Crazy 'quick fix' ideas for climate change, could ruin astronomy!

[Vega]

They call it Geo-engineering, check out some of the crazy climate change 'quick fix' idea's. Some of them could be hellish for observing the night sky

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7533600.stm

Matt

[peeceeTal2M]

The question is do the government actually want to do anything about global warming? I think they are just happy to increase tax levels on fuel to keep funding government coffers while claiming they're trying to do something. A simple solution would be to stop floodlighting buildings at night and reduce streetlighting by half, that would reduce carbon emissions and also lower power bills and light pollution at same time. Here's a controversial suggestion how about stopping all unnecessary air travel for say 5 years including holiday flights and flights by government ministers going to global warming conferences..surely video conferencing would be just as good. Anyone else got any ideas?

[Vega]

Could a flight to an astronomy holiday to COAA, Australia or Nevada be excused ?

Matt

[RichieJarvis]

You could go by boat though!

I must admit, I am not quite sure why all this talking of climate change is still going on. I've seen several articles (this one I bookmarked http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html) which point out that climate change is not as universally accepted in the scientific community as the media and government would have us believe.

Now, don't get me wrong - I don't think its an excuse for wasting needlessly, but are we just being hoodwink with global warming in the same way as we all get hoodwinked about food?

Richie

[The Warthog]

The problem with quick fixes is that they usually handicap the situation later, like cutting off a limb to cure necrotizing fasciitis. Even if the thousands of tiny mirrors or the tons of sulphur in space will leave us with problems later, as the sulphur precipitates, or it comes time to remove the mirrors.

If the atmosphere is warming, surely the only rational approach is to find the causes, and remove or reduce them. Problem with that is, it will cost the capitalists money, whereas firing off rockets to solve the problem will make money, and be ineffective, requiring the spending of more money on ineffective solutions.

[beamer3.6m]

My personal view on climate change is that it is being misrepresented to the people.

Climate change will not bring about the end of the earth, it has survived far worse in its turbulent history, but will merely bring about the end potentially of human existence.

Whilst this is still not great it would be nice if they sold it to us on the real facts.

[George]

They call it Geo-engineering, check out some of the crazy climate change 'quick fix' idea's. Some of them could be hellish for observing the night sky

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7533600.stm

Yes I read that article and was aghast at what it would do to our hobby, I doubt tho that any would ever happen as most would have unknown consequences. I think the only way to get CO2 down in the short term is to pump it out of the atmosphere and dump it in disused oil wells until non fossil energy gains momentum.

Matt

[The Warthog]

Maybe we could get the governments to make millions of large, CO2 fire extinguishers, and distribute them free to every nousehold in the free world. My experience of fire extinguishers is that they are rarely used. This way we could tie up a lot of the excess CO2 on the kitchen and garage walls of the free world.

[lunator]

It would be great if instead of thinking of putting lots of tiny mirrors into space to reflect the Suns energy we used it effectively on Earth to provide for our current energy needs.

Just a thought......

[Tiny]

Since Politicians are a carbon based life form getting rid of them might help. From what I heard grounding planes reduces atmospheric pollution and raises the temperature down here. But I'm willing to suffer - I don't fly and a nice sky clear of vapour trails would be nice. Maybe we could recycle the planes as fire extinguishers and stuff all the carbon from the politicians - especially the lights at night lovers - in them.

[Dippus]

Since Politicians are a carbon based life form getting rid of them might help.

Makes sense as most politicians regard carbon / CO2 as a pollutant.

[RichieJarvis]

Damn fine idea if you ask me! :hello1: :hello1:

[AlphaTau]

Now this might be a way to do it without causing to much pain for everyone

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

I thought it was an interesting read.

Cheers

Andrew

[Sam]

Now this might be a way to do it without causing to much pain for everyone

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

I thought it was an interesting read.

Cheers

Andrew

That's quite an interesting article, thanks for posting that. I saw a thing on discovery the other day about a bunch of scientists in the US who were able to produce ethanol from Hydrogren and CO2 via a catalyst in a little reactor. They got the the CO2 from a local brewery.

Sam

[Bufferz]

sounds like a good idea, but is it typical scientific hype, where after a while it turns out to be no better than what we have now? If it does work to its full potential, then you could have the deserts covered with these systems and power the whole world with them for literally buttons, the only cost would be the inital construction, as they would require little to no maintenance!