Comments on: Leading climate scientists call for an emergency “Plan B”

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Dear Jackie,

The difference is that the Pleistocene ice ages were caused by natural orbital (solar) forcing, not by humans.

Homo "sapiens" (so called) has now developed the means of warming the planet, which means that - in principle - had an ice ages threatened civilization, the species could delay such developments through carbon emissions.

Cooling is much more difficult and uncertain and geo-engineered albedo enhancement would be short lived, only a few years, offering no more than a band aid.

By: D. John Hunwick

D. John Hunwick — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

If it is necessary to resort to such geo-engineering solutions then I for one believe that we would be far better off giving up and enjoying what time we have left. All such solutions will bringunknowabnle unknown reactions from the ecology of the planet that will create even more and bigger problems. Becasue I do not beleive the situation is that dire, although dire enough, I would prefer to see much stonger attempts atr population control, a phase out of coal power statio within 15 years, investment in green housing for all starting with the homeless and a cesssation of the war in Iraq to save the money needed to take the necessary action.

By: Jackie French

Jackie French — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Re Cooling the planet…but what if they get it, er, slightly wrong?Look at the last 100,000 years, not the last 100 years. Ice has threatened humanity a lot more than heat.

By: Tom McLoughlin

Tom McLoughlin — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

As for geo engineering, methinks unintentionally we’ve been seeing that with the soot out of fairly dirty hyper economic expansion from China and India for a good few years now, which to me correlates neatly with the AGW plateau the sceptics get in a lather about.

But the rate of such pollution just cut down with the GFC intervention recently. Methinks they just lowered the umbrella folks. Which means the exponential rate of change from a deceptively low base will probably crank up faster now.

By: soil carbon

soil carbon — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

geo-engineering to artificially reduce solar radiation - unproven technology at astronomical cost.

let’s apply ockam’s razor - the simplest solution is the right one - and put just 1% of the money some geo-engineering project would require into supporting graziers to change their management practices.

Tim Flannery has identified revegetating our planet’s desertifying grazing lands as one of our best means for addressing climate change - let alone its benefits for drought and flood mitigation, boosting biodiversity and genuinely commencing the healing of our inland river systems.

The more complex the problem, the simpler the solution will be. See http://www.soilcarbon.com.au for more.

By: Lois Frederick

Lois Frederick — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

The easy solution is to revegetate our desert areas globally? What’s easy about that? Once you account for the govt.s that can’t move too fast, the vested interests in business as usual, the sceptics busy muddying the waters as much as they can and the farmers and others who don’t understand or believe in the scientific evidence and projections, you’re left with what we’ve got - a species that has overstretched itself and can’t really believe they’ve stuffed up this badly. If you’re at all honest and realistic about what we can do you’d have to admit that it will be a high tech solution that will create as many problems as it solves but will leave all power in as few hands as possible.

By: Lee

Lee — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I agree with the Ockams razor comment - but lets also look at:

1. What happens when a country tries to geo-engineer to suit themselves? What are the most likely geo-engineering countries and what might they choose to do, and what effect will it have on us?

2. As the current ETS scheme is a joke and international agreement a long way off if ever, what do we need to prepare for if the world does continue 'business as usual'? The government should be contingency planning now.

As for Rudd this could have been his Moon-shot moment as it was for JFK - we're going to do something incredible, we don't know exactly how but we're smart enough to work it out, and the spin-offs will technologically and economically catapult us to the end of the century.

By: MichaelT

MichaelT — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Dear Andrew

No, the difference is that the Ice Age-interglacial cycle is actual, not hypothetical, and produced variations in temperature of an order of magnitude ten times greater than what occurred in the last century.

AGW by contrast is supported by statistical trickery of the hockey-stick variety and cherry-picking of regional events such as the summer melting of Actic ice, which has not been seen in the Antarctic and appears to be produced by an upflow of warmer waters from the Atlantic.

Geo-engineering by injecting toxic pollutants into the atmosphere will go down in history as one of the wackiest excesses of the scientific establishment.