"The Last Green Taboo: Engineering the Planet"

“Geo-engineering” sounds like a bland and technical term but it is actually a Messianic movement to save the world from global warming, through dust and iron and thousands of tiny mirrors in space. It is also the last green taboo.

Environmentalists instinctively do not want to discuss it. The wider public instinctively thinks it is mad. But now, the taboo has been breached. James Lovelock, one of the founding fathers of modern environmentalism, proposed a way to slash global warming without cutting back on a single fossil fuel.

“Geo-engineers” believe man should consciously change the planet’s environment, using technology, to counter the effects of global warming.

They are like a chef who realizes she has accidentally put in too much cayenne, so reaches for lashings of oregano to balance it out, only this time the recipe is the atmosphere of the planet Earth. Ken Caldeira, a geo-engineering expert at the Carnegie Institute, says: “In effect, we’re already engineering the climate by emitting so many greenhouse gasses. We just don’t want to admit it. You can argue that the only reason difference between what we’re doing today and what geo-engineering advocates are proposing is a matter of intention. And frankly, the atmosphere doesn’t care about what’s going on in our heads.”

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/06/4364/

I don't want anyone, especially the US army, tinkering with the atomosphere. (Which, by the way, I think they are doing at the moment...call me paranoid.

Haven't we done enough damage with GM foods? If we're going to act like Gods, we have to get a whole hell of a lot better at it first.

from different countries, not the military.

"I don't want anyone, especially the US army, tinkering with the atomosphere. (Which, by the way, I think they are doing at the moment...call me paranoid."

This article never mentions the Army. Why would you think they'd have anything to do with it? You aren't listening to those "chemtrail" whackos, are you? :)

The reality is that we're already doing this whether we mean to or not--the question is whether we want to control it, and if we can make it work to our advantage.

"Haven't we done enough damage with GM foods?"

Damage? What damage? Contrary to what some people would have you believe, no one has ever come up with scientific evidence that genetically modified food is harmful.

GM food is harmful...I can't eat GM corn, and everything is GM. Screws up my blood sugar big time, even corn starch, and the damn stuff is in everything.

As for why I don't want the army involved? They will weaponise everything, including weather control. No.

Again, I repeat: no one has produced scientific evidence that GM food is harmful. I'm sorry that you have issues with corn, but any scientist will tell you that one case doesn't constitute proof.

And yet again, you're the only person mentioning the Army. Where do you think the Army comes into this? Also, "weather control" is impossible. Influencing the weather, yes, controlling it, big no.

I know it happens. However, I can eat corn grown from heritage stock. I checked. I can eat some corn, and not others...and the stuff that is processed is almost always GM.

The Pentagon has a couple of interesting bits in their pockets. Mind control experiments at McGill and other places led to the current torture techniques used by the US in places like Guantanamo. I'm using 'army' as a short cut. More technically, it's the US military-industrial complex. If there is a way to alter anything, the Pentagon will use it as a weapon, and what more complete way to control the world than to control the weather.

The US has never been unwilling to experiment on a large scale, nor to use human guinea pigs. That's a very dangerous thing when you're working with a very large, but essentially closed, system.

look like morans. :P

Someone's been reading too many comics. What would it take to build this thing, in terms of raw materials and in terms of fuels?

If we're going to do something on such a big scale, why not research and invest in an energy source that doesn't f*** up our climate? Huh? :shrug:

Some of the methods they outlined may be a bit dubious, but there are other alternatives which are quite practicable, such as dropping a large cloud of an easily ionized metal powder between the Earth and the sun to absorb some of the sunlight's intensity. This isn't proposed as an alternative to eliminating greenhouse gases, but as a way to neutralize the effects of the excess already present. These things can be done--we just think that they can't.

The effort and expense of doing this is more wisely invested in renewable energy resources that are a) renewable indefinitely and b) not detrimental to the environment via regular old pollution.

Have you NO sense of decency, at long last, sir? Have you left no sense of decency?

:evilgrin:

The problem with humans is that it's always somebody else's population we think should be controled.

And if that's not bad enough, when nature intervenes somewhere and people start dying in resource wars and famines, the people who are consuming most of those resources look away like it's not their problem.

If nature was just, the first people who would suffer global warming would be us -- the fossil fuel energy hogs of the world.

Australia has the hightest per capita co2 output, and they seem to be the ones hardest hit so far. So maybe there is some justice in the world...

> The problem with humans is that it's always somebody else's population
> we think should be controled.
>
> And if that's not bad enough, when nature intervenes somewhere and people
> start dying in resource wars and famines, the people who are consuming most
> of those resources look away like it's not their problem.

... is that you're both right and wrong: it *is* always "someone else's
population" that needs to be reduced but when nature "intervenes" to trim
the balance again, what happens? The "over-consumers" rush aid to the
victims and so prevent nature reaching equilibrium again ...

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Never has been, never will be. :shrug:

humans have been engineering the planet since about the start of the industrial revolution. The problems we face are largely the result of our denial about our engineering. Saying "we shouldn't engineer the planet" has the unfortunate effect of continuing our denial. We can either attempt to take some responsibility and control over the process, or... not.

Go ahead, flame me.

And add even more CO2 to the atmosphere?

:evilgrin:

(FWIW, I think it is totally wrong but I'm not in the mood to argue
at the moment.)

:rofl:

By pumping large amounts of GHG's into the atmosphere, we're changing the planet, albeit unintentionally (so it's not exactly engineering, is it?)

By attempting to cut the production of GHG's, the hope is that we can change the current course of the planet (hopefully for the better) but we're not exactly engineering it in that case either.

The article points out:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/334444_hari07.html

And it's more smoke and mirrors.

Like "Carbon Sequestration," and "Carbon Trading"

"We're already engineering the planet" is the sickest excuse that could possibly be offered...

Sulphur "smoke" and orbiting mirrors.

I'm glad to see the author of that article has a good grasp of the Law of Unintended Consequences. I especially liked this line: "they sound just plausible enough to join denialism as another hallucinatory excuse to do nothing while the planet boils."

Estamos tan jodidos!