I watched this story being discussed yesterday on the BBC news.
Giant engineering schemes to reflect sunlight or suck carbon dioxide from the air could be the only way to save the Earth from runaway global warming, according to a group of leading scientists. But they say that these schemes could have their own catastrophic consequences, such as disrupting rainfall patterns, and should be deployed only as a last resort if attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fail.
The chap being interviewed was asked about unintended consequences and reasonably pointed out that yes, there could be.
Damn right there could be. Some time between 535 – 542 AD, much of the world experienced what we would now call a nuclear winter. Various historical records point to an eruption in Indonesia – probably Krakatoa. For around eighteen months, the skies were dark and crops failed.
We know what happened during such cooling, so this idea is downright dangerous:
The Royal Society, a fellowship of 1,400 of the world’s most eminent scientists, published a report yesterday on the feasibility and possible dangers of technologies for cooling down the Earth, known as geoengineering. The ideas include artificial trees that draw CO2 from the air and mimicking volcanoes by spraying sulphate particles a few miles above the Earth to deflect the Sun’s rays. The most far-fetched would would be to launch trillions of small mirrors into space to act as a sunshield.
Given that the consequences could be massive famine following crop failures the idea should be rejected out of hand. Not least because how would we reverse the mechanism?
Climate is an intricate mechanism that we do not fully understand – despite the AGW alarmists parroting the absurd “science is sorted” line. Like any intricate mechanism, poking about has unintended consequences – some of which are entirely predictable based upon historical records.
And how about this idea for creating mass famine?
A far cheaper solution would be a fleet of 1,500 ships that would suck up seawater and spray it out of tall funnels to create sun-reflecting clouds. However, the report said that these clouds could disrupt rainfall patterns and result in mass starvation in countries dependent on the monsoon.
Yet, despite the catastrophic effects of such ideas if put into practice…
The panel of 12 scientists who produced the report concluded that all these approaches were theoretically possible and, despite the potential side-effects, should be explored with a view to holding trials.
They called for a £100 million annual global research fund to study geoengineering technologies and said that Britain should contribute £10 million a year, ten times the amount being spent now on such research.
There you have it – our tax pounds need to be spent on a mad idea that will create famine and possibly a nuclear winter. I do hope you have got a decent winter coat – you will need it.
And, while the watermelons like to trumpet the idea that we are causing runaway warming, the reality is that climate has changed before and will again. The climate is not static and it is naïve to assert that it is.
So, while it makes sense to look for alternatives to fossil fuels and to reduce waste, messing about with the climate does not.
“a fellowship of 1,400 of the world’s most eminent scientists”
Come on! 1,400 of the world’s most eminent scientists, each one intimately involved in compiling the report, each one signing off the final draft, who wouldn’t listen to these guys? Bring on the Walker’s Salt and Funneling Ships.
We are in the grips of a mass delusion. Politicians and anyone in the public domain have to toe the global warming line at the risk of their careers being ended by attacks from the Church of Man Made Climate Change. Only a few mavericks outside the mainstream of the media and political discourse are free enough to question whether the emperor has any clothes.
It is similar to the medieval church – the proponents of AGW can decree what is true and what is not, can ‘absolve’ you of your carbon sins (for a fee of course), persecute those who argue that reality does not fit with their theories and levy taxes for the greater good (while providing a good living for themselves).
Fortunately, while the Green madness is affecting all our lives, the public is rather two faced about these things. They profess agreement in public, and then in private go off and do things exactly as they have before. Fly off on holiday, drive their cars all over the place, live profligate lives (in carbon terms). So the likelihood of any targets ever being met for CO2 reduction is zero. Any politician who enacts laws actually criminalising or heavily taxing so called polluting behaviour will soon find the public’s real feelings on Global Warming at the ballot box. People are all in favour of ‘green’ policies as long as they don’t cost them money or make them change their lifestyles. So any damage to the economy will be limited.
I feel that the truth about ‘Global Warming’ will become evident over time (that there is no link between CO2 emissions and temperature and that the world may actually be cooling from recent highs) and that the public will come to ridicule and shun people who continue to propound AGW views and policies in the face of the evidence in front of them.
Can’t come soon enough. I can remember people telling us we were heading for a new ice age about thirty years ago. What happened to them? Oh, yeah, it’s the same people, just a different bandwagon.