Silver Lining Anti-Climate Change Project

[Arwin]

All these threads end up in RPSC, but I want to at least give everyone a chance to see this one first.

This project got into the news recently because Bill Gates is investing into it. The project basically develops ships that can take sea water and turn them into clouds at 1km in the air. These clouds then reflect the sun sufficiently, so that about a $6.000.000.000 investment worth should be sufficient to completely neutralise climate change.

Testing is planned to go ahead, and there is quite a bit of controversy that these tests could influence the climate to the extent that it should be globally supervised, while proponents of the project say that since there is no global agreement on climate change and how to deal with it, the project should go ahead at full speed so that it could be in time to prevent a climate catastrophy.

Apart from that it looks like something out of Final Fantasy, the technology is interesting for all sorts of reasons. I'm thinking that perhaps they can place the ships strategically around key parts of Africa, and the resulting rain could be enough to reforest the coasts that were deforested by the Romans c.s. during their continual arms-race.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article7120011.ece

 

[Davros]

how do these ships get 1km in the air ?

 

[Squilliam]

They fly...

 

[Grall]

I'm entirely opposed to any "solution" that fixes only the symptoms and not the cause - this includes so-called "carbon capturing" (which is a fraudulent concept to begin with), and cloud seeding and spraying the atmosphere with sulphuric aerosols and other madcap ideas that have been put forth.

Why?

Well A: like I said, they don't fix the actual reason for the problem (I'm now pretending there isn't any criticism of AGW at all ), and

B: human workaround solutions to problems tend to 1: be imperfect, 2: be maintenance heavy and 3: have more or less serious side-effects.

If we build ships to make clouds at 1km to reflect sunlight and DON'T stop emitting CO2, we'll have to keep running those fucking ships for basically all time (prepostrous and unmanageable concept), and the more CO2 we emit the more ships we'll need. Obviously this won't work in the long run.

Also, what happens if we start blocking out swathes of sunlight from reaching the ground? This'll affect trees, plants, agriculture... No, this is idea is crap. It's not even a band-aid of a fix, it's just us shooting ourselves in the foot. Whomever came up with this concept should be slapped about hard with a very large cod to the face. In public.

 

[Arwin]

I'm entirely opposed to any "solution" that fixes only the symptoms and not the cause

I agree with this in principle, but like I said, perhaps in combination with creating more clouds and rain over Africa, it could have both short term and long-term benefits that are maybe even more important than reflecting sunlight.

It is never bad to have options, and this one definitely seems better than most of the other 'solutions' that have been proposed.

But yes, treating the cause should always also remain top-priority. Solving that problem may take long enough to require treating symptoms as well though.

 

[_xxx_]

Besides the "climate change" being a pile of shit from the beginning on, this "idea" is the worst idiocy I've ever seen. Worse even than the non-farting sheep, but yet crazier.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Why am I worried about Bill Gates researching weather controlling devices? Does it sound a bit James Bond villainy-ish to anyone else?

 

[homerdog]

He's also ridding the world of mosquitoes that carry malaria, so that should balance things out.

 

[Davros]

Besides the "climate change" being a pile of shit .

Thats why I am suffering a hosepipe ban at the moment

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm entirely opposed to any "solution" that fixes only the symptoms and not the cause.

Yeah it's kind of hard to fix it when the cause is natural and not man-made...

It's interesting that at least something like this would actually create man-made climate control in the face of naturally cyclical climate changes. As well combating changes due to solar flares, sunspots, increased radiation from space, etc...

Regards,
SB

 

[eastmen]

Thats why I am suffering a hosepipe ban at the moment

whats this mean ?

 

[Ethatron]

I believe you can hit with it (a hosepipe).

 

[Arwin]

whats this mean ?

He means it's too dry, water levels are too low and he's forbidden to water his plants, basically.

 

[homerdog]

Does global warming mean more or less rain? Or is it like most things, i.e. we don't really know but whatever happens it was caused by AGW?

 

[Simon F]

Does global warming mean more or less rain?

I believe the answer is "both", which is probably why many prefer to call it "climate change".

And as for Davros, it can't be that he's complaning he can't water his plants as it's been "chucking it down" in the UK for the past few days. I suspect he is just part of the secret police and his methods are being brought into question.

 

[eastmen]

He means it's too dry, water levels are too low and he's forbidden to water his plants, basically.

Ah drought rules. Use to have those when I was younger but we haven't had one since i was like 5 or 6.

 

[Vadi]

No, drought doesn't rule.

Basically the climate "is boiling" more, and we're screwed because the food production will go downhill, especially after some feedback effects multiply all the effects we see (heavy rainstorms and droughts).