Complications of Hacking the Planet

[wtmusic]

"As scientists, with some reluctance, begin to study the idea of “geoengineering” the planet to slow or halt global warming, they are finding that any such program would quite likely have a complex array of effects, not all of them to humanity’s benefit.

In a paper released on Sunday by the journal Nature Climate Change, four California researchers used computer analysis to test the idea of managing incoming sunlight and predicted what that would do to crop yields. As an example of the strategies that might be employed, some sunlight could be deflected away from the earth by using planes or rockets to scatter sulfur compounds into the upper atmosphere on a routine basis, mimicking the effect of big volcanic eruptions. It is a potential response to global warming so cheap that it fascinates even some groups that have tried to block action on reining in carbon dioxide emissions.

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The new work, led by Julia Pongrantz of the Carnegie Institution for Science, found the opposite of these longstanding fears: managing incoming sunlight would probably benefit crop yields over all. The reason is that the technique would limit some of the damaging climate changes that are expected to hurt yields, like excessive temperatures in the growing season, but would nonetheless allow plants to benefit from higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The latter are rising, of course, because of fossil-fuel burning and are the main reason for global warming in the first place, but extra carbon dioxide does act as a kind of plant fertilizer."

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/complications-of-hacking-the-planet/

[GliderGuider]

1. And nary a mention of ocean acidification...

Nice set of blinders they got there. Wonder where I can get me some? It sure would make it easier to sleep at night.

[wtmusic]

2. Yeah, I know.

I don't know what's scarier, the problem of climate change or the belief there's a shortcut out of it.

I can just hear the salesmen at the MegaMondoSUVSuperStore: "Global warming? Nah, they're spraying that sulfur now..."