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150 Comments
- tman84, on 06/25/2008, -7/+36Ever think that man trying to interfere with natural climate change could be damaging to the climate?
- stephenhacking, on 06/25/2008, -7/+24Also if there is to much Sulpher in the atmosphere it would mix with the moisture in the clouds forming acid rain which is not good.
- ordig, on 06/25/2008, -13/+30Isn't SO2 super toxic? That doesn't sound like a good idea. I'm sure we release enough of it into the atmosphere as it is.
Besides, It's pretty stupid to base a theory on a computer simulation. - zyl0x, on 06/25/2008, -7/+23This is probably one of the dumbest ideas ever.
"Hey, we've been putting too much ***** into the air. I know! Let's put more ***** in the air! That HAS to work."
How about we just cut back on emissions and start using all the perfectly clean and free energy literally just lying around us (solar, wind, tidal)? - ColorBlind, on 06/25/2008, -4/+19Let's just blow the earth up. Current problems solved.
- rawg, on 06/25/2008, -1/+16Isn't this how they "burned the sky" in the Matrix forcing the machines to enslave humans to generate power?
- directrix13, on 06/25/2008, -3/+18Yeah, they should release it into the atmosphere and then base a theory off that.
- Stormwern, on 06/25/2008, -0/+8There are no clouds in the stratosphere, and also very little wind. In theory it should stay there but who knows.
- minorthreat, on 06/25/2008, -2/+9"Besides, It's pretty stupid to base a theory on a computer simulation."
How do you think they design the jet wings? Computer simulation and a wind tunnel?
tire stability, skyscraper design, bridge stress testing, earthquakes, tsunami's, hurricane predition.... The list could go on for days.. - inactive, on 06/25/2008, -2/+9I think shoving ***** in the air to counter act one supposed problem will probably lead to another. I'm thinking we don't need to move to Zion just because we created Dark Sky, there's no robot menace here.
- IMJGaltstill, on 06/25/2008, -4/+10Anthropogenic global warming is based on a series of computer simulations is it not?
- ShiftAWS, on 06/25/2008, -4/+9So we clean up all the crap with more crap... Craptastic
- chicken101, on 06/25/2008, -0/+5This plan would probably kill a lot of people. It is toxic itself, and with certain catalysts (such as No2) makes sulfuric acid. That's bad news.
- relic180, on 06/25/2008, -1/+6I thought the idea to build a "sun-shade" out in space a few million miles from the earth was pretty cool. Probably impractical, but cool.
- zyl0x, on 06/25/2008, -0/+5Almost everyone, one way or the other.
- Stormwern, on 06/25/2008, -0/+5It might not be enough to stop using fossil fuels at this point, we don't know yet.
- Altotus, on 06/25/2008, -2/+7Not quite. Anthropogenic global warming is empirically measurable and observed (and, its not all due to CO2). Forecasting the future outcome of it is based on computer simulations.
- cjdevlin, on 06/25/2008, -0/+5What if it the compuer simulation was based on measured data:
(FTA) The stratospheric sulfate experiment has already had its proof of concept — courtesy of planet Earth... Pinatubo's eruption didn't just unleash huge mud slides and lava flows; it also fired an ash stream 22 miles into the air, injecting 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere... The climatic effect of this volcanic eruption was rapid, dramatic, and planetary in scale. In a year, the global average temperature declined by half a degree Celsius, and researchers observed less summer melt atop the Greenland ice sheet.
Caldeira is talking about a smaller scale, more direct form of intervention that "Mother Earth" has used for her entire existence. - Altotus, on 06/25/2008, -0/+5Perhaps that's why it would be so effective at helping the environment.
- Altotus, on 06/25/2008, -1/+6The earth will take care of itself. If global warming is anthropogenic and the result hazardous to mankind, then it's a self-regulating phenomenon. Climate becomes unsuitable for human life, humans die, nature corrects. I don't see what the problem is. It's not like war, famine, pestilence are anything new and we're eventually going to run out of space / food for people anyway. No better time than the present.
- SOS84, on 06/25/2008, -1/+5In theory, it sounds good but then one must remember Merton's law of unforeseen consequences. Technological solutions to environmental problems are nothing new and often times result in more severe conditions. SO2 is a toxin and will very likely cause a significant increase in acid rain and acid deposition in soils. Increases soil acidity leads to enhanced rates of carbon loss and thusly enhanced CO2 emissions. This plan is short sighted to say the least and very dangerous. The resulting conditions would certainly require a significant program to mitigate their negative effects likely negating any positives produced on the global warming front while putting world food stocks in further jeopardy.
- billricardi, on 06/25/2008, -6/+10To be frank, this isn't as stupid as some of you are making it out to be. Yes, we all know that we have to use more renewable energy. Yes, we all understand that cutting carbon by more than half in the next 35 years is required in order to keep things under control. Geo-engineering is an ADDITIONAL measure, not a magic bullet!
If I may expand on what the article mentions, how do you think that China and India are going to react when the rest of the world says: 'Uhhh, sorry, we have to pause your skyrocketing economy and you need to cut your carbon production by 60 percent.'? I expect a resounding: '***** you!' in response. America and Europe had their coal-and-oil burning sprees to get to where they are, the Far East isn't going to give up their cheap and dirty era of growth because some white devils say so (I say this as a white devil myself, mind you).
So before we turn this into a morality tale, let the scientists do their ***** and write some more papers. They called the people who created industrial scrubbers and sewage treatments with volatile chemicals crazy too. But they were right, the panicked public was wrong, and we have a cleaner world with less disease because of it. These days, chemical science and geo-engineering has as much a place in environmentalism as reusing your supermarket bags and planting trees. - darkened, on 06/25/2008, -1/+5Honestly, i'm not scared of "global warming" but i am scared of man attempting to geo-engineer a planet that has existed for 4 billion+ years with no issues. Save that for mars where if they fail, i'm not living on it as our oxygen becomes sulfur dioxide instead.
- cheezintern, on 06/25/2008, -2/+6The fish in the dead lakes of the Adirondacks def don't like acid rain.
- inactive, on 06/25/2008, -4/+8First of all, how do we know this isn't a natural climate change? ***** with the earth's climate seems like a very very bad idea just waiting to blow up in our face.
- shadowman99, on 06/25/2008, -2/+6Many people, including my wife, are allergic to sulfides. She cannot use sulfate based medicines or she will have a life threatening reaction. SLS based shampoos make her skin break out and her hair to fall out. She needs to read food labels because sulfates are often used as preservatives. If you know anyone with a wheat or glutin allergy you have an idea of how my wife has had to keep a constant guard up to prevent accidental exposure.
Saturate the atmospere with sulfur dioxide and you'll find out the very hard way that many people share her problem and don't know it.
The earth's atmosphere is not a laboratory. - IPublius, on 06/25/2008, -7/+11How about if we just let the Earth do its thing as it appears to be and stop with all of the global warming hype. We haven't seen a global temp increase in ten years and now things are actually getting colder. Maybe we should be worrying about global cooling instead.
- jrobh, on 06/25/2008, -0/+4it might not be enough for elimination of fossil fuels, but even a reduction would still be pretty helpful.
- wizbor, on 06/25/2008, -1/+5Well if its such a good idea why don't the try it on Venus first. If they can cool it off a bit maybe we can colonize it. Oh wait I got a better idea, they found ice on Mars, lets send all our SUV's there and jack up the CO2, heat that baby up, it needs some greenhouse gas. Mars be a cool place to be from.
- krnldmp, on 06/25/2008, -0/+4I'd like to think that the planet needs every bit of energy it gets from the sun and does not need more gasses pumped into the atomosphere to correct for other gasses we have pumped into the atmosphere. Start doing ***** like that and eventually you get cornered at a level of complexity impossible to control, maybe even immediately. It might be okay to try fildding like that with isolated economic and legal systems, for example, because when it breaks down someone in some other part of the world is going to survive. Do it with the planet and you're asking for extinction. Why not taper down carbon emissions and turn to solar energy, which only has as further complication the tendency to shift money out of the hands of unconcerned people who have had it for a very long time, promoting legitimacy and competition in the business.
- allengeer, on 06/25/2008, -1/+4computer simiulation, and several several test wings... there is no test atmosphere... there is no UAT atmosphere. We have a single production environment atmostphere.
- jgzman, on 06/25/2008, -0/+3See my reply above: In short, most of the world has not yet reached the level of technology where they can think about 'green power.' China, for example, is about to hit the industrial revolution. There is NOTHING we can (or should) do to prevent that, and the amount of polution they will put out will be immense.
Unless we are willing to just ship them absolutely massive piles of windmills, solar panels and tidal generators, they will have no option but to do it the old fashioned way. - blast_flame, on 06/25/2008, -0/+3Tackled on page 3 of the article.
- GeorgeStone2, on 06/25/2008, -1/+4Where do you live?
Because I can't say that I step out the door every morning and say "Oh my, how the global warming is flairing up.. Better put on my tinfoil hat"
We had snow, about 5 inches for the first time in years the other month. And right now it's still a little cold out for this time of year.
So yeah. Unaffected.
Only way it has affected me is the rise in fuel prices so that the government can claim they're "Being green".
Being green != bullying people off of the roads. - diggduggjoe, on 06/25/2008, -0/+3I would have to say "*****, NO!"
Climate models are crude and I do not trust them to predict global warming, so I would not trust them with accurate results for these types of projects. SO2 promotes acid rain, does it not? - PhantomRogue, on 06/25/2008, -2/+5No, there is no difference at all. One is a change we INTENTIONALLY make, the other is an effect from human evolution. Big difference there.
The Environment will fix itself, all we need to do is curb emissions. As long as we don't go around trying to control her or drop nuclear bombs on her (her being Mother Nature), she will take care of the rest. - GeorgeStone2, on 06/25/2008, -1/+4Heh. It's funny.
I read through it after I typed and noticed the mistakes.
Then I wondered if the following would happen if I left it:
Someone would correct me
or
Someone would post the xkcd comic.
Either way I see i'm at -4 yet 4 people haven't come forward and told me how it affects them. In effect proving my point that global warming just doesn't cause any of us any problems and never has.. - allengeer, on 06/25/2008, -0/+3wow, that solution reminds me of what a friend once told me to do after i severely burnt myself
"pee on it". Now it may be that this is the perfect solution to a temporary problem. Unfortunately, most humans don't look down the line 100-500-1000 years and they suggest solutions where the long-term (which is really short term on a geological scale) hasn't really been considered.
The fact of the matter is that this may work, but you really have no system to test any of these theories out on. You dont have a laboratory earth that you can go inject whatever chemicals into its atmosphere and see what happens, you just have the one with very real consequences to what you do. I see no legit way to accurately test any sort of large scale atmosphere engineering.
So seeing as how there is no way to test this theory out, we can only look from past experience. One of the longest surviving forms of life on this planet is the plant. It uses the sun for its energy. Maybe we should too, instead of using the plants ancestors. I mean its remarkably stupid of human beings. . . Look around you... the answer is right in your face. You need two things. Power generation and Power Storage. Solar Power Generation is well on its way. Throw a couple tens of billion dollars at power storage and solar plants now, invest in this, we have the most technical/science/research saavy nation in the world, and we'll get some real national security.
The kind that doesn't wholely depend on the resources of others. - BufordT, on 06/25/2008, -1/+4There's a big difference between putting a toxic pollutant into the atmosphere we all have to use and testing a jet wing. Not to mention you are saying they use a wind tunnel, which adds a physical element to the test. This makes the test based on some physical results, not just a computer simulation. Also, with tires, skyscrapers, and bridges, they make physical models or replicas to test their designs.
Earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes are hardly predictable, precursors such as tremors (for earthquakes), earthquakes or shelf movement (for tsunamis), and tropical storms (for hurricanes) are observed and then warnings may be issued. But the computer forecast models for these events are only best guesses, and are by no means able to pin the events to a certain date or time. They are also not able to predict an outcome of the event, such as magnitude or wave height. - inactive, on 06/25/2008, -0/+3Eugenics on a large scale - intended or not
- ninepointfive, on 06/25/2008, -0/+2Yeah... if you count readings taken from temperature sensors occupying space behind the exhaust of AC condensers. Also parking lots and asphalts in cities tend to warm up the area much more than grasslands and forest.
- Scanner, on 06/25/2008, -0/+2Right, they design, build and TEST the theory in a mini environment. The key here is they TEST it before applying it to a flying craft.
How do you test dumping tons of SO2 into the atmosphere? - blast_flame, on 06/25/2008, -1/+3The problem is "cut back" is a euphemism for decrease human wealth and happiness. Whatever solution we choose should not do that.
- bneuma, on 06/25/2008, -0/+2It's sounds like many of you did not read the article, where they discuss acid rain and other potential side effects of this idea.
Even if this is just a "natural temperature cycle" as many of you claim, complete melting of the polar ice caps and Greenland presents many, many problems for all of us. It would be ridiculous if scientists WEREN'T looking in to ways to halt this.
Let's face it, side effects of a 20 ft increase in sea level would have as many (if not more) side effects that throwing some reflective particles in the atmosphere. - hysterix, on 06/25/2008, -0/+2Did anyone else other than me upon reading this article get the scene in their head from the animatrix where the political idiots of the time are shaking hands signing away all humans futures, followed by the scene where planes are dumping this black soot into the sky to block the sun?
A little creepy isn't it?
I say, let the earth fix it's self, we will only do more harm to the earth and ourselves if this plan is followed through. - Duositex, on 06/25/2008, -0/+2Didn't anyone see the highlander movies? Remember his great gift to mankind? The enormous shield around the earth?
- phraud, on 06/25/2008, -4/+6Note to humans: Stop trying to change the planet in dramatic ways. It never works out the way you think it will. There will always be unforeseen consequences. Feel free to cut back on specific things that we're doing to harm the environment, but don't try to bandaid them with something else. These ideas always fail.
- enri, on 06/25/2008, -0/+2Yes, this would cool the earth. It would also dim the earth, reducing crop yields and the effectiveness of solar energy.
- emjaymj, on 06/25/2008, -0/+2Carbon dioxide is a source of acid rain as well, dissolving in water droplets to form carbonic acid...
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