A way to stop global warming (if we want)

Instapundit links to an article by sci-fi guy Gregory Benford on how to thwart global warming:

He suggests suspension of tiny, harmless particles (sized at one-third of a micron) at about 80,000 feet up in the stratosphere. These particles could be composed of diatomaceous earth. "That's silicon dioxide, which is chemically inert, cheap as earth, and readily crushable to the size we want," Benford says. This could initially be tested, he says, over the Arctic, where warming is already considerable and where few human beings live. Arctic atmospheric circulation patterns would mostly confine the deployed particles around the North Pole. An initial experiment could occur north of 70 degrees latitude, over the Arctic Sea and outside national boundaries. "The fact that such an experiment is reversible is just as important as the fact that it's regional," says Benford.

Is Benford's proposal realistic? According to Ken Caldeira, a leading climate scientist at Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, "It appears as if any small particle would do the trick in the necessary quantities. I've done a number of computer simulations of what the climate response would be of reflecting sunlight, and all of them indicate that it would work quite well." He adds, "I wouldn't look to these geoengineering schemes as part of normal policy response, but if bad things start to happen quickly, then people will demand something be done quickly."

Fellow MuNu-er Stephen Macklin over at Hold The Mayo says that Benford's proposal will never happen, even if it is a great idea (my emphasis):

Even if Benford's idea worked and it managed to stop climate change (whether you believe it to be a natural or man-made phenomena) and was otherwise benign to the environment and was as relatively cheap and easy as he suggests, it will never happen.

The Global Warming religion is not about the temperature of the planet, ocean levels, melting ice caps and stranded polar bears. Global warming is about control. It is about one group of people acquiring the power to tell the rest of us how to live our lives. An idea that prevents the climate from warming without that transfer of political power is dead on arrival.

Whatever you think of Benford's plan, I highly recommend his 1980 novel Timescape. Earth faces ecological armageddon, but a group of scientists discover how to send a message back in time to hopefully prevent the coming catastrophe. Excellent hard science fiction, and Delaware's own DuPont gets a mention.

Posted by Hube at February 18, 2007 01:00 PM | TrackBack