Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I’m not sure about the former.
— Albert Einstein
It appears that the notion of reflecting the sun’s rays in order to deal with global warming has not died afterall. Just yesterday I heard on a respected local radio talkshow that the U.S. is seriously considering injecting sulphur into the atmosphere in order to reflect sunlight to cool the planet.
I’ve already expressed my feelings on the topic of geo-engineering in an earlier article here. In that case the proposal was to use huge orbiting mirrors in space. As I browsed around looking for more information on the latest incarnation of the same proposal I was able to find many stories about the idea. Apparently it’s not new.
Here’s one from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Although not speaking directly about the U.S. proposal, it cites papers and studies that suggest messing with our life support systems may have unintended consequences. Who knew? Scientists are seriously looking at this and other insane and unethical notions as a last-ditch option for adjusting our climate. A simple Google search will find you many more.
That same Google search will find you flooded with articles about this topic located on what I would call “conspiracy” websites, Infowars.com being one of the most prominent. I would ordinarily dismiss most articles on these sites as over-the-top alarmist rhetoric, but in this case I’m not so sure. An interesting side-effect of this is that it now makes me want to re-evaluate the rest of the articles on these sites. Maybe there is something more to them, if you can get past the style of delivery and the incessant doom-and-gloom topics.
In regards to the topic of injecting sulphur into the atmosphere, this article gave me pause for thought. The author of the article says:
One of the accepted truisms of scientific study is the fact that if scientists are proposing an idea, then those scientists with access to the bottomless pit of black-budget secret government funding are already doing it.
… a rather chilling thought, and certainly often true.
In any event, we can only hope that saner heads will prevail. I repeat: Don’t monkey with my sun. Is anyone listening?