Practical Solutions

This is a practical article dealing with technical possibilities for dealing with climate change. Reducing the amount of Sunlight hitting the Earth stands as much more simple than Angel or Crutzen would even claim, It would only require large glass bombs carried aloft, gently propelled towards the Sun, then exploded; the glass fragments as good a deflector as Angel’s discs or Crutzen’s sulfur. The major Problem with this form of atmospheric control lies in its irreversibility; anything shot out there cannot be easily removed, if somehow We misjudged the beneficial effects. Latham and Salter utilize the idea of effectively increasing by artificial means the Cloud cover over the Earth; a sound idea which can be reversed if effects are different than desired, but one has to worry about the Concept of storm surge; additional water vapor levels will increase the Wind power of hurricanes and resultant storm surges.

Carbon sequestration approaches seem like a far more viable option to myself. Ian Jones proposes the feeding of fertilizer to plankton to get them to absorb carbon dioxide. The trouble here lies in his leaving it there. I have previously suggested plankton tanks in the Ocean, to raise the Carbon base for the production of fuel. The real problem of climate change devolves down to the conversion of Carbon deposits in the ground to gaseous Carbon products in the atmosphere through the production of energy. Whatever method adopted must either redeposit that Carbon into the ground, or replace mined Carbon deposits with Carbon products drawn from the atmosphere itself. Klaus Lackner’s artificial trees sequester carbon dioxide, but does not provide practical solution to returning the Carbon deposits to the ground; I don’t imagine he really contemplates the amounts of Carbon to be sequestered, which must eventually attain a rate equivalent to the poundage currently burned as fuel.

Practical solutions must be found to counteract the Carbon emissions currently being released. Artificial plankton growth is a viable solution, if the end-product can replace Carbon deposits as fuel source, or if We simultaneously quadruple the level of animal Ocean life; the later being one method to increase the Carbon poundage concentration. Could Fish farms in the Oceans actually handle the Carbon sequestration problem, as well as immensely increasing the supply of human food coming from the Oceans? Fishermen remember the stories of great yields from the North Banks with nostalgia; maybe the Environmentalists should do so as well. We must also begin to think of growing our fuel, as well as our food. We currently rely on the Past to supply Us with Our energy, but We have to find another way. lgl