permaculture

[Marimike6@cs.com]

Hi all, time for my two cents again.

Seeding the ocean with iron is an idea that came and was seriously enough 
studied that the results are mostly in. In the opinion of most, it's not 
worth 
pursuing and has some potentially dangerous drawbacks. Yes, we need 
phytoplankton to form the base of the food chain as well as to suck up some 
of our excess 
CO2. And the planet would be in grave shape if we were to start running a 
serious deficit on these supremely "green" critters. But we did the study and 
added to our store of knowledge, while finding that we didn't greatly affect 
the 
rate of planktonic growth. Lots of iron enters the sea naturally.

I think the question before us is whether we should seriously consider every 
bright idea we can think up.. or whether we must rule out as a class of 
ideas, 
all approaches involving geoengineering. And I don't think we are at liberty 
to rule out the area in which the solution will most likely be found.

This comes from the view that we now have nearly seven billion (up from six 
billion back in 2000) consumers and potential consumers, all insisting that 
the 
world economy give them the necessities of life, including factory foods from 
across the globe and personal autos with which they can go to the store. 
True, there are millions of us trying to warn them of the dangers. But in the 
end 
I'm thinking the relentless pressure from these global consumers, combined 
with the indulgence of the most powerful forces on the planet (global 
corporations) will outpace any steps the rest of us can make toward serious 
moderation of 
our species' limitless demand for energy.

So I think it's a given that at some point we will burn up every iota of 
fossil fuel our technology can dredge from the bowels of the earth.. and that 
efforts to slow down the rate of burning will only defer the day when our 
accessible biosphere has been utterly converted to carbon gas. That 
pessimistic view 
indicates that we need to develop a Plan B.

GIANT RAY-BANS.  This is a field of very small reflectors, placed in 
coterminous orbit (I forget if that's the term they use) interposed between 
the sun 
and the earth. They have already calculated how many tons of reflector 
material 
would be needed, and the optimum rate of replenishment to keep the shield in 
shape.

In fact, by varying the rate of replenishment the sunscreen can be used like 
tilt-blinds, depending on how much sun we want striking the atmosphere.

It may very well be that eventually some cautionary finding will indicate 
this is a bad idea. But until we get to that point, I think it's the most 
optimistic idea we have right now. The forces that create excess CO2 operate 
very 
rapidly, while the rate at which it is returned to the carbon cycle is very 
slow. 
We're heading toward a carbon bubble that I doubt we can avert entirely by 
car pooling and trying to convince the rest of the planet to eat locally.

I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts in this area.

Michael