On Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:31:12 -0500, hpeer wrote:

Hummm.....................

I've been following this topic on another site where the debate has been
raging for a couple of months.

From what I can tell the vast majority of the scientific community
firmly supports antrhropogenic warming and, if anything, the rate of
warming is significantly faster than simulations predict.

Of course there are a few nay sayers.

I would recommend the following link to someone who was truly interested
in the topic. Pretty good debate going on there.

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic44493-0-asc-0.html

I don't pay too much attention to it except to have both summer and
winter clothes, which should cover me.
But I saw something on a science program that said the man-made
atmospheric pollution has either kept us from an ice-age or from
melting - can't remember which. Point is, it was counter-intuitive
and just showed me how little we really know.
Sort of like shivering is to warm you up. Body temp mechanism
feedbacks are complex, but global stuff is in another dimension.
Long time ago I read that we could melt the ice caps by dumping
cargo plane loads of coal dust on them.
I recall the oceans absorb solar heat, so to cool the earth we could
dump plane loads of a floating reflective material onto the oceans.
Maybe Christmas tree foil or that glitter stuff kids use with Elmer's
glue. Best left to Dow Laboratories to come up with something,
I suppose. Or maybe 3M or Dunkin Donuts.
Something that won't clog boat cooling systems.
Could get disastrous results, but that's why we tweak such projects.
Yep, have to tweak a project like that sucker. Everybody should
probably be issued an umbrella and a fan. And some canned food.
Glad we got the mad scientists looking out for us, but if they fail
the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers can take over.

--Vic

Vic Smith wrote:
Could get disastrous results, but that's why we tweak such projects.
Yep, have to tweak a project like that sucker. Everybody should
probably be issued an umbrella and a fan. And some canned food.
Glad we got the mad scientists looking out for us, but if they fail
the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers can take over.

Vic, I like your thinking,, just add one thing to the umbrella and fan,
a nice parka.

Cheers
Martin

On 2008-11-05 22:07:12 -0500, Vic Smith said:

I recall the oceans absorb solar heat, so to cool the earth we could
dump plane loads of a floating reflective material onto the oceans.
Maybe Christmas tree foil or that glitter stuff kids use with Elmer's
glue.

Nah; a better solution would be to put something big between the Earth
and the sun if it's too hot, a big mirror or a bunch of little ones
somewhere up there if it's too cool.

The technology and materials exist; cost is the biggie.

--
Jere Lull
Xan-à-Deux -- Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

Jere Lull wrote:
On 2008-11-05 22:07:12 -0500, Vic Smith
said:

I recall the oceans absorb solar heat, so to cool the earth we could
dump plane loads of a floating reflective material onto the oceans.
Maybe Christmas tree foil or that glitter stuff kids use with Elmer's
glue.


Nah; a better solution would be to put something big between the Earth
and the sun if it's too hot, a big mirror or a bunch of little ones
somewhere up there if it's too cool.

The technology and materials exist; cost is the biggie.



You are kidding, right?


--

Richard

(remove the X to email)

On 2008-11-06 05:16:26 -0500, cavelamb himself said:

Jere Lull wrote:
On 2008-11-05 22:07:12 -0500, Vic Smith said:

I recall the oceans absorb solar heat, so to cool the earth we could
dump plane loads of a floating reflective material onto the oceans.
Maybe Christmas tree foil or that glitter stuff kids use with Elmer's
glue.


Nah; a better solution would be to put something big between the Earth
and the sun if it's too hot, a big mirror or a bunch of little ones
somewhere up there if it's too cool.

The technology and materials exist; cost is the biggie.

You are kidding, right?

Absolutely not at all.

And it actually is on topic for the newsgroup ;-)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail

--
Jere Lull
Xan-à-Deux -- Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/

Jere Lull wrote:
On 2008-11-06 05:16:26 -0500, cavelamb himself
said:

Jere Lull wrote:

On 2008-11-05 22:07:12 -0500, Vic Smith
said:

I recall the oceans absorb solar heat, so to cool the earth we could
dump plane loads of a floating reflective material onto the oceans.
Maybe Christmas tree foil or that glitter stuff kids use with
Elmer's glue.



Nah; a better solution would be to put something big between the
Earth and the sun if it's too hot, a big mirror or a bunch of little
ones somewhere up there if it's too cool.

The technology and materials exist; cost is the biggie.


You are kidding, right?


Absolutely not at all.

And it actually is on topic for the newsgroup ;-)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail


Programmers call that "vapor ware".

And no, we do NOT have the technology for anything like that.

HEck, we don't even have the technology to go to the moon at this time.


--

Richard

(remove the X to email)

On 2008-11-06 19:54:30 -0500, cavelamb himself said:

Absolutely not at all.

And it actually is on topic for the newsgroup ;-)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail


Programmers call that "vapor ware".

Hey, I is one of them, too. I know the difference between not being
able to deliver a promise (vapor) and noting that something is possible
if someone wants to pay for its development (wish list).

And no, we do NOT have the technology for anything like that.

I agree that we couldn't do what I suggest tomorrow, but I'm surprised
how many advancements have been made since I last checked in, how many
creditable tests, both with sails and solar panels, how many probes
have used the underlying techniques successfully.

That they have problems getting the deployment tests launched
successfully is hardly a condemnation of the technology, given what has
been demonstrated. Hell, blame the damn Russian rockets that can't get
it up.

If you want to compare this to anything, I'd point to how much closer
we are to that than we were when JFK challenged us to fly men to the
moon. At the time, we had trouble getting rockets off the launch pad,
much less into space.

HEck, we don't even have the technology to go to the moon at this time.

The technology is proven. It's a HARDware issue!

= Not MY problem ;-)

--
Jere Lull
Xan-à-Deux -- Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/