wahyinghung | 04-23-2009 03:48 PM | Plan B for global warming There’s a drawing of Don Quixote tacked to the wall of David Keith’s University of Calgary office; one of Gustave Doré’s famous illustrations showing the aging knight flying backwards off his horse as his lance bends against the blade of a windmill. The 45-year-old environmental scientist purchased it as a self-mocking reward after the publication of his 2004 paper, “The influence of large-scale wind power on global climate.” Using computer modelling, Keith and his colleagues posited that wind energy might not be quite as green as envisioned, potentially changing climate on a worldwide scale as fields of turbines slow the winds, changing rainfall and the amount of moisture in the soil. Their conclusion that the much-touted benefits from wind farms might actually be outweighed by the costs didn’t meet with broad public approval. Keith’s email inbox quickly filled with hate messages, a rare trick for an academic.
Should the trend hold, the professor might want to start clearing space on his wall for a crucifix. The work Keith is engaged in now messes with nature itself, breaking some of the greatest taboos of the world’s environmental movement. Spurred by new data suggesting global warming is progressing faster, and at a much more profound level than even the worst-case scenarios, he is at the fore of a small group of scientists proposing a quick technological fix: a “Plan B” to slow climate change and cool the earth almost overnight via massive human interventions. Among their science-fiction-style ideas: the deployment of millions of lenses the size of doughnuts in geo-stationary orbit between the earth and the sun, the creation of vast banks of artificial clouds over the world’s oceans, covering deserts with reflective material, and Keith’s preferred solution—seeding the stratosphere with sulphate or other particles. All schemes designed to send a portion of the sun’s rays back into the cosmos, and buy politicians, business and the public time to finally get serious about cutting greenhouse gas emissions
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Long Read: http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/04/22/p...lobal-warming/ |