It has always been obvious that when actual Warming became a clear and present global danger, geo-engineering would hove rapidly into view. It's so obvious: we all know how to reduce ambient temperature - indeed Krakatoa2 could do it for us at any time! CO2 "control" was always an indirect proxy for the actual objective - temperature control. And here it comes.
The swampy-leftie-greenies Really, Really Hate This - because it's a scientific solution executed by industrial means, as opposed to just de-industrialising and living in caves. I suspect the non-swampies on the green left hate it on slightly different grounds: because they kinda feel they could take control of current "green" policies (though personally I doubt it, see my several posts on how it's mainstream Bizness & Finance now, and has been since 2019) - see Ed Miliband's recent outpouring.**
But the World Government types will easily "pivot" towards it (I think that's the modern phraseology), because of course you can't have geo-engineering being done on any other basis. Unilateral geo-engineering? - perish the thought!
Well, they may be wrong again. Because three very big players will be having none of that: China, Russia and (mark my words) the USA, even under Biden. Unilateral actions will start, just as soon as they are thoroughly fed up of forest fires etc.
Watch it happen.
ND
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** can't vouch for the accuracy of this, but I read that when Mili gave his speech online it attracted, *ahem*, 76 viewers ...
PS: of high comedic value, Miliband (very wealthy man on reasonably high salary) - advocating we all get electric cars - admitted on air he doesn't have one! Blamed it on lack of zero-interest loans and scrappage scheme. Pr**k.
16 comments:
"just as soon as they are thoroughly fed up of forest fires etc.": if I were fed up with wildfires I suppose I might adopt rational land management policies - such as Australia, for instance, used to have. And even in that cooler climate, shiver!, and with rational policies, still sometimes wildfires got out of hand.
We moved into a house just two streets away from where an Aussie wildfire eventually burnt out just three or four years previously. We reckoned we were safe because the land nearby still hadn't regenerated and built up lots of fuel for next time.
The burnt-out houses were a reminder of the risks of choosing to live in or near 'the bush'.
Put otherwise, the problem is nowt to do with 'climate change', the problem is Greenery-Wankery.
Geo-engineering creates huge opportunities for pork-barrel politics and political grandstanding. Lots of big, expensive projects involving speculative technology, with vague and easily-fudged goals. Many politicians will see the chance to use that for their own benefit.
Miliband calls for electric car 'revolution' across UK..
Also Miliband "No I don't own an electric car"
Miliband declares ‘climate emergency’..
Also Miliband flies 24,000 miles in 10 months – the circumference of the globe - en route to/from climate conferences
So, Having messed the earth's climate up by destroying or over using its natural systems, pumping gases and substances into the atmosphere and burning every thing it sight or that can be dug up and pumped up. The thinking is to mess with it in a really, really big way hoping that will put right the problems caused by all the small and medium mistakes?
Sound good to you? Sounds bloody crazy to me :(
Which earth is it that is supposed to be overheating, the one we live on or the one the eco-mentalists are on.
Bear in mind CO2 levels have still not recovered to the optimum for plant growth, having precipitously dropped in the little ice age to around 230 ppm and plant respiration stops at around 180 ppm, so we definitely need a bigger safety buffer than that.
Biologists say plants begin to suffer below 500 ppm which js why Dutch greenhouses have the level at 1000 ppm for optimum plant growth.
The human species rushes headlong to its doom.
Don Cox
Optimum level of CO2 for a plant is utterly irrelevant, Nessimmersion.
Ooptimum sea-level for a deep-sea mollusc might be 50 fathoms, but not for the world in general.
Rather a dangerous policy. Global warming is bad, but global cooling is really, really bad, as it can lead to crop failure and starvation. It sounds like an easy win, but only provided it doesn't go too far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
Point taken 100%, DJK - but if you don't like relying on carefully calibrated maintenance of complex systems with potential for dire consequences if it goes wrong, you're living in the wrong century
(Telecoms. Water. Food. Sewage. Banking. Credit cards. Electricity. Gas. Oil ...)
Anony, optimum level of CO2 for plant respiration is around 1000 ppm.
It is incredibly critical that plants continue to grow as thats what all life on the planet is dependant on.
One of the major reasons for reversal of desertification is the marginal increase in CO2 levels allows greeing at the margins.
The two things that will really screw up prospects for all future life on planet earth are CO2 fallig below 200 ppm and the snowball earth/ global winter scenario.
Both of them are far more critical than the earth returning to the Roman or medieval climate optimum.
Note: those warmer periods in our current interglacial are called " Optimum" for a reason.
"It is incredibly critical that plants continue to grow as that's what all life on the planet is dependant on."
That's not strictly true. Archaea and many types of bacteria can survive without plants, and indeed did for many millions of years before plants evolved.
Don Cox
Sounds like a nightmare. The limited liability company has served us very well - but. Even the worst company on Earth would be hard pressed to kill or maim more than a few ten thousand people or screw up more than a few million hectares. Until Geo Engineering, it will take politicians and some serious effort to do that.
Perhaps time to institute the unlimited liability company. Every director, manager and employee and shareholder who has ever owned a share be liable up to their last shirt button and beyond. Plus all their politicians lawyers and consultants. Assuming there are any left behind when it all goes t&ts up. Obviously unlimited liability is not going to happen but unilateral action will probably happen and if it all goes wrong - tough.
If I ran a farm with too many animals and too much runoff and stink I would soon be stopped. Back to Malthus before nitrogen fixation. We might be able to Geo Engineer our way forward - but will it be to a world worth living in? Or we might be forced to bio engineer our way to a farm and herd of more suitable size.
The politicians (and other assorted pricks like David Attenborough) will have turned the excess population into Soylent Green in an effort to reduce people's CO2 emissions long before they get around to Geo-Climate Engineering.
Remember, it's the great and the good who get to make the decisions and the plebs who suffer from their grandiose stupidity.
I just wonder if the geo-engineering will be directed against Russia, the one nation for whom global warming has been not such bad news. Lots of gas and oil in the frozen north.
PS - are the Stupid Party going to kybosh the Lake District coal mine after all? If so maybe they are going to run steel plants without coking coal, a technological miracle.
I hate Green role-playing, as this is. That coking coal will have to be dug up somewhere.
Anon@10:21 - I shall prob do a post on Cumbria coal soon.
Looking forward to these mentalists reverse geo-engineering us out of a Grand Solar Minimum...
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