The sci-fi world of geoengineering is the new, hot alternative to global warming–but some object on political or religious grounds | Mark Bergin
Illustration by Krieg Barrie
The idea is simple, really: Fill the skies with tiny reflective particles and global temperatures will fall. Sunlight will divert. Shrinking ice shelves will reverse course. Sea levels will drop. And climate-change alarmists will have lots of spare time.
Sound like a crank idea? Most scientists used to think so, too. Not anymore: "You could fly aircraft in the stratosphere and you could have a fire hose that would be squirting out sulfur. And the sulfur dioxide would form particles, the same kind of particles formed in a volcanic eruption," explains New York University physics professor Marty Hoffert. With a Ph.D. in astronautics and numerous publications in respected journals, Hoffert seems the antithesis of a crank as he adds, "Another way to do it is to create boats that spray the ocean water up into the atmosphere and create cloud concentration nuclei. And by changing the reflectivity of the clouds over the ocean, they would be able to reflect more sunlight."
A different man-made disaster
A British expert tells Congress not to make the same costly mistake that has hurt European economies | Emily Belz
Mike Wilkinson
Lord Christopher Monckton, former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has set himself apart as one of the few voices in Europe disagreeing with the need for climate-change policy. He insists, in fact, that climate-change policies, like President Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system, deeply hurt economies.
Cap-and-trade, a system used in Europe, requires businesses to pay for carbon emissions over a certain predetermined level. Utility companies and coal industries would incur significant new costs, inevitably passing on higher energy costs to their customers, but pro-ponents of the system say those higher costs will drive companies to more emissions-conscious innovations. Critics say it penalizes industrial parts of the United States—especially the Midwest—and raises basic costs of living at a time when wallets are already pinched.
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COVER STORY ARTICLE |
Escalating opposition
