Testing our Reflections

Is anyone really sure that we are causing the conditions we are currently experiencing? How do we know for sure that this is not just a normal cycle? How do we know what cooling the earth would do, long term?

We are all taking potshots at what each of thinks is the right thing to do.

The earth was inhospitable before, it can be inhospitable again. It's been said before on this site [I forget by whom] that we are just a pimple on the earth [or something like that].

I must be in the 25% then.

Who were the people that were polled? 75% seems really high for people from three countries to agree on anything, especially on a subject as controversial as global warming.

I too must be a part of that 25%! LOL NUTZZZZ

Ummm, that 75% who are thinking this is a "grand idea" must originate from the "WE ARE THE 99%".......or otherwise known in these parts as the "fringe lunatic crowd"! (hey, we're only located 90 miles north of the nut cases located in NYC and receive on a 24/7 basis the broadcast news from there!)

The Mother Earth does that by now, for some 3,5 billion years. And will do for another 5 billion years or so, without permission or voting from these blooming twits.

The Earth heat balance was calculated and measured with increasing precision for some 300 years. Earth observing satellites took that chore over since the 1970s with increasing precision. So, I ask again, where do these twits come up, that any help at all will even be tolerated from such witlessness?!?

It would be royally fascinating to see, who did that brilliant voting. Please, let us know!

Ya sure, ya betcha. If global warming is getting you down, just light off a bunch of hydrogen bombs, inducing a "nuclear winter" to cool Mother Earth back down. Hey, let's vote on it!

(One wonders how the poll questions were phrased....)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
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1928963 - October 3, 1933 - Electrical System And Method
1957075 - May 1, 1934 - Airplane Spray Equipment
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2409201 - October 15, 1946 - Smoke Producing Mixture
2476171 - July 18, 1945 - Smoke Screen Generator
2480967 - September 6, 1949 - Aerial Discharge Device
2550324 - April 24, 1951 - Process For Controlling Weather
2510867 - October 9, 1951 - Method of Crystal Formation and Precipitation
2582678 - June 15, 1952 - Material Disseminating Apparatus For Airplanes
2591988 - April 8, 1952 - Production of TiO2 Pigments - Referenced in 3899144
2614083 - October 14, 1952 - Metal Chloride Screening Smoke Mixture
2633455 - March 31, 1953 - Smoke Generator
2688069 - August 31, 1954 - Steam Generator - Referenced in 3990987
2721495 - October 25, 1955 - Method And Apparatus For Detecting Minute Crystal Forming Particles Suspended in a Gaseous Atmosphere
2730402 - January 10, 1956 - Controllable Dispersal Device
2801322 - July 30, 1957 - Decomposition Chamber for Monopropellant Fuel - Referenced in 3990987
2881335 - April 7, 1959 - Generation of Electrical Fields
2908442 - October 13, 1959 - Method For Dispersing Natural Atmospheric Fogs And Clouds
2986360 - May 30, 1962 - Aerial Insecticide Dusting Device
2963975 - December 13, 1960 - Cloud Seeding Carbon Dioxide Bullet
3126155 - March 24, 1964 - Silver Iodide Cloud Seeding Generator - Referenced in 3990987
3127107 - March 31, 1964 - Generation of Ice-Nucleating Crystals
3131131 - April 28, 1964 - Electrostatic Mixing in Microbial Conversions
3174150 - March 16, 1965 - Self-Focusing Antenna System
3234357 - February 8, 1966 - Electrically Heated Smoke Producing Device
3274035 - September 20, 1966 - Metallic Composition For Production of Hydroscopic Smoke
3300721 - January 24, 1967 - Means For Communication Through a Layer of Ionized Gases
3313487 - April 11, 1967 - Cloud Seeding Apparatus
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3410489 - November 12, 1968 - Automatically Adjustable Airfoil Spray System With Pump
3429507 - February 25, 1969 - Rainmaker
3432208 - November 7, 1967 - Fluidized Particle Dispenser
3441214 - April 29, 1969 - Method And Apparatus For Seeding Clouds
3445844 - May 20, 1969 - Trapped Electromagnetic Radiation Communications System
3456880 - July 22, 1969 - Method Of Producing Precipitation From The Atmosphere
3518670 June 30, 1970 - Artificial Ion Cloud
3534906 - October 20, 1970 - Control of Atmospheric Particles
3545677 - December 8, 1970 - Method of Cloud Seeding
3564253 - February 16, 1971 - System And Method For Irradiation Of Planet Surface Areas
3587966 - June 28, 1971 - Freezing Nucleation
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3608810 - September 28, 1971 - Methods of Treating Atmospheric Conditions
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3613992 - October 19, 1971 - Weather Modification Method
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3659785 - December 8, 1971 - Weather Modification Utilizing Microencapsulated Material
3666176 - March 3, 1972 - Solar Temperature Inversion Device
3677840 - July 18, 1972 - Pyrotechnics Comprising Oxide of Silver For Weather Modification Use
3722183 - March 27, 1973 - Device For Clearing Impurities From The Atmosphere
3769107 - October 30, 1973 - Pyrotechnic Composition For Generating Lead Based Smoke
3784099 - January 8, 1974 - Air Pollution Control Method
3785557 - January 15, 1974 - Cloud Seeding System
3795626 - March 5, 1974 - Weather Modification Process
3808595 - April 30, 1974 - Chaff Dispensing System
3813875 - June 4, 1974 - Rocket Having Barium Release System to Create Ion Clouds In The Upper Atmopsphere
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3877642 - April 15, 1975 - Freezing Nucleant
3882393 - May 6, 1975 - Communications System Utilizing Modulation of The Characteristic Polarization of The Ionosphere
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3899129 - August 12, 1975 - Apparatus for generating ice nuclei smoke particles for weather modification
3899144 - August 12, 1975 - Powder contrail generation
3940059 - February 24, 1976 - Method For Fog Dispersion
3940060 - February 24, 1976 - Vortex Ring Generator
3990987 - November 9, 1976 - Smoke generator
3992628 - November 16, 1976 - Countermeasure system for laser radiation
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4042196 - August 16, 1977 - Method and apparatus for triggering a substantial change in earth characteristics and measuring earth changes
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4035726 - July 12, 1977 - Method of controlling and/or improving high-latitude and other communications or radio wave surveillance systems by partial control of radio wave et al
4096005 - June 20, 1978 - Pyrotechnic Cloud Seeding Composition
4129252 - December 12, 1978 - Method and apparatus for production of seeding materials
4141274 - February 27, 1979 - Weather modification automatic cartridge dispenser
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4362271 - December 7, 1982 - Procedure for the artificial modification of atmospheric precipitation as well as compounds with a dimethyl sulfoxide base for use in carrying out said procedure
4402480 - September 6, 1983 - Atmosphere modification satellite
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4415265 - November 15, 1983 - Method and apparatus for aerosol particle absorption spectroscopy
4470544 - September 11, 1984 - Method of and Means for weather modification
4475927 - October 9, 1984 - Bipolar Fog Abatement System
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5434667 - July 18, 1995 - Characterization of particles by modulated dynamic light scattering
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The article is published in Packaging & Labelling.

Is somebody suggesting that we wrap the earth in metalised cling film? I smell an alternative agenda from a company manufacturing said cling film. It is not unknown for poll results to be massaged in the name of marketing. But if it works where do I buy stock?

Taking a sample from some nutty hippy community and extrapolating to the population at large is a whole lot of work. Why not just dream up a random figure? It is not credible that 75% of the population actually understand what geoengineering means. So why make the figure credible at all, any figure will spark a response. Who was it who said "All publicity is good publicity"

To be fair, the author did say roughly 75% without quoting his tolerance. If you interpret roughly as 75% +24.99'% -74.99'%, then there is nothing wrong with his original poll data, just the way he reported it.

Here is a chart illustrating "normal" temperature variation over the past12,000 years:

This is from one of the US Government agencies (the EPA, I believe, although it may have been from NOAA). It is freely available on the Internet, but I can not remember exactly where I encountered it. If I am reading this right, it seems that we are still shy of "normal" by about 0.2 ºC. I see no indication that recent temperature increases are, in fact, "unprecedented".

Looking further back in the past:

It would seem from this that something happened about 10,000 years ago that resulted in some sort of damping on the normal temperature variation cycles- i.e., we have enjoyed unusually stable climate for the past 10,000 years. It would also appear that radical temperature swings at much higher rates and magnitudes are far more common in earth's history than Al Gore and the UN would like for us to believe.

Now, what possibly could have happened 10,000 years ago to stabilize the climate? Current theory tells us that human agricultural activity began something like 12,000 to 14,000 years ago, and at least one researcher has been able to identify evidence of human impact on the climate for at least the past 5000 years (related, in his hypothesis to extensive land clearing in Eurasia to make room for bigger farms).

It seems to me, based on this data, that overall human impact on climate has been beneficial, in that it has prevented the "normal" swings that would result in the commencement of a new ice age. In my opinion, an ice age would be far more detrimental to human survivability (or, if you prefer, biodiversity) than a warming earth. Note that I am not commenting here on other environmental impacts such as poisoning the air and water and killing the natural biota in the soils through excessive chemical use. Only "climate change".

The original UN climate report included a chapter on paleoclimate which presented this information. I have not followed recent revisions, so I do not know if this has been purged from the document, but I suspect it has, since this historical data is contrary to the political agenda.

Bottom line: at this stage in our understanding of geo-engineering, any attempt at "improving" the situation is a likely to induce an ice age as it is to "stabilize" our climate. Spending public funds on such efforts is nothing more than diverting limited resources from more pressing needs. In my opinion, the best approach is Plant Trees. Much more affordable than geo engineering, and much less likely to go wrong.

Note: I am not a "Climate Change Denier" or a "Climate Change Skeptic". It is very obvious that the world climate is changing, and it is not unreasonable to ascribe some of this effect to human activity (from agricultural land use to recent expansion of extensive urban centers).