12 Jul 09
text — We control the climate.
The Atlantic looks at geo-engineering ideas to save our ass from the coming environmental apocalypse. On the list are sun reflecting frisbees launched into space, ocean water spouts to create more cloud cover, and sulfur dioxide spewing blimps:
“If we were transported forward in time, to an Earth ravaged by catastrophic climate change, we might see long, delicate strands of fire hose stretching into the sky, like spaghetti, attached to zeppelins hovering 65,000 feet in the air. Factories on the ground would pump 10 kilos of sulfur dioxide up through those hoses every second. And at the top, the hoses would cough a sulfurous pall into the sky. At sunset on some parts of the planet, these puffs of aerosolized pollutant would glow a dramatic red, like the skies in Blade Runner. During the day, they would shield the planet from the sun’s full force, keeping temperatures cool—as long as the puffing never ceased.”
The article also notes that these types of solutions are so cheap (in relative terms) that a single mad billionaire could change the climate of the Earth with a similar scheme. I smell a new SyFy original movie in there somewhere.
