Faced with the specter of a warming planet and frustrated by the lack of progress on this time-sensitive issue, some scientists have begun researching backup plans. They seek a way to give humanity direct control over Earth's thermostat. Frequently referred to as geoengineering , proposals run the gamut from space mirrors deflecting a portion of the sun's energy to promoting vast marine algal blooms to suck carbon out of the atmosphere. ( CS Monitor)
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Enrique Gili is a freelance writer covering Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS), issues for regional magazines in the Southland and beyond. I live in Ocean Beach, San Diego the coolest beach town around.
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No Quick Fixes for Global Warming
Category: Environment
Posted on: March 29, 2007 12:55 PM, by EJGili
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Those geo-engineering "solutions" scare me. They will have to act on a planetary scale, and some involve a huge manufaturing or energy investment; in other words, create pollution to fight pollution. Some of those "solutions" are likely to have side-effects as bad as the problem they purport to solve; most have (may have) unforeseeable side-effects.
Some of these solutions involve costs that are greater than the most obvious approach: curtailing our carbon emissions _now_, not 20 years from now.
Posted by: _Arthur | March 29, 2007 02:40 PM
The geoengineering solutions I've seen discussed have all been presented as, "So if (national governments/megacorps/The Man) do nothing about carbon emissions, what other options might we have?" They're extreme and scary because they're for extreme and scary situations. I don't think any of their proposers (well, no more than the usual percentage of nutcases found among primates) think cutting emissions isn't the better solution.
Posted by: Trip the Space Parasite | March 29, 2007 05:10 PM