[extropy-chat] Save the World

[Emlyn]

Couldn't we darken the atmosphere to counteract the greenhouse effect? Kind
of nuclear winter vs global warming...

Emlyn


On 11/02/07, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
>
> At 07:48 PM 2/10/2007 -0500, Keith wrote:
> > >
> > > >  I had to come
> > > >up with a way the energy and carbon crisis was solved.  That led to
> notes
> > > >so extensive as to almost constitute a business plan.
> > >
> > >Send them to Richard Branson, collect $25 million.
> >
> >Any though as to how one might show something to Richard Branson?
>
> why, yes, in general terms:
>
>
> Airline tycoon Richard Branson has announced a
> $US25 million ($A32m) prize for the first person
> to come up with a way of scrubbing greenhouse
> gases out of the atmosphere in the battle to beat global warming.
>
> Flanked by climate campaigners former US
> vice-president Al Gore and British ex-diplomat
> Crispin Tickell, Sir Richard said he hoped the
> Virgin Earth Challenge would spur innovative and
> creative thought to save mankind from self-destruction.
>
> The prize will initially be open for five years,
> with ideas assessed by a panel of judges
> including Sir Richard, Mr Gore and Mr Tickell as
> well as Australian environmentalist Tim Flannery,
> US climate scientist James Hansen and Briton
> James Lovelock. "Man created the problem and
> therefore man should solve the problem," he said.
>
> "Unless we can devise a way of removing CO 2
> (carbon dioxide) from the Earth's atmosphere we
> will lose half of all species on Earth, all the
> coral reefs, 100 million people will be
> displaced, farmlands will become deserts and rainforests wastelands."
>
> Sir Richard rejected suggestions that he, as an
> airline owner, was being hypocritical in offering
> the prize. "I could ground my airline today, but
> British Airways would simply take its place," he
> said, noting that he was investing in cleaner engines and fuels.
>
> Top scientists predict that global average
> temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and four
> degrees this century due to human activities such
> as burning fossil fuels, putting millions at risk
> from rising sea levels, floods, famines and storms.
>
> Mr Gore, whose campaign film An Inconvenient
> Truth has helped spread the message, said all
> science showed something was drastically wrong
> but that Armageddon was not inevitable.
>
> The winner must devise a way of removing 1
> billion tonnes of carbon gases a year from the
> atmosphere for 10 years ­ with $US5 million
> ($AS6.4m) of the prize being paid at the start and the rest at the end.
>
> If no winner is identified after five years the
> judges can decide to extend the period.
>
> "This is the world's first deliberate attempt at
> planetary engineering," Dr Flannery said via
> video-link from Sydney. "We are at the last
> moment. Once we reach the tipping point it will
> have been taken out of our hands."
>
> REUTERS
>
>
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