Friday, 30 May 2008

Climate Engineers - Who are the Architects? Listening to the current debate about fuel prices, excise, GST on fuel, pricewatching, etc etc, I wonder [and hope] when the conversation will really turn to the mid [let alone] the long-term future? Where are those who are often ready to tell us about the power of markets and the signals they send? What signals are we seeing now? Is there anything more depressing than being part of this appallingly low-level of debate? Are we really capable of grasping the extent of the global processes, begun generations ago, that will have severe ramifications for our way of life for generations to come? An update on these discussions can also be informed by work fo the Council for Foreign Relation [ CFR.org ] and their recent workshop on Unilateral Planetary-Scale Geoengineering: The Science and Technology of Geoengineering. Yes, you read that correctly, Unilateral, Planetary-Scale Geoengineering........ Our Australian public broadcaster, the ABC, [bless their cotton socks!] covered this topic in their April 2008 broadcast - The Climate Engineers. I wrote the following [nearly two years ago]in October 2006.... I wonder what has changed?     From 2006... In 1991, I was working with students who produced an international online student magazine called "Icarus". It looked at the emerging science behind what was then a new topic, the Ozone Layer and Global Warming. These were High School students who managed to interview and document the work of scientists in the CSIRO and United Nations Climate research centres. It was apparent then, listening to half of the world's Nobel Prize Winning scientists and the Union of Concerned Scientists, that real strategic action needed to be taken. This action, by governments and people alike, has yet to occur. Perhaps the word of the President of one of the largest Oil companies in the world may lend more weight to convincing those that the overwhelming majority of the world's scientific community appear unable to do. John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil, USA, speaks about Shell's position on energy conservation and Global Warming. The speech was made at the Washington University, St. Louis, USA in September 2006. If you are having trouble with the enhanced file, try this MP3 version here. Edit: 4th of October 2006 If this is not enough, please listen to this excerpt from the ABC's "The Science Show". Gary Meyers, Senior Principle Research Scientist from CSIRO Marine Research Hobart Tasmania and Chris Thomas, Professor of conservation biology University of York UK are interviewed by Robyn Williams. The full version can be found on the science show website. Edit 5th of October 2006 One more... The BBC reports : World 'warmest for 12,000 years' The world is the warmest it has been in the last 12,000 years as a result of rapid warming over the past 30 years, a study has suggested. Nasa climatologists said the Earth had warmed by about 0.2C (0.4F) in each of the last three decades. Pollution from human activity was pushing the world towards dangerous levels of climate change, they warned. As a result, plant and animal species were struggling to migrate fast enough to cooler regions, they said. "The evidence implies that we are getting close to dangerous levels of human-made pollution," warned James Hansen, head of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York. [Source: BBC] Related Links Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulfur Injections [PDF] Climate Change: The Uncertainties, the Certainties, and what they Imply About Action Policy [PDF] Implications of Greenhouse Warming [PDF] 12:08:05 PM