OF3-3/19/07 8:25AM WARNINGS ABOUT TINKERING WITH THE EARTH TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING
If may be POLITICALLY impossible to cut back fast enough on greenhouse gas emissions to do anything global warming. And if that is the case we may have to turn to geo-engineering. Such things as giant artificial TREES to filter carbon dioxide out of the air. Or a so called "solar Shade" created by a trillion flying saucers. To lower the earth's temperature. Or releasing light reflecting sulfates high in the sky to mimic a volcano, volcano eruptions like the one in the Philippines 16 years ago seemed to COOL the earth slightly. Unfortunately each of these geo-engineering ideas may well have inconvenient side effects.
Even the geo-engineering scientists say that their approaches to slowing down global warming should be used only as a last resort. And research done on them only done as an insurance policy. Andrew Weaver a climate scientist at the University of Victoria says ideas of tinkering with the earth's air water and sunlight to fight global warming remind him of a children's' book, "The King, The Mice and the Cheese" by Nancy and Eric Gurney. The story goes like this. A king's castle is infested with MICE. So the king brings in cats to kill the mice. When the castle is overrun with cats he calls in dogs to get rid of the cats. To get rid of the dogs he called in Lions. To get rid of he lions he brought in elephants. And finally to get rid of the elephants he brought in mice, until they were back to where they started. Weaver says before we take any of these extreme measures to sward off global ewe should read that book and take its lessons to heart. So many of the problems of the word are the unintended consequences of well meant solutions to other problems.
The Osgood File. I'm Charles Osgood on the CBS Radio Network.
The Osgood File. March 19, 2007 |
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