Radical Noesis - Thinking outside the box

The article discusses a report by the 1995 Nobel Prize winner Professor Paul Crutzen. His suggestion is the shoot tons of sulphur particles into the upper atmosphere every year to help reflect sunlight back from the earth. I would have thought it was a joke, but this is a man who is an expert on the ozone hole. My first thoughts were about acid rain. After all, one of the problems with coal-fired plants is sulphur emissions and acid rain.

I thought surely there would be a response to Crutzen's suggestion, but there was nothing. Finally, George Monbiot responded with We can't reverse global warming by triggering another catastrophe, and I heaved a sigh of relief. However, Monbiot didn't jump to acid rain (and its deadly effects), but to shifting weather patterns. He discusses the already known impact of industrial pollution shifting the monsoonal rain patterns towards the northern hemisphere.

Reading his article, I could have kicked myself. I knew that, but just hadn't made the connection. Monbiot also raises the paradox of global warming emissions. As the effort has been made to cut down on air pollution which also causes global warming, we reduce the gunk in the air which allows more sunlight through. That increasing solar radiation ... and heat. One of the ongoing issues is that if we cut back on particulate pollutions but not on carbon dioxide gas emissions, it actually makes the warming problem worse. Both particulate emissions and global warming gasses have to be reduced at the same time or we aggravate the problem.

So one of the "problems" in the current scenario is that cleaner air without reducing gasses accelerates the advance of warming. Natural processes and feedback loops accelerate the problem. For example, water and land absorb more heat than ice and snow. So as the ice sheets melt, it gets hotter. However, that much melting ice also decreases the temperature and salinity at the poles which slows the ocean currents and shifts weather patterns. This transformation (along with other feedback loops) is about to turn the Amazon Rainforest into a desert as traditional rainfall moves north. The death of the rainforest will dramatically reduce the carbon absorption (in fact it will increase carbon in the atmosphere).

The unpredictable accleration of global warming has led the new president of the American Association for Advancement of Science, John Holdren to express his concerns and frustrations. Holdren is concerned about the rapid changes we are seeing, and frustrated by the Bush administration's lack of action on this issue. I concur on both points.

So back to shooting 5 million tons of sulphur into the upper atmosphere every year. This seems like a very bad idea to me.