The true believers from the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming® are absolutely convinced that man's activities are causing disastrous consequences for the entire planet. So, logically, they are now proposing massive activities to change the climate which entail disastrous consequences.
This is complete and utter insanity.
WASHINGTON – When climate scientist Andrew Weaver considers the idea of tinkering with Earth's air, water or sunlight to fight global warming, he remembers the lessons of a favorite children's book.
In the book, a cheese-loving king's castle is infested with mice. So the king brings in cats to get rid of the mice. Then the castle's overrun with cats, so he brings in dogs to get rid of them, then lions to get rid of the dogs, elephants to get rid of the lions, and finally, mice to get rid of the elephants.
That scenario in "The King, the Mice and the Cheese," by Nancy and Eric Gurney, should give scientists pause before taking extreme measures to mess with Mother Nature, says Weaver of the University of Victoria.
However, in recent months, several scientists are considering doing just that.
They are exploring global warming solutions that sound wholly far-fetched, including giant artificial "trees" that would filter carbon dioxide out of the air, a bizarre "solar shade" created by a trillion flying saucers that lower Earth's temperature, and a scheme that mimics a volcano by spewing light-reflecting sulfates high in the sky.
These are costly projects of last resort — in case Earth's citizens don't cut back fast enough on greenhouse gas emissions and the worst of the climate predictions appear not too far away. Unfortunately, the solutions could cause problems of their own — beyond their exorbitant costs — including making the arid Middle East even drier and polluting the air enough to increase respiratory illnesses.
Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said mankind already has harmed Earth's climate inadvertently, so it's foolish to think that people can now fix it with a few drastic measures.
But at Trenberth's same Boulder, Colo., research center, climate scientist Tom Wigley is exploring that mock volcano idea.
"It's the lesser of two evils here (the other being doing nothing)," Wigley said. "Whatever we do, there are bad consequences, but you have to judge the relative badness of all the consequences."
Wow. Talk about hubris. Man's activities cause everything, so trigger another, even larger, environmental disaster – this time a very real one – to combat one that a lot of scientists do not believe is happening at all. Here's a cheap and dirty solution. Let Iran get nuclear weapons. When they do, they will use them. That will trigger the nuclear winter we were warned about endlessly back when the unilateral disarmament crowd was really screeching. Really, they said that was the absolute, gilt-edged ultimate TRUTH™ back then. So was the "Population Bomb" and the "Silent Spring". And countless other absolute truths that must not be ignored just in my lifetime.
These people really are out of their minds. And they call those who disagree with them "deniers".
