Engineering Twilight, Part One.

In the occasional serendipitous neuron firing/misfiring that passes for cleverness with me, I had one idea in mind for this post when I came out with the title. Thinking that it might be confusing (and in what way) led me to that which will comprise today's post.

The idea of a "global sunblock" is certainly new enough when talked about as something we'd want to try:

Proponents suggest so-called "geoengineering" would probably take effect much more quickly than cutting emissions and at a fraction of the price. They also point out that years of international debate on emissions has produced almost no results and opening a high-altitude chemical parasol may soon be the only way to keep global warming at manageable levels.
"Solar-radiation management may be the only human response that can fend off rapid and high-consequence climate impacts," wrote Keith, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Energy and the Environment at the University of Calgary.

First off, I've no idea what planet these people are on that still think things are too hot here; probably the same one where the inhabitants explain "global warming" as being responsible for it getting colder. From here I was going to list the ways in which this was a bad idea numerically, but screw it, I'll just free-style it as usual.

The key to all of this is blocking our sun, e.g. Sol, source of all life on this planet. Partially they say, and I'm sure that's true, but how much is enough and how much is too much? I have those questions for starters, but it is conceivable that someone could answer that, at least with something that gave them the result they were looking for in a model.

Where this is not so new is that it has happened innumerable times already in Earth's history. The average reader of this blog is old enough to remember Mt Pinatubo going up in 1991. The upshot of that "high-altitude chemical parasol" was a cold miserable summer and a drop of 0.5°C in the world's temperature. Bloody cold winter too, as I recall. It is to be noted that these "average" numbers translate into something significantly less academic on the pointy end, e.g. in reality, in our lives. I strongly suggest reading the above link to get a solid idea of the forces involved, the persistence of effects and the world-wide impact of ONE VOLCANO. The effects on the ozone layer by themselves are eye-opening even though I was generally aware of it before now.

The Earth bounced back from that with the warmest decade since the 1930s, and I note that mankind's numbers increased significantly despite the horrible pleasantly-warm weather that we had for those years. Whatever chemical weirdness they have in mind, they have no way to test it. Think about that, and put any thought of computer models out of your head. The systems involved (the sun, the factors affecting atmospheric circulation and our climate) are vastly too complex to be reliably modeled, full-stop. Effects are transient (though how transient, exactly?) but if you're looking for something longer lasting, do I have a program for you!

It's called "Nuclear Winter" and you may have heard of it. You don't need nukes for it of course; a massive regional volcanic event will do it, or failing that a big enough rock hitting us. Note that both of these are leading contenders for killing off the dinosaurs, or at least most things bigger than a housecat living on land at the time.

Cold is bad. The Inuit concept of Hell is a cold place, and they know more about cold than anyone. When it's warm, things can grow; the worst droughts or hurricanes (not guaranteed results just because it gets hotter) pale in effect on the landscape and living things compared to a continental ice sheet. Compare South America to Antarctica for example.

The AGW brigade is feverishly trying to keep their agenda in the public eye, and this represents the latest angle. Note the dangling bait of "less expensive". It is obvious to the great unwashed (that's us, btw) that the implications of all of these "green" policies would be disastrous to our standard of living. This latest brainwave has the potential to flat-line agriculture if they block out a teensy bit too much sun (Oops! That's not what the model predicted...) leading to the mother-of-all unintended consequences as we all starve to death. Actually, considering the attitudes of some of these people that might not be so unintended after all as long as all of the rich white people are wiped out too...

It's treated quite glibly by these geoengineering advocates, but personally I would view a unilateral dispersal of some chemical into the atmosphere by some country as an act of war against the entire world. What this also does, although it is never mentioned in the articles, is recognize that our heat all comes from the sun. It's not a big step from there to realizing that the sun is NOT a constant and that just maybe we're trying to mess with things that aren't idly trifled with. I just hope it's not as cheap and simple as they claim so we don't find out the hard way, sort of like the dinosaurs did.