A solution worse than the symptom?

[SteamWake]

Regardless of where you stand on the global warming debate this just seems like a bad bad idea.

Nathan Myhrvold also thinks that he has found a cheap and reliable way to solve global warming, which does not involve upending and perhaps destroying the world's economy.

The global warming solution proposed by Nathan Myhvold involves
running a hose up to the stratosphere with balloons and using that hose to pump out enough sulfur particles to dim the sun's heat just enough to counteract the effects of global warming.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...ng.html?cat=15

[Skybird]

While he may be right in hinting at Volcanic activity having brought much higher ammounts of dust, ashes and sulphur into the atmosphere, the problem I have with it is that if the calculations prove to be wrong and adding to our porblems instead of redcuing them, the project nevertheless would be irreversible. that is a risk, as a matter of fact.

I would prefer to deflect solar energy by space-based installation, maybe huge fields of foil that eventually could even be used as solar energy collectors. Of course - the costs would be immense. But the costs of climate change will be immense anyway: either for adapting to it, or for dealing with the consequences that we allowed to catch us unprepared.

Originally Posted by Skybird

While he may be right in hinting at Volcanic activity having brought much higher ammounts of dust, ashes and sulphur into the atmosphere, the problem I have with it is that if the calculations prove to be wrong and adding to our porblems instead of redcuing them, the project nevertheless would be irreversible. that is a risk, as a matter of fact.

I would prefer to deflect solar energy by space-based installation, maybe huge fields of foil that eventually could even be used as solar energy collectors. Of course - the costs would be immense. But the costs of climate change will be immense anyway: either for adapting to it, or for dealing with the consequences that we allowed to catch us unprepared.

It is man that must adapt to nature, not the other way around.

[Skybird]

Sure, but we will not do it. with 42 years of age, I have become a pessimistic realist.

Also, things are runniong on autopilot already, driven by self-dynamics that a simple "back to the nature" will not chnage. We are doomed to try chnaging our behavior and adapting technologically at the same time. Technology must be our tool to speed up our evolution, or better: to compensate for the too slow speed of our biological adaptation. If we are lucky, we end with a teczhnology, in a far away future, that is in harmony and coexistence with nature.

But "back to nature", "back to the good ol' times" alone will not save us.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Sure, but we will not do it. with 42 years of age, I have become a pessimistic realist.

Also, things are runniong on autopilot already, driven by self-dynamics that a simple "back to the nature" will not chnage. We are doomed to try chnaging our behavior and adapting technologically at the same time. Technology must be our tool to speed up our evolution, or better: to compensate for the too slow speed of our biological adaptation. If we are lucky, we end with a teczhnology, in a far away future, that is in harmony and coexistence with nature.

But "back to nature", "back to the good ol' times" alone will not save us.

I've always been a pessimist.
"Expect the worst, and you'll never be disappointed".-(My father to me).

There is no returning to nature. We always have been, and always will be a part of nature, until extinction intervenes. Man is overconfident in his abilities.
Like any other animal, we have 2 choices. Adapt or Perish.

The simple reality is that we have over-populated and the "herd" will eventualy be kulled one way or the other. Global Warming has to stand in line behind the more pressing issues like Food, Clean Water, Clean Air, Energy Resourses.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Snestorm

Global Warming has to stand in line behind the more pressing issues like Food, Clean Water, Clean Air, Energy Resourses.

All the latter are influenced by the first, or better by a intermittent variable: global warming changes the envrionemnt, and by that influences food, clean water, clean air, and probably also some energy source (fire wood for example). Though I do not say that global wamring is the only variable effecting thise things. As always, I say that the key issues are 1. overpopulation, and 2. too excessive living standards of people in the West. This is what stood at the beginning of the man-made share of global warming.