Former Microsoft Officer Has Solution to Global Warming?

[ltstanfo]

Former Microsoft Technology Officer, Nathan Myhrvold, has offered a possible solution to global warming that on the surface, if it works, won't destroy existing economies. Has anyone else heard of this idea? I'd be curious to learn how much research has been done in this area?

Regards,
Ltstanfo

 

[redrumloa]

Interesting link, thanks for it. I do not think it should be done, but I do not think a damn thing should be done at this time except start over with new real life peer reviewed science not influenced by political dollars or corporate profit motives.

In the 70's when the panic was global cooling, there was talk of covering the polar icecap with a black dust (coal dust? I forget) in an attempt to melt them. That sounds silly now, just like cap & trade would in 30 years if it didn't mean making the elite 1% even richer while subjugating 99% of the world's population to serfdom. What's worse, in 30 years they will claim victory for Global warming not destroying the planet when all they did was rob the masses of money and liberties.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Sulphur dioxide is a large part of the cause of cooling (or dimming) in the 70s and has been partly blamed for shifting the gulf stream, influencing rainfall in Africa and leading to the song "Do They Know It's Christmas", and acid rain.

Generally it's a bad idea to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the earth when the sun's output is currently so low. We don't know how aneamic the next few solar cycles will be and we may be thankful of a little elevated CO2.

On the plus side the half life of sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere is fairly short, at least at the level industry used to dump it. Higher up it may be more problematic. Also, how does it react with O3? It would be a shame to bust up the ozone layer again after working so hard to fix it.

Id rather see a solution in which we try to shed heat productively. If we built towers to pass the heat from the ground to space we could cool ground level while making power. Then if we overcool we can direct more sun to where we need it by mirrors in space. This would allow for improved agriculture AND provide energy.

But maybe that sort of engineering is a bit too grand for the people of earth to cooperate on. Under our current system it couldn't happen unless someone owned it and if someone owned it then someone else would fight to get it and those that got cut out of the benefits would fight to break it out of spite (it being a natural human impulse to punish cheaters and non-sharers as one would expect from a social animal).

 

[smithy]

Geo-engineering is the stupidest idea mankind has ever come up with, ever! It's even more stupid than nuclear power. At least nuclear waste is only toxic for 1 million years.

It sounds as harmless as introducing rabbits to Australia, but within decades the rabbits had multiplied like crazy and eaten all the shrubbery, expanding the Outback to its current irreversible size, wiping out dozens of native species.

Compounding the problem, we don't know if global warming is happening, if it is we don't know if we caused it, or whether the effects are good, bad or neither.

So, they are trying to solve a problem that they only suspect exists and don't understand in the slightest. :shocked: