A scientist has come up with a plan for a short-term solution to offset the effects of Global Warming. His answer sounds strange to me, but he's a Nobel laureate & I'm not...
Injecting sulfur into the second atmospheric layer closest to Earth would reflect more sunlight back to space and offset greenhouse gas warming, according to Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego.
Crutzen suggests carrying sulfur into the atmosphere via balloons and using artillery guns to release it, where the particles would stay for up to two years. The results could be seen in six months.
The article compares the process to the effect a volcanic eruption has...
When Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, millions of tons of sulfur was injected into the atmosphere, enhancing reflectivity and cooling the Earth's surface by an average of 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit in the year following the eruption.
I'm not a scientist, but a couple things I have to wonder about if enough sulfur was injected into the atmosphere to cause a global effect...
- Health Consequences? - What would be the health effect on people & the rest of the biosphere to put that much sulfur into the air?
- Decrease In Sunlight? - The article compare it to Mount Pinatubo & the "nuclear winter" effect a volcano eruption has on the atmosphere. If the sulfur process blocks out sunlight, what effect would it have on plant life?
...TNT just aired an episode of Stephen King's
Nightmare & Dreamscapes based on his short-story "
The End Of The Whole Mess", which details a plan to affect the biosphere to create a better world. However, it hits a snag. Why does this plan remind me of it?