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Showing posts with label TPM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TPM. Show all posts

Sunday, July 31, 2022

An alternative to blowing up the sun

 


Mike Nuen had a stand-up comedy routine back in the 70s;  he proposed that in order to solve a few problems, all we had to do was blow up the sun.  Any potential consequences to the Earth’s climate or weather patterns could be easily handled by the Army Corps of Engineers.  He always got good laughs during the routine.

Now some group of demented climate change warriors (billed as the Climate Overshoot Commission) is seriously proposing something pretty similar. Here’s the headline and sub-head from PostMillenial:

Scientists Consider Dimming The Sun To Solve Climate Change

The Thomson Reuters Foundation asked
"Could 'dimming the sun' help turn down global heating?"
and said the answer may be stratospheric aerosol injection

So their deliberations include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere from aircraft -- specifically to interfere with incoming sunlight, and this presumably could “fix” the climate change “problem.”  Read about this insane proposal here.

“Dimming the Sun”?  What are they thinking?

I am not a scientist, just a concerned layperson.  But it would seem to be impossible to overstate how dangerous this idea is, and it is frightening to consider that the group is getting enough attention for the report to be linked on a major aggregator, Rantingly.  As far as I have read, science is nowhere near to understanding how and why the Earth’s climate cycles function as they do.  Scientists know certain contributing factors and variables, such as geothermal activity, the Earth’s axis in relation to the sun, and so on. Anthony Watts has a big page specifying potential variables at his website, WattsUpWithThat; click here.

In the not-too-distant past, Henrik Svensmark, a Danish physicist, conducted experiments at the CERN particle accelerator to attempt to measure the impact of incoming “charged particles from the sun, [how they] interact with cosmic rays as they approach Earth” and how that interaction affects cloud seeding, arguing that “the amount of cloud cover determines how hot or cold the planet is.”  His hypothesis remains controversial;  many in the science community really did not want to hear about it;  see here.  That should tell anyone who is interested that the field of climate science remains in a state of uncertainty, with competing working hypotheses.  And like most other fields, politics and funding now play large roles in all of this.

As far as I have read, the uncertainties far outweigh any certainties concerning the multiple variables influencing Earth’s climate, it should be obvious that deliberate interference with the sun’s many effects on Earth would be not just foolhardy and reckless, but potentially suicidal. 

Earth’s climate has been variable during its 4+ billion year existence. We still don’t understand how it has taken care of itself.  Nobody seems to know what optimal temperatures are, much less how they might be sustained or reversed.  No idea.  Any deliberate interference surely COULD accelerate the next Ice Age.  Or worse.

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Sunday, March 4, 2018

Gridiron Dinner: Trump Meets the Press

image credit: pinterest.com


President Trump spoke at the Gridiron Dinner last night. Not televised. The full transcript of his speech is here. Here’s part of his opening remarks:

It’s been really another calm week at the White House. We finally have it running like a fine-tuned machine. It’s fine-tuned. It’s a beautiful piece of work. … But before I get started, I wanted to apologize for arriving a little bit late. You know, we were late tonight because Jared could not get through security. 
. . .

I know the Gridiron is really an old tradition in Washington, been around a long time, and one that’s important to many of you in the media. So, I was very excited to receive this invitation and come here and ruin your evening in person. 

… My staff was concerned heading into this dinner that I couldn’t do self-deprecating humor. They were worried about it. They said, ‘Can you do this?’ And I told them not to worry. Nobody does self-deprecating humor better than I do. …  In fact, Orrin Hatch, Orrin said that ‘Donald Trump is the best at self-deprecating in the history of America, better than Washington and better than Lincoln.’ … Thank you, Orrin.

More:

. . . Attorney General Sessions is here with us tonight. … I offered him a ride over and he recused himself. … But that’s OK. We also have some of the leading lights of the media here including some folks from the failing New York Times. That sucker is failing! … I know we have our differences, but I also know that you have a very special place … in my heart. … The other day they had five stories on the front page of the New York Times and every one of them was totally different and each one of them was bad.

After all, you the New York Times are an icon. I’m a New York icon, you’re a New York icon, and the only difference is, I still own my buildings.

I especially have a place in my heart for Arthur Sulzberger. … Our stories are almost mirror images. I inherited a million dollars from my father—had a great father—gave me a million dollars and I turned it into billions. True story. Arthur inherited billions of dollars and he turned his into millions. Hello Arthur.

More zingers at the TPM blog transcript here.
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