[extropy-chat] Save the World

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, Feb 11, 2007 at 12:13:48PM +1030, Emlyn wrote:
> 
>    Couldn't we darken the atmosphere to counteract the greenhouse effect?
>    Kind of nuclear winter vs global warming...

Instead of investing in cleaner jet fuels, he'd better
1) make them burn dirty, preferrably inject ice nucleators
2) fly high, as high as possible
3) long-term, fly with synfuel or cryogenic hydrogen as fuel, made from renewable sources

Global dimming needs a comeback.

As to "scrubbing greenhouse gaess out of the atmosphere",
that's a red herring. They're are already being rather efficiently
scrubbed, what is needed is reducing our emissions. And it doesn't
take 25 megabucks to figure out how, we already know.

> 
> 
> 
>    Emlyn
> 
> 
>    On 11/02/07, Damien Broderick <[1]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
>      _______________________________________________
>      extropy-chat mailing list
>      [2]extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org 
>      [3]http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
> 
> References
> 
>    1. mailto:thespike at satx.rr.com
>    2. mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>    3. http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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