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Loading...Head In The Clouds? What Geoengineering Could Mean For The Planet
There are times when everyone wishes they could change the weather.
Thunderstorms on the day of an outdoor wedding; a May snowfall that buries your entire garden.
For most people these thoughts are only wishful thinking, but Bill Gates, technology wiz and philanthropist extraordinaire, has decided to use his significant wealth to see if it could really happen.
Gates surprised many when he announced that “climate change was the single greatest threat to humanity” at the TED conference earlier this year. Gates also promised that he would “join the effort to find rapidly deployable energy technologies” but no one expected that effort to include a cloud-making factory.
MNN’s Karl Burkhart recently reported that “San Francisco-based research institute Silver Lining just received $300,000 of seed funding from Bill Gates to test a ‘cloud whitening’ technology that could prove a cost-effective method for slowing the effects of global warming.”
(No, this isn’t a parody of that George Clooney movie about goats).
Cloud whitening is based on a fairly simple theory: thicker, whiter, denser clouds are more reflective, thus preventing more of the suns rays from reaching the Earth’s surface. The only problem is that correctly-composed clouds rarely appear when and where you want them to.
Silver Lining hopes to modify the composition of thin low-lying stratocumulus clouds by injecting them with seawater in order to make them whiter. Injection of salt water theoretically increases the clouds’ “condensation nuclei,” making them smaller and more reflective.
Cloud whitening is a solar radiation management technique and, like simulating volcanic eruptions; the technique may reduce the temperature of the atmosphere and the oceans, but would not reduce levels of greenhouse gases. It is imagined that fleets of unmanned vessels would spray mist created from drawn seawater into the clouds above (handsoffmotherearth.org).
While it’s encouraging to finally see some serious money being invested into alternative technologies, environmentalists have expressed serious doubt about whether geoengineering is really what’s best for the planet in the long run.
After all, even a successful cloud whitening company will only be slowing, not eliminating, the effects of climate change.
A major report on the subject by The Royal Society last year also warned of the unknown side-effects of cloud-whitening, including, changes to regional weather patterns and ocean currents.
“We knew Microsoft was developing cloud applications for computers but we didn’t expect this. Bill Gates and his cloud-wrenching cronies have no right to unilaterally change our seas and skies in this way, Jim Thomas from Canadian environmental campaigners, ETC Group told the Ecologist.
What do you think?
Are geoengineering techniques designed to slow global warming worth the risk?
Do we have the right to pursue long-shot science experiments when the whole planet is the laboratory?
Would Gates’ influence and money be put to better use eliminating our dependence on the #1 cause of climate change — coal and oil?
Share your thoughts in a comment!
Read more: bill gates, climate change, cloud whitening, geoengineering, global warming, sustaintmc
Image Credit: www.mygreentreasure.com
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
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114 comments
+ add your ownWhy CONTROL everything?? Who in their right mind would authorize the HAARP program and Chemtrail projects, without any idea of how it could permanently change our planet? Men with toys they can't control, can anyone spell 'nuclear'?
Why host the World Cup in one of the most environmentally offensive places on earth...?
Very interesting..
THANKS FOR INFO.
Good idea but it gives us power that we as humans should not have. It's natural for the world to get warm then cold. We live on a planet that was here way before we were and it is going to be here long after we are gone. There is not much we can do to prevent that.
interesting concept
I want to know the long-term effects also.
Writing about the development of nuclear power, scientist Freeman Dyson said: "It is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is, in some ways, responsible for all our troubles – this, what you might call technical arrogance, that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds."
—Freeman Dyson, in the documentary The Day after Trinity, cited by Wired magazine, April, 2000 on the perils of technology
Once again we see those with the most wealth and power doing all they can, not to address the roots of our problems, but to put a band-aid on the system that has made them so fabulously wealthy. For Gates to assume he has the right to engage in an experiment whose long-term consequences are completely unknown, on a global scale, is arrogance of the worst kind. We have already done this with the burning of fossil fuels; look where it has got us. We're doing it again with microwave pollution; an epidemic of brain cancers is coming. In fact, Gates is only bringing out of the closet a top secret project that has been ongoing for a decade: the aerosol spraying of our atmosphere with chemtrails. Citizens have found high levels of aluminum and barium in water test results as a result of this program. Any wonder people everywhere, of all ages, are reporting serious memory problems, increased respiratory problems, and overall decline in health. People like Gates must be stopped before they ruin us all and the planet with it.
thanks for the posting guys...........
its very informative man..........
:)
Research all you want, please give me a vote on whether I want anyone controlling the clouds. Haven't we done enough to this little planet?
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