Article

2005-06-28 Home Front: Tech

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-06-28 10:14|| || Front Page|| [7 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 For example, a tiny amount of obscuration can go a long way. One great big Russian spaceship with an extra stage just for "polluting" the high atmosphere, could cover a large area with a thin layer of 'smoke'. There doesn't have to be just one layer, either, several layers multiply the effects. Also, lateral diffusion isn't too much of a problem, even though you want concentration around the equator--because it still obscures, but in the higher latitudes. Best of all, you have a very powerful ally in the Earth itself, which tries to create a "cooler" equilibrium. The whole project can be inexpensive if you just shoot for incremental change, and not try and brute force a five degree drop in temperature overnight.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-06-28 10:32|| 2005-06-28 10:32|| Front Page Top

#2 Consider a more bio-friendly approach: Perhaps we could collect the dung from male cattle and distribute that in a ring above the tropics. Sort of symbolic of the never-ending cycle of global warming bullshit.

Posted by Tom 2005-06-28 11:00|| 2005-06-28 11:00|| Front Page Top

#3 And the price tag would knock the socks off even a big-budget agency like NASA: $6 trillion to $200 trillion for the particle approach. Deploying tiny spacecraft would come at a relative bargain: a mere $500 billion tops.

That's okay - the Americans can easily afford this.

Posted by Kofi Annan 2005-06-28 11:01|| 2005-06-28 11:01|| Front Page Top

#4 Much easier to just spread rust (iron oxide) in some of the southern seas in the summer. Acts like fertilizer and would eat up lots and lots of CO2.

(Gov even has a plan to do it if things ever got rough.)

Posted by 3dc 2005-06-28 11:13|| 2005-06-28 11:13|| Front Page Top

#5 This reminded me of a book I read about 20 years ago... Check out Rings of Ice Piers Anthony's first book:

The idea behind this story is an interesting one, but you can tell this is his first novel. The idea is that a large comet(s) are exploded and diverted in such a way as to bring some additional rain to Earth. The ill conceived plan goes drastically wrong, and the earth is once again deluged with non-stop rain. Cilivization and the environment break down, and Anthony's band of misfits - being led by a man with a vision in a Winnebago - try to survive.

Posted by CrazyFool 2005-06-28 11:55|| 2005-06-28 11:55|| Front Page Top

#6 Stupid idea. And unnecessary besides.

Posted by mojo">mojo 2005-06-28 12:01|| 2005-06-28 12:01|| Front Page Top

#7 Uuuhhhh, I can smell the grant money.

Posted by gromgoru 2005-06-28 12:05|| 2005-06-28 12:05|| Front Page Top

#8 Seems like a bad idea. What happens if they've done their math wrong and we end up knocking twenty degrees off the Earth's mean temperature? Planetary engineering seems to be too risky for us at our present stage of development.

Posted by Captain Pedantic 2005-06-28 12:07|| 2005-06-28 12:07|| Front Page Top

#9 Stupidist idea I've heard in a long time. It would be much better to build solar satelites to suck up that great solar power up there and get us off of the oil economy. If we're gonna spend a ton of money we might as well get other benefits out of it.

Posted by RJ Schwarz 2005-06-28 12:22|| 2005-06-28 12:22|| Front Page Top

#10 Excuse my phrench, but it has to be said:

These f*cking morons have far too much time on their hands. And not two brain cells to rub together among them.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2005-06-28 14:24|| 2005-06-28 14:24|| Front Page Top

#11 I say give it a try, because if it works it'll really piss off the Kyoto wackos, and be good for my lawn as well.

Posted by Spacemuppet 2005-06-28 15:00|| 2005-06-28 15:00|| Front Page Top

#12 Handing out tins of reflective metal paint so people could paint their roofs and any other surface would be at least as effective and a hell of a lot cheaper. Note, that as Kyoto is now costing in the trillions, only alternatives that cost more are proposed, in order to make Kyoto look like a bargain.

Posted by phil_b 2005-06-28 17:43|| 2005-06-28 17:43|| Front Page Top

#13 An expenditure of $600 trillion would require the literal enslavement of most of the world's population for several generations, an eco-activist's dream come true.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-06-28 21:40|| 2005-06-28 21:40|| Front Page Top

#14 perhaps they could use Pepsi cans, a la "Twister"

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-06-28 21:44|| 2005-06-28 21:44|| Front Page Top

#15 I've been thinking more about my original proposition, and I think I could improve on it considerably. While ordinary persistant smoke is good at obscuration, if it was a very fine dust, literally a specially made "nano-dust", the effect could be much stronger. That is, particles that are *mirrored* on one side, the "light" side that points up. Instead of diffusing the light, they would reflect a lot of it back into space, which is far more efficient at reducing radiation getting through the atmosphere.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-06-28 22:28|| 2005-06-28 22:28|| Front Page Top

00:09 Lord Waldemart
23:52 Jennie Taliaferro
23:48 JosephMendiola
23:35 Jennie Taliaferro
23:32 Jennie Taliaferro
23:22 Silentbrick
23:18 Red Lief
23:17 Captain America
23:16 Jan
22:45 Frank G
22:44 Jan
22:36 Sock Puppet 0â Doom
22:35 Sock Puppet 0â Doom
22:32 Silentbrick
22:32 Rex Mundi
22:28 Anonymoose
22:18 Spock
22:14 Frank G
22:05 WITT
22:04 Diabolo Guapo
22:04 Phil Fraering
22:03 Atomic Conspiracy
21:58 Red Dog
21:57 Frank G