UK to Launch Solar Dimming Experiments in Effort to Curb Climate Crisis

[MicroB]

20 hours ago, Donga said:

“Every time you fly, sulphur, which is naturally present in jet fuel, is emitted into the lower most stratosphere causing a small cooling effect."

Huh? Thought we weren't meant to fly these days, but maybe sail 😅

 

Early in my career my PhD concerned James Lovelock's CLAW hypothesis. James Lovelock was possibly the greatest British scientist since Sir Isaac Newton. its an hypothesis that has never entirely gone away, but has been modified.

 

James Lovelock's observation of over 50 years ago that the Earth is a living planet is correct. The conditions we enjoy are down to Life on Earth. Take life away, and the planet changes massively. Where life influences our environment is through the mineral cycles; carbon, sulfur, phosphorous, nitrogen and so forth.

 

Without life, everything oxidizes.

 

Lovelock died a few years ago, aged 101. His final thoughts concerned the coming Novacene. He thought humans, as the dominant life form, have only 20-50 years left. He was quite amused by the prospect, because he knew he wouldn't be around to see it. AI would become the dominat life form, which could be genocidal, human skull crushing Terminators, or more likely, an AI rather keen on maintaining humans, like we maintain flowers in a garden. Because we will serve a purpose, in that our (lfe) contribution is providing a environment that coincidently is also pretty good for electronics.

 

 

 

 

 

Later, I would come to know James Martin, an American oceanographer, equally brilliant and visionary, but his life was cut short by a heart attack. Its really down to him that we are even considerng climate engineering as something to try. Building on Lovelock's work, he was interested in what was going on in the Antartic Ocean during then summer. For a short period, the Weddell Sea, in terms of fisheries, becomes the most productive sea on Earth, an utter feeding frenzy for the Antartic Cod. Fishermen know this, and make a lot of money. What was causing it was the summer melt of the ice shelf releasing micronutrients which kicked started the algae, then the phytoplankton, all the way up the food chain to fish and us. But the sea is full of nutrients already. What is it short of? its short of Iron. If Iron can be added, algal blooms can be stimulated, leading to uptake of CO2, release of DMS, and following the CAW hypothesis, a sulfulr-mediated cooling effect.

 

He died before they could try some practical oceanographic experiments. During the main bit of my researhc, which was all about bacterial activity as part of this feedback loop, I spent quite a bit of time bobbing around the North Sea in Hurricane strength winds, trying to work out how organic volatiles, like DMS, partition to atmosphere in a hurricane; interesting stuff being in a 50m boat, in a 20-50m swell, and trying to keep to a geostationary position. They managed to demonstrate Martin's Geritol effect in an Anglo-American expedition off the Galapogas; literally dump iron into the ocean, and measure the subsequent impact on atmospheric CO2. its a real effect. Enough to be used to enginer the environment? That's another matter, but a great deal of understanding was developed to understand how life affects the climate.

 

I subsequently left the field to work in bioological threat agent work. Its an area of study I greatly miss.

[Woke to Sounds]

48 minutes ago, MicroB said:

He thought humans, as the dominant life form, have only 20-50 years left. He was quite amused by the prospect, because he knew he wouldn't be around to see it.

 

Great news for our Overlords, who cannot wait to snuff out most of us useless eaters in favour of A.I. servants.

 

No sick days, no problem employees, no pesky pension funding for non humans is there!

 

Geoengineering has been going on since at least the end of WW2.

 

Just look up in the sky and observe... like some (intellectually honest) scientists do.

[300sd]

The lunatics are everywhere:

https://yournews.com/2025/04/24/3395310/epa-demands-explanation-from-firm-releasing-sulfur-dioxide-into-the/

[fasteddie]

😂