Of course, the cause - too many people using too many resources - is ignored, but it will have to be addressed very soon or else we shall continue our steady course towards an outcome like Easter Island on a global scale.

One child per family, world wide, for the next three or four generations and the empowerment of women.

Funny the article says nothing about the obvious checkerboards of chemtrails used (presumably) to shield the sun. And for those on this thread who will deny these even exist, they should know that a mainstream German TV meteorologist did an investigation on them a couple of years ago and was able to meet with some German air force people who admitted that, yes, the military planes are purposely streaking the sky, and that what they are doing is harmless (according to them), but that it was top secret and they couldn't tell the good weatherman exactly what it was. This was all broadcast on German network TV.

I would also say, for those who would still deny this, that they should actually use their eyes sometimes. Over the past few months in the French region where I live, the phenomenon has been too obvious to deny, and even the hardest skeptics among the people I know were forced to admit that something strange seemed to be happening. In sum: plane after plane creating parallel and intersecting trails to the point where they form a very obvious grid, which, with time (that is, over several hours, when normal clouds would have already dispersed), begins to merge and form a milky screen over the sky.

This article is a way of admitting that these things are already happening. The people in charge should come clean, however, and tell the whole story.

"Geoengineering is not a solution to the problem of climate change."

Then its just a waste of time and money, but provides employment for dilettantes and professors.

the biggest families by far in the US are the religious right & Mormons, they always have tons of kids. I saw some religious nutjob on a news program several weeks ago with eight kids and nine on the way. This is so irresponsible, but I don't think God believes in global warming

The greenest thing you can do is have no kids, I confess I have 2 - and I really worry about the world they are going to be left with when they are my age (40 years from now). Sadly, I don't believe the outlook is to rosy

I am very uneasy of any call to suspend research for reasons of politics. I agree that none of the geoengineering solutions would prevent some of the CO2 problems, such as ocean acidification, and that that must be dealt with. But to not even research emergency measures in order to "force" us to stop emitting CO2 is shortsighted, and open to criticism that it may be too late even now to prevent serious effects from killing people.

The courage to stop CO2 must be found elsewhere, not by this "know nothing" artifice ...

Hey RVingRetiree, isn't driving around the country in an RV that gets 2 miles to the gallon a little shortsighted, your very courageous

See the problem here, people simply don't see that every aspect of our civilized culture is destroying the planet, it's unsustainable, Geoengineering is not going to help in the least bit, and in itself is not sustainable, how much energy and resources are depleted in the act of Geoengineering itself?

Look at the freeways, the malls, the garbage, the plastic food wrapped in plastic, the flag waving plastic people oblivious of their own ignorance. Silver bullet solutions that don't address our greed and waste serve only to help us sleep and give us the courage to look in the mirror; and, of course, find someone suitable to blame.

This geo-engineering is covered in Gwynne Dyer's excellent "Climate Wars." He refrains, but I have no problem calling such schemes idiotic fantasies.

For hundreds of years, we've destroyed ecosystems and species via the same pattern: a heavily-exploited, then rapidly-dwindling resource prompts minor hand-wringing that produces no solution. Extinction follows. Now it's our turn.

sorry RVing for assuming the worse, just my pessimistic nature, I compost and grow my own veggies and weed ! Beyond that I'm a big hypocrite, my "footprint", I think is quite small compared to similar friends, I kind of agree with Derrick Jensen that individual efforts are really a waste of time, feel good thing, until we make majotr corp./cultural changes, our actions are a drop in the bucket. from Mark Rockstroh's excellent article today on this site...Mark Twain had this to say on the subject: "Man cannot tell the whole truth about himself, even if convinced that what he wrote would never be seen by others. I have personally satisfied myself of that and have got others to test it also. You cannot lay bare your private soul and look at it. You are too much ashamed of yourself. It is too disgusting." How true

geoengineering does not allow for "oops".

LOL.

For proponents of geoengineering (notably Bill Gates and the Bill and Melinda Foundation), it's not that it's "easier to manage the sun than to get people to take a bus," but rather that it's more profitable.

There will be no moratorium, because the corporate community sees geoengineering as the next great commercial opportunity. Where common sense collides with potential profit, it hasn't a snowball's chance in hell.

Likewise there is opportunity for engineering, consulting, and IT firms in on-the-ground climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. And these solutions can be sold by motivating people with fear and insecurity -- so much easier than convincing people to pay a little more for their electricity, or to reduce their auto usage, in order to avoid the problem in the first place.

We need to end the present major geoengineering experiment of increasing atmospheric CO2 by 1.8 ppm/year, and oceanic CO2 by a proportional amount.

NOAA, NASA, IPCC, Hadley, and universities all over the world have all done the math and extrapolated the curve, and predict climate disaster. (It may already be too late.)

Joint Vision 20/20: Own the weather. We're already geo-engineering it's called chemtrailing.

pot pot appletree pot pot veggies pot pot pot pinetree pot pot pot maple pot pot veggies pot pot pot oak pot aspen pot pot willow pot pot cedar pot pot pot veggies pot pot koa

[Futuristic technological scenarios]…are capitalism's pseudo-revolutionary technological alternative to the needed socio-ecological revolution. Those in charge are increasingly aware that the system in its normal workings under business as usual cannot solve climate change and other environmental threats. But rather than turn to a change in social relations of production -- that is, accept the need for an ecological revolution that would transcend the fundamentals of the system -- the vested interests turn instead to grand technological ploys. To understand the danger of such forms of geoengineering, one has to appreciate the complex nature of the earth system itself, beyond our capacity fully to understand. Some, for example, have said we can put iron filings in the ocean to promote algae and absorb carbon dioxide. But this could lead to other consequences such as expanding dead zones in the ocean (ocean anoxia). If we try to geoengineer the planet we are inevitably going to create bigger, more threatening forms of … metabolic rifts, with all sorts of complex, unpredictable effects. This is the road to insanity: the sorcerer's apprentice raised to the level of master of the entire planet. Nobel-prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen says we could dump sulfur in the atmosphere via cannons or aircraft, in order to block some of the solar radiation from reaching the earth. But if the economic system keeps on growing, we would have to increase the sulfur dumped into the atmosphere exponentially year after year, and we have no real idea what the repercussions would be if we tried to intervene in the earth system in this way on such an enormous scale. Carbon sequestration, if the technology ever got off the ground, might help. But it would not solve the underlying problem.

source: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/foster270410.html

Hubris exceeded only by stupidity.

Titanic ignorance.

Re: those cross hatch plane lines in the sky...there are a lot of them in So. Ca. One person tired to tell me that it was exhaust from the plane, which I have never seen before, and the 'stuff' stays longer than any lame sky writing. Besides, if that plane exhaust hypothesis was true then no one would ever be able to ever see Burbank or LAX because of the fog..

However, I could not believe that people actually thought about giant mirrors in the sky to turn the sun rays away...OMG! Then every nation in the world would be shooting off rockets because the nations will all want to have rockets, planes, missles, or jets that could tip the mirrors in case we needed a new kind of warfare.

And dumping lead in the Galapagos......they would have killed everything off!

Please NO. If these investment fools see anything, it's just dollars. Science and technology can do a lot, but if they think that they can make bbig money and save the planet, then we are doomed.

Occams Razor...the simplest solution is best. Scary...but $20 a gallon gas should do it!

I think we should all contribute suggestions of our own.

My contribution....NASA should switch venus's orbit with neptune's. Then, move the moon into the Gulf of Mexico to suck up all of the oil - like a giant sponge. The craters can be flooded and used as fish hatcheries.

They've already been doing this for years (see, http://www.youtube.com/DrKenHildebrandt#p/u/3/znB1HfQZ0Wo).

There are environmentally benign geoengineering plans, and there are also truly horrid plans. I oppose the truly horrid designs.

I have designed devices that restore the Arctic Ocean ice pack to its normal thickness. I have gone through generations of such devices.

Some of my earlier generation devices added too much oxygen to the under-ice sea -- the water under the ice pack is naturally pretty low oxygen, and its ecosystem consists of plants/animals adapted to the low oxygen environment. Almost all existing forms of Arctic Ocean life, large and small, depend on the ocean's delicate oxygen balance.

My devices have to deal with the harsh Arctic climate, and earlier devices had too many moving parts.

My estimated cost for artificially restoring the Arctic and Antarctic ice packs is about $1 billion per year, for many years, until we can sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide down well below 300 parts per million. In this modern world where things are cheap and jobs are few, spending $1 billion a year to stop the worst effects of global warming is a true bargain.

Few know that the sun itself is getting hotter (according to The Universe series on the History Channel, relaying satellite data), and that solar flares are expected to peak in 2012 or thereabout.

Outside of the box of normal science, the mystics say that the whole of the universe is alive and conscious, and that the earth is a living creature, albeit of a different order.

The purpose of human life, some say, is to act like a 'skin' that helps the earth interface with the rest of the Cosmos. Human consciousness is part of whole of the consciousness of the planet. If man serves HIS purpose with regard to the whole and becomes more conscious, things stay in balance, and his being is an enhancement the whole. On the other hand if, like at present, man descends further into unconsciousness and becomes a destructive force, he becomes a rash or irritation to the earth, and she will, at some point, have to 'scratch' to bring back balance.

Not saying I believe or disbelieve this, just find it interesting.

Geoengineering is probably the only possible solution to the ever-closer climate catastrophe that awaits us. As one of the upthread commenters remarked, individual efforts are commendable but largely useless, as they are far from universal. What I find most dismaying, however, is that so many insist on addressing EMISSIONS as a solution to this problem. For one thing, the emissions have already been emitted. Manageable atmospheric CO2 concentration is said to be 350 ppm. We are now at 390 and climbing. Reducing emissions is futile if you don't address the problem of the emissions already in the atmosphere. And how do you do that? By the way, the project planned and then abandoned by Planktos is a typical example of a good idea shot down by ignorant fanatics: The environmental groups that loudly condemned the project nimbly utilized semantic bombs like "dumping iron" in the ocean (See the comment by stardust, above, for a prime example) in their criticism. The Planktos project involved concentrations of iron compounds at the parts per trillion level, hardly at a level suitably described as "dumping iron". In addition, the planned initial test off the Galapagos involved an area in which the prevailing currents led away from the islands, posing no danger to the island ecosystems themselves. The solution advocated by the enviros opposing the Planktos project? You guessed it: Reduce emissions. Thanks, guys. Should work out just fine.

Pirate Comment Part 1
Four or five years ago I had read an article from the Guardian or Independent on Common Dreams about studies that year that had discovered that for the first time, the earth was putting out more greenhouse gases [GHG’s] than we were. I realized the implications of this. This was as a result of a new phenomena I had just begun hear about called “climate feedbacks” or feedback dynamics. As I later found out, the methane from permafrost and deep sea hydrate ice melting [clathrates], the loss of reflectivity from sea ice melting, the increase in atmospheric water vapor etc., these are among the myriad of positive feedback processes that are causing climate change to accelerate far faster than even the worst case scenarios of the most pessimistic scientists a few years ago when the first IPCC report came out.

I have a public access TV show and a couple days later I had gone down to videotape David Suzuki at a local bookstore. I told him that that information should have gotten banner headlines and I asked him how he accounted for the fact that it didn’t. He said, “I can’t” and he was practically pulling his hair out. As a person who runs in those circles, he had been trying for 20 years to get other main stream media producers and network big-wigs to cover climate change seriously.

Well I know why they don’t cover it, and so do you my fellow progressive media savvy Common Dreams readers. The climate change denial industry didn’t just start when Ross Gelbspan exposed it. It’s been going on the entire time, mostly behind the scenes through the machinations of PR firms hired to keep words like “Global Warming” off your TV and out of your consciousness. Even now, I challenge any of you to find one place in corporate media –especially TV where anyone mentions even the remote possibility that today’s record breaking severe weather events in Northern Illinois may have something to do with anthropogenic climate change. I didn’t look, but I already know it’s not there.

So it’s not surprising to me, the level of ignorance I found in this article and in almost all your posts that I just scanned. Nobody really understands what climate change is. -Especially the ETC Group.

I didn’t stop with David Suzuki. In no time, I was plugged in with some of the world’s most cutting edge climate scientists. Many of them are right here at the University of Washington in Seattle where I live, but before long I was getting invited to scientific conferences. I was meeting scientists from all over the world. At the same time I was talking to Amy Goodman and other alternative media friends to try to get them to cover this stuff. I had two long talks with Amy when she was here wherein I explained the facts of life to her about feedback dynamics. It made me really angry when she featured Pat Mooney from the ETC Group with no one to present a counter position.

Someone mentioned Gwynne Dyer and the “debate” with Vandana Shiva on Democracy Now!. I put him up to it. I had taped his talk at the Town Hall a week earlier and got into a long talk with him afterward. I suspected that he knew some of the same people I had been talking to. It turned out it was true. I expressed my frustration that Amy and others weren’t covering what I’ve been talking about. I didn’t know he was going to be on her show. I’ve met Vandana many times and have always had the greatest respect for her but Gwynne won that debate. He had the most reasoned argument.
End of Part 1

Pirate Comment Part 2
Now I’m going to give you a few unavoidable facts so that you will understand why. There’s more, but this will be enough. The fact that the earth is already emitting more GHG’s than we are means that we are already in runaway feedback mode. Even if we humans stopped all carbon releases into the atmosphere [net zero] right now, at this point it wouldn’t stop the runaway feedbacks from continuing to accelerate climate change until it wipes us out. All earth processes for regulating the climate are in positive feedback mode. I just mentioned a few of them, there are around 26 known categories of feedbacks. Sure Gaia will restore equilibrium at some point but that will take thousands, maybe millions of years.

The reason why Bill McKibben chose 350ppm of carbon as the key number is because that is the maxim CO2 we can have and still have ice caps. But CO2 is only one of several green house gasses. Methane is 20x more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. We are now at 386ppm of CO2 and increasing by 2ppm per year. This is also accelerating. It means that catastrophic sea level rise is already inevitable. Carbon molecules stay in the atmosphere for an average of a thousand years. It’s not going away anytime soon. Some of it is absorbed by rocks but most if it goes into the ocean. The ocean is already dangerously acidic as well as loosing its ability to absorb carbon.
As we cross ever more dangerous tipping points such as the melting of the arctic sea ice in summertime [now scheduled for a decade or two], the Amazon collapses, the Siberian permafrost melts, the methane clathrate “time bomb” goes off, or the thermohaline current shuts down, this only accelerates climate destabilization even faster and further unravels the biosphere on which we depend. In fact, we are dangerously close to any one of these things and any one could wipe us out or trigger the others.

So sorry, you are not being told about this. -At least in a big picture sense. It means the party is already over. Economic growth is over. One way or the other corporate rule and globalization will end. Consume ‘till you drop is already an obsolete lifestyle. Arguing about whether to have a ban on geoengineering research is pointless. It’s already happening in every major university in the world. It’s because they know what you don’t.

Will the powers that rule us screw the third world first? Of course. It’s already happening. Will they use it as an excuse to continue business as usual until the bitter end? Of course. Will they pick the “solution” that makes the most profit irregardless of effectiveness? Of course. Does a pig have bad breath?

Everything that the ETC Group is saying is completely valid except for what I just told you. We have to cool the planet to stop the chain reaction and suck out the carbon. There’s no choice. As activists our job is to educate ourselves as to the options as they arise and force the world’s governments to get us to net zero ASAP as well as make the right geoengineering choices. We’ve already geoengineered the planet. Now we have to save our asses. We’re only going to get one shot. –If we’re lucky.

You can find out more about this and the work I’ve been doing on my website. Peter Ward is a paleontologist who unearthed the evidence that ended the debate on what caused the mass extinction events that delineate geologic time. They were all caused by rapid climate change except for the one that killed the Dinosaurs. He evaluates the various geoengineering schemes at the end of this week’s show. Let’s not be Dinosaurs. Search for Pirate TV Seattle.