In our desperation to save the planet, some of the schemes we’ve come up with are downright crazy.
Our generation will be judged on the way it faced the crisis of global warming.
It’s a serious problem that will affect the entire human race, both now and for generations to come. The way we face it will determine whether our grandchildren view us as the Greatest Generation, turning the tide on a near inevitable catastrophe, or
those idiots that made it so we have to wear masks to breathe
In the face of such an epic challenge, it’s understandable some people might go a bit… funny. The sort of funny that leads Jeff Goldblum to try and upload a virus from an Apple Mac to an alien computer that probably doesn’t even use the same numerical system we do. The sort of funny where people say
It’s crazy… so crazy it just might work!
This article is dedicated to those crazy schemes, people who are trying to thwart climate change by:
Putting Covers on the Ice as Insulation
The Arctic is losing 47 trillion gallons of ice a year. This is the sort of thing that Dennis Quaid warned us about in “The Day After Tomorrow” It can screw up ocean current temperatures and eventually lead to coastal cities being flooded.
Perhaps the first people to be harmed by global warming, however, are those simple, noble folks, the guys who run ski resorts. With snow being their stock in trade, they resorted to desperate measures to protect it. They persuaded a local textile company to build them some “Ice Protectors”: Thermo regulating fabric that insulates the snow while protecting it from the harmful rays of the sun.
An experiment was conducted with these sheets in 2005 that showed the glaciers covered this way leaked 80% less than their uncovered equivalents.
So all we need to do is put one of these things over each end of the planet, and it’ll only cost us $12 million a square mile!
Dumping Iron into the Ocean
Up there with global warming is our fear of the oceans being polluted. After all, clean water, kind of important for the survival of the species. And by “the species” I mean “all species”.
This is why an oceanographic research cruise called “IronEx II,” decided to “fertilize” a patch of ocean waters 800 miles west of the Galapagos Islands with iron. Now in case you’re wondering what “fertilise” means in this context, it means “dump loads of”.
The hope is that the iron will soak up the harmful gases in the water, while acting as a huge boost for the local plankton populations. The plankton eat CO2, and researchers saw a 20% drop in harmful gases in the area where they ditched the iron.
Now, we don’t know what the long term effects of dropping these chemicals into the ocean will be yet, but really, how could it possibly go wrong?
And guess what? There doesn’t seem to much that people can do about these things!
Iron Fertilization, Geo-Engineering & GMO’s The End of Humanity
Dropping Ice in the Water
Dropping loads of iron into the sea is reckless and dangerous and could have loads of unforeseen consequences. We need to think more sensibly about this. What’s the problem with global warming? It’s melting the ice. So, how about we just put more ice in the water?
This is what Canadian engineer Peter Flynn of the University of Alberta says we should do. He literally thinks we need to go up north and drop ice into the water to help control the planet’s climate.
His plan calls for a fleet of 8000 ice-making barges sent to the glaciers off the coast of Greenland. The barges would spray the glacier with salty water, which would freeze up into an ice cube the size of New Mexico (presumably somewhere Roberts is mixing a Martini the size of regular Mexico perhaps!).
How strange? I thought salt actually causes ice to melt?
Block out the Sun
Yep, that’s right, we’re at the “Block out the sun” portion of the schemes, the Bond villain level schemes, the Mr Burns In The Simpsons level schemes. When the computers in The Matrix wanted to completely subjugate mankind, this is the plan they went with.
Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen has devised what he calls the “Albedo2 Enhancement Method” which sounds scarily similar to a number of methods I have in my junk email folder. He says we need to launch high altitude balloons, holding artillery cannons, and then use the cannons to launch sulphur charges into the upper layers of the atmosphere. He estimates this will reflect enough solar radiation to help cool the Earth by 0.5 degrees Celsius, and neutralise the effects of global warming within 6 months.
You think this is madness? Because I do… and it seems they are really going ahead with it.
New Geo-Engineering Method Using Sulphur Spewing Hoses To Block The Sun’s Rays
Still, maybe for now we’ll just stick with offshore wind farms, solar projects and geothermals to be on the safe side although it’s a real pity that shale gas exploration is getting in the way of investments in safe clean renewables.