GREAT NEWS! But …
Hi there!
Well, I’ve been reading the RSS feeds again, and I ran across a combination of reports that leave me a little worried about where all these “Save the Earth” programmes are leading us. No, I’m not a die-hard, anti-green (would that make me “red”?), industrialist. What I am, or at least try to be, is a professional Practical Greenologist (first time I’ve used that specific term), who uses reason, logic, and intelligence to solve some of the problems facing the Earth, some (most?) of which apparently were caused by us humans.
These articles were interesting, and the groups involved (I won’t name them because they weren’t named consistently in the articles 
) had justifiable well-meaning goals. The problem that we see here is one that has bothered me for a long time in general. Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. First the articles.
One of the articles, “Earth’s Formerly Thin Ozone Layer Is Recovering, Scientists Claim” presented what to me is great news – just as it says in the title, the ozone layer in the stratosphere in the temperate regions may well recover to 1980 levels by around 2050 and the Antarctic ozone hole is now expected to be eliminated by about 2070. For me, that’s great news! The scientists involved said that this is “due in large part” to international conformance with the anti-chlorofluorocarbon agreement coming from the Montreal Protocol of 1987. I repeat, great news!
My conclusion:
- we (the world in general) found a problem (ozone depletion in the stratosphere),
- we diagnosed a cause of the problem (destruction of ozone by attacks from chlorofluorocarbons originating from refrigerants), and
- we resolved the problem (removal of most of the worst offending CFC’s from circulation).
BRAVO!! 
Then, I ran across a second article entitled “Plan to reverse global warming could backfire”. This one really scared me, because it demonstrates how much tunnel-vision people in general, and particularly environmental scientists, can have in proposing solutions for “their” particular problem.
In this article, the proposal of “a number of climate scientists” is to spray sulphate particles into the stratosphere to provide “shade” for the earth, similar to what occurs with a major volcanic outbreak. The objective is to lower the entry of heat into the atmosphere by blocking it at high elevations with the sulphate particles, essentially cooling the earth and reducing or reversing “global warming”.
My logic train here says “WHOA!” We have been spending multiple thousand-millions (billions in US terms) of currency units (take your choice, it’s a huge amount of money regardless of whether it is dollars or pounds or euros or whatever) for years to REMOVE sulphate particles from the flue gasses spewed out of power plants and other industrial “polluters” as well as from the exhaust of your family automobile! Something doesn’t click here.
Well, as it turns out, there is another reason that it’s not a good idea: additional suplhate particles in the stratosphere will destroy ozone! Specifically, “sulfate injections could react with chlorine gasses in cold polar regions, triggering a chemical reaction that would further deplete atmospheric ozone.” That’s called, “hello MaryLou, goodbye ozone” all over again! It appears that this will not be an acceptable resolution to global warming.
Thank goodness! I would hate to think of the cost of removing all that de-sulphurisation equipment again! :-)
I like the closing quote in this article, and although I may be a cynic, this certainly sounds self-serving! “We need people to have atmospheric models to understand the process in more detail.” Is that an mild understatement, or what!
Everybody stay green! But think practical greenology, ok?
Ciao for now,
Craig
for
Sue & Craig Websites
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- Notes about RSS Feeds
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