http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/31/eaclimate231.xml
Rapid climate change needs a global solution, says scientist
By Sarah Knapton
Last Updated: 8:01pm BST 31/08/2008
Global warming is happening faster than expected and planet-wide
engineering projects may be needed to buy humans more time, a leading scientist
has warned.
James Lovelock of Oxford University says schemes to reflect
sunlight from the atmosphere or increase the uptake of the greenhouse gas CO2
by the oceans should be considered to hold back disastrous climate change.
But the scientist also warned that such projects may do more harm
than good and argues the best option could be to let nature take its course.
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Writing for the Royal Society, Prof Lovelock warned even with
geo-engineering, any course was "likely to lead to death on a scale that makes
all wars, famines and disasters small".
Yet Prof Lovelock also said carrying on with "business as usual"
would probably kill most of us this century. Methods proposed for artificially
altering climate range from using trillions of space craft as a sunshade to
"seeding" the oceans with iron particles to stimulate algae which absorb CO2.
Prof Lovelock last year proposed a system of tubes in the ocean to
bring cooler, nutrient rich water to the surface to encourage algal blooms and
carbon dioxide uptake.
He even suggested the algae could also provide biofuels and food.
But he said that geo-engineering schemes could create new problems which would
require a new fix – trapping the Earth into a cycle problem and solution from
which there was no escape.
Another idea mooted is to send sea spray into the air to make
existing clouds whiter in order to enable them to reflect more sunlight, in a
bid to offset the heat trapped by increasing levels of greenhouse gases.
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