable artificial shade vs no shade situations should show which condition produces the greater yield. It would seem to me that sunlight filtering with gauzy fabric should not be too difficult but clever experimenters might come up with better methods.
This should be done on major crops such as wheat, soy beans, corn, and rice, not biased on cooler weather crops like lettuce. While it would not be really cheap to assure a half acre or so of rice, etc. receives the same reduced sunlight as from some of the geo-engineering proposals, it would be considerably less expensive than trying the experiment on the entire planet, as well as considerably less expensive than any “green energy” project.