Thats the difference between egghead scientists and folks down here in central GA. If we had a fox eating our chickens the last thing we’d be trying to do is trap him. Shotgun, meet Fox. Fox, meet shotgun. Problem solved. And it cost approximately 50 cents.

What Marcus said (#27).

There are two recent books on the subject of geoengineering (not just sulfate aerosols but cloud-brightening and plankton-goosing*). They are How to Cool the Planet by Jeff Goodell and Hacking the Planet by Eli Kintisch. Both are good, but I prefer the Kintisch.

The authors talked to a lot of scientists, and most are united in saying that geoengineering methods should be considered a last resort.

* Yes, I’m being flippant here.

There’s a small island off Newfoundland (can’t remember the name–it’s small and relatively inconsequential). This island serves as a bird breeding site because there are no mammals, no reptiles, no predators (except perhaps predatory birds).

Anyhow an Arctic Fox somehow made it’s way there and has been living a pretty good life for the last couple of years. Lonely I suppose, but lots of food! They think the fox got there via an iceberg that drifted down from the Arctic and the fox happened to be on board.

There are biologists on the island studying the birds. When I heard the report (just last week I think) they were trying, unsuccessfully, to trap the fox and relocate it.

Ya know, in looking at the charts of CO2, Temperature, Ice Ages & such….It looks all the world to me like Temps and CO2 reach this certain point, and SNAP…Something says “Enough!!”, maybe a CO2 sucking mutant, Pine Tree or warm ocean loving Algae, Bacteria, or Plankton goes nuts and just scours all the CO2 gone…Poof, Ice Age. Out of the frying pan into the freezer.

According to ice core samples, a CO2 increase *follows* a temperature increase (by about 800 years) for hundreds of thousands of years now. And we think we have a good explanation for it:

Milankovitch cycles

These put the Earth into an ice age, but at the other end they help pull it out again. Melting of ice sheets and heating of the oceans caused by increased solar irradiation causes trapped CO2 to be released, which acts as a feedback to further warm the earth, which releases more CO2, until the system reaches a relative equilibrium again.

But since the industrial revolution, demonstrably for the first time in at least hundreds of thousands of years, increased CO2 *leads* temperature increase. And the CO2 concentration is also *way* higher than it has been from any of those ice core samples going back all that time. Simple physics tells us that that if (some) infrared radiation can’t escape the atmosphere since it is blocked by a greenhouse gas like CO2, that the extra heat has to contribute to warming the planet (both the surface and the oceans). We have measured this warming, and we can observe the effects of it. To deny it is happening is basically saying that you don’t trust scientists to have done their homework when it comes to AGW (but all the other science that brings you stuff like iPods, GPS, and modern medicine is somehow spot on).

I’m selfish because I have an opinion that part of Florida may end up underwater and I prefer this to Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, New England States, et cetera, being buried under snow permanently. OK, you can call me selfish.

But that’s an extremely implausible scenario, for reasons that have been explained. An ice age is just not gonna happen for a long, long time if we keep artificially warming the planet.

Ya know, in looking at the charts of CO2, Temperature, Ice Ages & such….It looks all the world to me like Temps and CO2 reach this certain point, and SNAP…Something says “Enough!!”, maybe a CO2 sucking mutant, Pine Tree or warm ocean loving Algae, Bacteria, or Plankton goes nuts and just scours all the CO2 gone…Poof, Ice Age. Out of the frying pan into the freezer.

Another funny thought I have, we figure out a way to moderate temperatures, get everything “Juuuuuust Right” and BAM Tambora explodes, or we get smacked by an asteroid…and God says Ha!

Bottom Line here, the CO2 level changes and Global Warming/Cooling periods have been occurring without mans intervention for millions of years, if the Earth decides it; we are all just bugs in the path of an 18 wheeler, deal with it.

Or something completely different may occur.

I love how there hasn’t really been anyone in history who has accurately predicted the future (beyond the occasional lucky guess about some specefic item) and yet random blog posters around the Internet are so sure of themselves on all manner of things decades or even centuries away.