Friday, January 09, 2009

Anyone out there ever had a roommate?

Why can't we just find a reliable way to control the Earth's "thermostat", get all 6.7 billion people to agree on the "correct" setting, spend whatever it takes to achieve and maintain that setting, and then just divide the cost 6.7 billion ways?

U.N. Says 'No,' Climate Hackers Say, 'Yes We Can' | Wired Science
A major Indian-German geoengineering expedition set sail this week for the Scotia Sea, flouting a U.N. ban on ocean iron fertilization experiments in hopes of garnering data about whether the process actually does take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and sequester it in the deep ocean, a intruiging technique that may help reverse global warming.

The LOHAFEX experiment will spread 20-tons of iron sulphate particles over a 115-square-mile section of open ocean north of Antarctica — that's about 1.7 times the size of Washington, D.C. The initiative has drawn fire from environmental groups who point out that 200 countries agreed to the moratorium until more evidence was available about its efficacy.

But that hasn't stopped the LOHAFEX team, composed of Alfred Wegener Institute and Indian National Institute of Oceanography scientists, who say they need to conduct experiments to get such data.

“If the LOHAFEX iron dump goes ahead, it will be a clear defiance of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity,” Jim Thomas of ETC Group, said in a press release.

It's becoming clear that when it comes to global warming reversal schemes, deciding who will control the global thermostat is as complex an issue as how such schemes could actually be accomplished.

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