Sci-fi solutions for warming no longer considered quirky
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POZNAN (POLAND): With political efforts to tackle global warming advancing slower than a Greenland glacier, schemes for saving Earth's climate
system that once were dismissed as crazy or dangerous are gaining in status.
Negotiating a multilateral treaty on curbing greenhouse gases is being so outstripped by the scale of the problem that those promoting a deus ex-machina - a technical fix that would at least gain time - are getting a serious hearing.
To the outsider, these ideas to manipulate the climate may look as if they are inspired by science fiction. They include sucking carbon dioxide (CO²) out of the air by sowing the oceans with iron dust that would spur the growth of surface plankton.
Another idea, espoused by chemist Paul Crutzen, who won the 1995 Nobel Prize for his work on the ozone shield, is to scatter masses of sulphur dioxide particles in the stratosphere. Swathing the world at high altitude, these particles would reflect sunlight, lowering the temperature by a precious degree or thereabouts.
More ambitious still is an idea, conceived by respected University of Arizona astronomer
Roger Angel, to set up an array of deflecting lenses at a point between Earth and the Sun. Like a sunshade, they would reduce the solar heat striking the planet.
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Sci-fi solutions for warming no longer considered quirky-Health/Sci-The Times of India
