Solving the Climate Crisis

With Al Gore and the IPCC winning the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday, lots of people are talking about global warming. The remaining holdouts and dead-enders continue to bray about hoaxes and imaginary disputes, but by and large the dominant focus of conversation about climate disruption boils down to a simple question: what do we do about it?

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Complete entry

Posted by Brad Arnold  on  10/15  at  07:46 AM

Jamais Cascio wrote a pretty good article outlining the three options, but failed to point out the most likely outcome for the first two (prevention and mitigation)-the likehood of a national emergency that sidetracks countries from their global warming goals.

A collapse of the world economy due to a pandemic (natural or bioterrorist), an economic depression due to the huge US deficit crashing the US dollar, or even climate related conflicts like fights over dwindling resources.

That is why his superficially deeming all "geo-engineering" solutions as "risky" is galling, because they should be compared to the risk of incomplete mitigation or prevention strategies. Japan and Canada completely missed their emission reduction goals under Kyoto-that is much more of a risk with any other more stringent international climate treaty.

I suggest the low cost strategy of removing the excess CO2 from the air using biosequestration. Biologically removing the excess carbon from the air and putting it back into the ground where it came from.

Seeding an extensively tested GMO into the ocean is both technically feasible and highly scalable. We need to abandon the industrial revolution mindset of solving every problem mechanically, and adapt the new genomic revolution mindset of solving some problems biologically.

The risk of any geo-engineering solution has to be weighed against the real and likely risk that countries will not live up to their committments due to national emergencies, or just poor leadership. Extensively testing a GMO should dramatically reduce the risk of unexpected consequences. On the other hand, the chance that we have drastically underestimated the rate and severity of climate change is becoming more clear each day.

Posted by veronica  on  11/12  at  01:14 PM

I doubt Brad will see this response to his comment, but oh well. He wrote, "Seeding an extensively tested GMO into the ocean is both technically feasible and highly scalable. "

Kindly see:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/artificial-storm-leaves-beijing-snowed-in/story-e6frf7k6-1225796554642

It starts off with: CHINESE scientists artificially induced the second major snowstorm to wreak havoc in Beijing this season, state media said today, reigniting debate over the practice of tinkering with Mother Nature. ... "No one can tell how much weather manipulation will change the sky," Xiao Gang, a professor in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the paper.... Zhao Nan, a Beijing engineer, was quoted as saying the more than 5,500 tonnes of erosive snow-melting chloride used on city roads yesterday - nearly half the annual allotment - could "erode steel structures of buildings".... In 2005, the snow-melting agent was responsible for killing 10,000 trees in Beijing and decimating 200,000 square metres of grassland, the paper said, citing official statistics.

Posted by Brad Arnold  on  11/13  at  01:53 AM

Yeah, the "unintended consequence" argument is a predictable card to play (not quite as ubiquitous as the "slippery slope" argument though) to any geoengineering scheme.

By the way, this independently verified clean energy technology produces electricity at the astonishingly low cost of 1 cent per kilowatt hour. In other words, the free market will cut emissions to save money, so a severe carbon diet is made feasible, and any geoengineering scheme becomes less necessary. As reported by both CNN and the New York Times:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1iqa0dSJO0

Check out above link to a 2 and a half minute youtube video of a CNN report. What are the odds that the independent testimony below is fraudulent (not bloody likely unless you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist)? Here is a silver bullet technology: clean cheap and abundant energy.

In a joint statement, Dr. K.V. Ramanujachary, Rowan University Meritorious Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dr. Amos Mugweru, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Peter Jansson P.E., Associate Professor of Engineering said, "In independent tests conducted over the past three months involving 10 solid fuels made by us from commercially-available chemicals, our team of engineering and chemistry professors, staff, and students at Rowan University has independently and consistently generated energy in excesses ranging from 1.2 times to 6.5 times the maximum theoretical heat available through known chemical reactions."

Also, check out this article: http://www.nytimes.com/external/venturebeat/2008/10/21/21venturebeat-blacklight-power-bolsters-its-impossible-cla-99377.html

Brad Arnold
St Louis Park, MN, USA
dobermanmacleod@gmail.com
www.myspace.com/dobermanmacleod

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