I have to say that I’m (slightly) encouraged that the new science advisor is willing to consider planetary modification as a solution to global warming, in the event that it actually turns out to be a problem bigger than the current preferred cure. But I think that Mickey Kaus infers too much, unless he’s seen more specific proposals than appear in the WSJ piece:
If shooting particles in the air can semipermanently change the climate of the entire planet … well, in the hands of well-meaning people it would be a risky, last-ditch policy to combat global warming. In the hands of less benevolent people it could become a heavy duty terrorist weapon, no? … If you have the missiles, is it that much easier to develop nukes?
Well, first of all, having missiles doesn’t help at all with developing nukes. They are entirely independent technologies. It might help in delivering nukes, if (as I pointed out in the New York Times) you can build the nukes small enough to fit on the missiles, and if you can also build an entry vehicle that can deliver it to a desired target (and yes, I know that the guidance doesn’t have to be that precise to simply take out a city, as opposed to a silo).
But even more to the point, nowhere did I see the suggestion that it would be done with “missiles.” I had an argument with an idiot at Free Republic a year or two ago when this notion (putting particulates in the upper atmosphere to block the sun) came up. He pooh poohed it, on the basis that rockets cost far too much, and made a stupidly ridiculous cost estimate based on Titans (which no longer even exist).
But if this were to be done, it wouldn’t use missiles. As I point out in the previous linked post, this would be an excellent market for reusable suborbital transports. And if you’re worried about suborbital transports as terrorist or rogue-nation weapons, you don’t understand their nature (at least for the short distances that satisfy either tourism or seeding particulates in the upper atmosphere). They would actually be less useful than aircraft, as a result of their limited range and payload.
David Brin, writing in Baen’s Universe (sorry, don’t have the exact link) was talking about using commercial transport aircraft.
As I recall, he was proposing an experiment for temperature change over the artic which involved one aircraft flying every day during the summer months.
Brin suggested that doing this planet-wide (assuming it works, which is why he proposed an experiment) would be roughly equivalent to running a large airline in terms of cost and technical difficulties.
Yes, at the altitudes being proposed, aircraft would probably be sufficient. Either way, no missiles required.
Well, why not do it the old fashioned way, and liberate the SO2 to find its proper place in the sun? Just turn off the scrubbers at the coal plants.
;-P
MG – I know you’re tongue-in-check, but the answer is “acid rain.”
Brin was proposing diatomious (spelling?) earth, which is inert and fairly cheap.
Diatomaceous. I think.
Odd stuff. There was a vial of it in a junior chemistry kit I got one year for Christmas. It looked a little like sugar, but my dad said it was essentially “clean dirt,” which I thought was funny at the time.
The fact that this geoengineering has come up potentially somewhat seriously says to me that maybe some people are actually more interested in the climate than in just bossing people around.
Still doesn’t mean they’re right, but hey, it’s just the planet we’re mucking with either way…
Gee, the same people who’re making such a mess of the economy want to take on changing the earth’s environment. What could possibly go wrong?