[Graeme]

How to Cool the Planet

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') small group of prominent scientists held three private dinners at a posh San Francisco restaurant in December 2008. Barack Obama had just won the White House promising, among other things, federal action to combat climate change—a complex but well documented problem becoming more urgent by the month. The dinners were called to weigh a possible new weapon against global warming that goes by the clunky name of "geoengineering."

In attendance was Ken Caldeira, a climate modeler with the Carnegie Institution for Science who also happens to explain science better than most of his peers. He articulated a central conundrum for the group: "If you are pushed against the wall in a Senate meeting room and asked what you can do to cool off the planet in a hurry, what do you say?"

[davep]

Geoengineering is just taking the 'deal with the symptoms' Engineering mentality further. And we will never understand enough to make it work on a global scale.

Plant more trees, including perennial crops rather than annual ones, while we still have time. Stop buying crap.

Job done.

[Graeme]

My immediate response to your comment is that if we do not reduce carbon emissions below 350ppm during the next 10 years, we will then have no choice but to use geoengineering techniques (plural). That's why they are being talked about now so we can prepare for such an eventuality.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '
')Plant more trees, including perennial crops rather than annual ones, while we still have time. Stop buying crap.

Job done.

[americandream]

You're a nutter mate.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'M')y immediate response to your comment is that if we do not reduce carbon emissions below 350ppm during the next 10 years, we will then have no choice but to use geoengineering techniques (plural). That's why they are being talked about now so we can prepare for such an eventuality.

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '
')Plant more trees, including perennial crops rather than annual ones, while we still have time. Stop buying crap.

Job done.

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'M')y immediate response to your comment is that if we do not reduce carbon emissions below 350ppm during the next 10 years, we will then have no choice but to use geoengineering techniques (plural). That's why they are being talked about now so we can prepare for such an eventuality.

[americandream]

There's only one thing left for us to do. Revolution! Eat, breathe, sleep and live Revolutionary change. Capitalism is a public health risk. Make that your daily mantra and try to convince as many as you can. Only a complete removal of all forms of private ownership will finally address it's effects. Break the chains from Walmart/mass consumerism to the sweatshops. All this pissing about by old men who are almost dead simply distracts us from the inevitable.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'M')y immediate response to your comment is that if we do not reduce carbon emissions below 350ppm during the next 10 years, we will then have no choice but to use geoengineering techniques (plural). That's why they are being talked about now so we can prepare for such an eventuality.

[ian807]

There, fixed that title for you.

Before you start mucking about with geo-engineering the temperature, you'd better make damn sure you can UN-muck it or we're all seriously mucked!

What this means is:

1) Thousands of gyroscopically positionable mirrors in space allowing you to control sunlight = Good!

2) Planting oodles of trees everywhere we can do distribute the heat that we do have = "Well, OK, it'll work for most of the planet as long as you don't plant trees that are disease vectors for other organisms."

2) Throwing thousands of tons of [Insert favorite substance here] into the atmosphere/Ocean/Volcanoes and hoping it works and not having a clue as to the knock-on effects down the road = BAD, BAD, BAD.

Cheers!

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '
')
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'S')top buying crap? And what to buy instead? And what difference will it make, ecologically speaking, since money are going to leave you one way or another ?

[Graeme]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'M')y immediate response to your comment is that if we do not reduce carbon emissions below 350ppm during the next 10 years, we will then have no choice but to use geoengineering techniques (plural). That's why they are being talked about now so we can prepare for such an eventuality.

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'M')y immediate response to your comment is that if we do not reduce carbon emissions below 350ppm during the next 10 years, we will then have no choice but to use geoengineering techniques (plural). That's why they are being talked about now so we can prepare for such an eventuality.

[Graeme]

OK, if you're talking about reforestation, then this is obviously one "geoengineering" technique that will work. It's hapening in China.

I don't think that making biochar will be dismissed as a "technofix".

I just saw this:

New CO2 'Scrubber' from Ingredient in Hair Conditioners

[timmac]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'T')here's only one thing left for us to do. Revolution! Eat, breathe, sleep and live Revolutionary change. Capitalism is a public health risk. Make that your daily mantra and try to convince as many as you can. Only a complete removal of all forms of private ownership will finally address it's effects. Break the chains from Walmart/mass consumerism to the sweatshops. All this pissing about by old men who are almost dead simply distracts us from the inevitable.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('timmac', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'T')here's only one thing left for us to do. Revolution! Eat, breathe, sleep and live Revolutionary change. Capitalism is a public health risk. Make that your daily mantra and try to convince as many as you can. Only a complete removal of all forms of private ownership will finally address it's effects. Break the chains from Walmart/mass consumerism to the sweatshops. All this pissing about by old men who are almost dead simply distracts us from the inevitable.

[americandream]

All the bio-charring mirrors in the clouds will not make one iota of a difference whilst overfed maggots induce us to buy their latest 4 wheeled gas guzzling sex symbol and to think otherwise is to fall RIGHT into their trap.

I told a friend way back when the Rio Conference was the latest planet saving kumbaya and I'll say it again, "ya ain't gonna change fickall unless you get rid of the system of profit today, regret tomorrow." You don't need a campus load of phd's to tell ya that.

We had nothing to celebrate when the USSR collapsed. We simply lost the option to jettison fat catterism for the sort of modest social organisation that makes further life on this planet feasible for a species of 6 billion resource guzzlers (and all the nano candy bars and oil from sewage does not alter the fact that our demands of this planet are much, much more than this or that narrrow panacea).

Now we have to start from scratch again and we've only one option....

Revolution!!!