plan b from planet earth

Earth’s new canary in the mines: amphibians – foto by Smith

Be very very afraid.

There are three strikes against reducing global warming gases: China, India and the USA. If these three countries don’t reduce carbon emissions by a major factor, global warming continues at an unprecedented pace. And of course both China and India have stated they have NO intention of reducing toxic emissions – in fact both have stepped up their use of dirty coal.

And to be honest, the USA isn’t doing anything about gas reduction either. Neither are England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Mexico, etc on anon.

Before 2000, greenhouse gases were increasing at slightly less than 1% a year. Since 2000 when we decided we had to reduce them to save humanity, the released gases have increased almost 4 times to 3.5% a year. Way to go Earth guys.

So the earth scientists are going to plan B – geo-engineering the planet. Scientists who can’t even make a safe plastic bottle for babies are talking of manually altering the earth’s climate. These are the same people who produce anti-dizzy pills whose side effects include dizziness, anti-depression pills whose side effects include massive depression leading to suicide, and nuclear power plants at Three Mile Island that melt down. One of my favorite science triumphs is heroin – the scientists decided that opium and morphine were too addictive as pain killers so created heroin as a safe substitute – of course when they were done they discovered their non-addictive product was actually five times more addictive than opium.

Here are just a few of the things these same people are talking of trying:

“Injecting the air with particles to reflect sunlight

“Volcanic eruptions release huge amounts of sulphate particles into the upper atmosphere, where they reflect sunlight. After Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, sulphates reflected enough sunlight to cool the Earth by 0.5C for a year or two. The Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen suggested in 2006 that it may be possible to inject artificial sulphate particles into the upper atmosphere — the stratosphere. However, the idea does not address ocean acidification caused by rising CO2 levels. There may be side-effects such as acid rain and adverse effects on agriculture.

“Creating low clouds over the oceans

“Another variation on the theme of increasing the Earth’s albedo, or reflectivity to sunlight, is to pump water vapour into the air to stimulate cloud formation over the sea. John Latham of the United States National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado is working with Stephen Salter of Edinburgh University and Mike Smith at Leeds to atomise seawater to produce tiny droplets to form low-level maritime clouds that cover part of the oceanic surface. The only raw material is seawater and the process can be quickly turned off. The cloud cover would only affect the oceans, but still lower global temperatures.

“Fertilising the sea with iron filings

“This idea arises from the fact that the limiting factor in the multiplication of phytoplankton — tiny marine plants — is the lack of iron salts in the sea. When scientists add iron to “dead” areas of the sea, the result is a phytoplankton bloom which absorbs CO2. The hope is that carbon taken up by the microscopic plants will sink to deep layers of the ocean, and be taken out of circulation. Experiments support the idea, but blooms may be eaten by animals so carbon returns to the atmosphere as CO2.

“Mixing the deep water of the ocean

“The Earth scientist James Lovelock, working with Chris Rapley of the Science Museum in London, devised a plan to put giant tubes into the seas to take surface water rich in dissolved CO2 to lower depths where it will not surface. The idea is to take CO2 out of the short-term carbon cycle, cutting the gas in the atmosphere. Critics say it may bring carbon locked away in the deep ocean to the surface.

“Giant mirrors in space

“Some scientists suggest it would be possible to deflect sunlight with a giant mirror or a fleet of small mirrors between the Earth and the Sun. The scheme would be costly and prompt debate over who controls it. Many scientists see it as contrary to the idea of working with the Earth’s systems.”

This is from alternet.org/environment/116743/are_%27hail_mary%27_technological_solutions_our_only_hope_to_prevent_disastrous_climate_change/?page=2

Earth’s number 1 polluter- foto by Smith