Global Warming Mitigation: Like Government Spending, To the Stratosphere and Beyond!

“The realization that existing efforts to mitigate the effects of human-induced climate change are proving wholly ineffectual has fuelled a resurgence of interest in geo-engineering.”
—Prof. Tim Lenton

Sometimes when humans are given a little power and authority, they go insane. Not just a little bit insane. Sometimes they invent problems where none exist -- climate catastrophe!! Sometimes they take real problems and completely confuse the causes and underlying dynamics -- global economic meltdown!! In both cases, the solutions that are proposed are unlikely to do any good whatsoever. But to our dear leaders and bureaucrats, lack of response only tells them they need to keep doing the same things, only much harder, spending much more of your money while doing them!

Take the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming delusion, and its "cures."

Climate geoengineering proposals seek to combat the effects of climate change—in particular to counteract the effects of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. There are two basic approaches proposed: reducing the atmospheric absorption of incoming solar (shortwave) radiation, or removing CO2 from the atmosphere and transferring it to long-lived reservoirs, thereby increasing outgoing longwave radiation.

A number of schemes have been suggested including nutrient fertilization of the oceans, cloud seeding, sunshades in space, stratospheric aerosol injections, and ocean pipes.

The critical metric for a geoengineering scheme is its effectiveness in cooling the climate; _GCC

Unfortunately, no one has informed these intrepid researchers that the climate has already begun to cool. Despite the dishonest protestations of Michael Mann, James Hansen, and Albert Gore Jr., Antarctica is accumulating sea ice at "unprecedented" rates. Increased antarctic sea ice alone is a potent geo-engineering process which generates positive cooling feedback. You see? The Earth is geo-engineering itself!

Glaciers are growing once again in Alaska, Norway, Greenland. The arctic sea ice is recovering from its recent low in 2007. Both northern and southern hemispheres are experiencing unusually cool winters. All of this while a poorly understood solar cycle transition from cycle 23 to cycle 24 has seemingly stalled. 2008 Sunspot numbers were the lowest for this century, and the second lowest since 1900. The sun's magnetic field energy as seen by Earth is down 30% from normal. No one knows how this might affect the Earth's climate.

It is good to have tools for the times when you really need them. But it is wrong to use powerful disruptive tools just because you can. That applies equally to climate and economics.

Our leaders have currently gone a bit insane. Not just a little bit. Watch them carefully.