One of the strategies high on the list of favourable options was the technique known as ‘Aerosol Injection’.
The aerosol injection technique involves spraying into the atmosphere, either from balloons or from aircraft, large volumes of aerosol substances which then spread out to form a hazy artificial cloud cover that will reflect some of the solar radiation. Whilst there are several possible chemical substances suggested for use with this technique, the substance that the world’s top geoengineers seem to favour is very fine particles of aluminium oxide because of its high level of reflectivity relative to its surface area. The very great danger that comes with this technique, as geoengineering scientists all over the world, including NZ, readily admit, is that they have absolutely no idea what the human and environmental side effects will be, including the effects when all this aluminium oxide falls to the earth. Of even greater concern is that this aerosol injection technique very much looks like it is already being tested or is in operation in many parts of the world, including here in New Zealand, and that it is having an extremely worrying effect on the environment. Laboratory tests in many parts of the United States where this aerosol testing has been occurring for some years now show levels of aluminium in the soil and rain water that are many times the safe level. As a result many scientists and concerned citizens in the United States are now in the process of mounting widespread legal action as a result of these recent test results to try to get this aerosol practice stopped. Another very real cause for concern is that the giant United States corporation Monsanto has now developed genetically modified crop seeds that are resistant to high levels of aluminium, and this is despite the fact that aluminium is not normally present in soil in any significant quantity. What do they know?
Aluminium is a highly toxic substance to plants, animals, and humans, and the levels at which it is now showing up in the soil and water where this experimental aerosol injection is taking place is alarming to say the least. It is clear that this aerosol testing has already been taking place by someone in a number of areas of New Zealand over the last year or more. Hundreds of eyewitness reports with photo and video evidence show the tell tale signs of this aerosol injection technique in operation and aluminium has begun showing up in water tests in some of these areas.
March 2010 Taranaki December 2010 Nelson
So, once again on this issue of combating alleged global warming, we must be very careful to weigh up all the scientific evidence and all the potential effects. The technique of aerosol injection seems extremely dangerous to the environment and human health, and very radical. NIWA scientist Mike Harvey, who made a presentation on the aerosol injection technique at the geoengineering conference stated in his presentation that “New Zealand is known for its clear sky and good air quality and visibility. A high aerosol environment would significantly degrade this”. Is this what clean, pristine New Zealand wants? Are the New Zealand people happy to accept significantly degraded air quality, visibility, and clarity of our skies and potential toxins entering our environment on the basis of trying to save ourselves from something with highly questionable scientific evidence?
The issue of climate change and global warming is a very emotive one. The scientific evidence for whether it is happening or not is highly contentious and we should be very careful at how we approach this in terms of implementing interventions which could be very harmful to humanity and the environment. Mankind absolutely needs to actively seek and embrace positive strategies and technologies for living in greater harmony with the environment. As a nation, New Zealand prides itself on striving to be at the forefront of this endeavour; however, should we really be potentially destroying ourselves in order to try to save ourselves from the dangers of global warming when a groundswell of science around the world is now strongly suggesting that this is not occurring?
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WoE: Do you find there is a taboo of sorts against studying geoengineering among Earth scientists? It’s fairly unusual to see the topic come up at conferences, so your poster caught our eye.
English: There is more acceptance of studying it in just the last couple of years. I think scientists are facing the reality that countries aren’t doing much to slow the emissions of greenhouse gases. Eventually, we may have to choose between the risks and consequences of climate change and the risks and consequences of climate engineering. The only way to make an educated decision about that is to study it.
WoE: What type of geoengineering are you focusing on?
English: For my PhD, I have been looking at stratospheric aerosols.
WoE: Hold up. What are stratospheric aerosols?
English: They’re the tiny particles that are aloft in the atmosphere about 20 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. One of the leading geoengineering ideas is to inject aerosols into the stratosphere. I decided, after getting help and input from colleagues such as Michael Mills and Brian Toon, to set up a computer model that would analyze exactly how something like that would work.
WoE: And what do stratospheric aerosols have to do with climate?
English: People have suggested we could use a type of a particle for geoengineering that is actually composed of tiny droplets of sulfuric acid. Those are called sulfates. Sulfates reflect sunlight. If you have a layer of these particles up in the stratosphere they reflect part of the incoming solar radiation from the sun back to space. Overall, they have a cooling effect.
WoE: And sulfates can make it all the way up to the stratosphere?
English: Yes, some of the stronger volcanic eruptions can send particles into the stratosphere. They take a couple of years to settle back down to the surface. Very tiny amounts from power plants and other sources can also make it up that far.
WoE: I get that you modeled what might happen if humans decided to inject sulfates into the stratosphere, but what was the precise question you set out to answer?
English: There have been a few other scientists who have looked at geoengineering using stratospheric aerosols, but they didn’t simulate all the processes that can affect the particles. Recently, a team led by Patricia Heckendorn, a researcher based in Zurich, simulated all of these processes in a 2D model and found that the effectiveness of sulfate geoengineering diminished as more sulfate was added. I wanted to use a 3D model that looked at all of the processes, and I wanted to compare our results to Heckendorn’s.
WoE: What processes did you include that others didn’t?
English: For example, our model simulates coagulation, the process by which multiple particles can combine to become one. We also included nucleation – that’s when tiny gas molecules condense on each other to form liquid droplets. Also condensational growth. If you watch, say, water drops grow bigger and bigger on a piece of grass on a foggy morning you’re looking at condensational growth.
WoE: What did you find when you included all of that in your model?
English: What we found was that effective geoengineering required injecting larger masses of sulfuric acid than some have hoped because the particles coagulate and get much bigger than thought. Larger particles fall out of the stratosphere faster to the surface, so they’re not as effective at reflecting light. This matched Heckendorn’s results.
WoE: How much less effective?
English: It depends on how much sulfate we add. The more we add the less effective they become.
WoE: That’s the opposite of what people probably think...
English: It still gets more effective as you add more, but it has a diminishing return. We haven’t done a detailed assessment yet, but the group led by Heckendorn did, and they had a similar result. They found that you would need to inject more than 10 million metric tons of sulfur into the stratosphere per year if you wanted to offset the current forcing from greenhouse gases. People used to think it could be done with about 3 million metric tons.
WoE: Ten million metric tons sure sounds like a lot.
English: It is. Mount Pinatubo released about 10 million metric tons, but that was a one-time shot. Basically, we would need one or two Mount Pinatubo’s every single year.
WoE: Where do we go from here?
English: These results were surprising. If geoengineering is going to work, I think we’re realizing that scientists will need to look at new and creative ways to add particles to the stratosphere in such a way that they don’t grow too big and fall out too quickly.
Image Information: Astronauts took this image of Mount Etna erupting in 2002. Credit: NASA/JSC/Gateway to Astronaut Photography. The lower image is courtesy of Jason English.
Project Cloverleafsource: SOshannahttp://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Chemtrails/Witness_2.html "I read the email you received from the anonymous mechanic and felt compelled to respond to it. I, too, work for an airline, though I work in upper management levels. I will not say which airline, what city I am located, nor what office I work for, for obvious reasons. I wish I could document everything I am about to relate to you, but to do so is next to impossible and would result in possible physical harm to me. Airline companies in America have been participating in something called Project Cloverleaf for a few years now. The earliest date anyone remembers being briefed on it is 1998. I was briefed on it in 1999. The few airline employees who were briefed on Project Cloverleaf were all made to undergo background checks, and before we were briefed on it we were made to sign non-disclosure agreements, which basically state that if we tell anyone what we know we could be imprisoned. About twenty employees in our office were briefed along with me by two officials from some government agency. They didn't tell us which one. They told us that the government was going to pay our airline, along with others, to release special chemicals from commercial aircraft. When asked what the chemicals were and why we were going to spray them, they told us that information was given on a need-to-know basis and we weren't cleared for it. They then went on to state that the chemicals were harmless, but the program was of such importance that it needed to be done at all costs. When we asked them why didn't they just rig military aircraft to spray these chemicals, they stated that there weren't enough military aircraft available to release chemicals on such a large basis as needs to be done. That's why Project Cloverleaf was initiated, to allow commercial airlines to assist in releasing these chemicals into the atmosphere. Then someone asked why all the secrecy was needed. The government reps then stated that if the general public knew that the aircraft they were flying on were releasing chemicals into the air, environmentalist groups would raise hell and demand the spraying stop. Someone asked one of the G- men then if the chemicals are harmless, why not tell the public what the chemicals are and why we are spraying them? He seemed perturbed at this question and told us in a tone of authority that the public doesn't need to know what's going on, but that this program is in their best interests. He also stated that we should not tell anyone, nor ask any more questions about it. With that, the briefing was over. All documents in our office pertaining to Project Cloverleaf are kept in locked safes. Nobody is allowed to take these documents out of the office. Very few employees are allowed access to these documents, and they remain tight-lipped about what the documents say. I am no fool. I know there's something going on. And frankly, I am scared. I feel a high level of guilt that I have been aware of this kind of operation but unable to tell anyone. It's been eating away at me, knowing that the company I work for may be poisoning the American people. I hope this letter will open some eyes to what's happening. Again, I wish I could give you documented information, but you have to understand why I must remain totally anonymous.
March 14th 2011 complete rainbow circles moon at 11:15 pm too dark for pictures , many witnesses after a day of chemtrail activity .
Scientists call it "geoengineering," but in plain speak, it means things like this: blasting tons of sulfate particles into the sky to reflect sunlight away from Earth; filling the ocean with iron filings to grow plankton that will suck up carbon; even dimming sunlight with space shades.
By Karl Gelles, USA TODAY
Once the domain of scientists' off-hours schemes scrawled on cocktail napkins, geoengineering is getting a serious look in the political realm.
Each brings its own set of risks, but in a world fretting about the consequences of global warming, are these ideas whose time has come?
With 2010 tying as the world's warmest year on record and efforts to slow greenhouse gas emissions looking stymied, calls are rising for research into engineering our way out of global warming — everything from launching solar shade spacecraft to genetically engineering green deserts. An international consortium of 12 universities and research institutes on Tuesday, for example, announced plans to pioneer large-scale "ocean fertilization" experiments aimed at using the sea to pull more greenhouse gases out of the sky.
Once the domain of scientists' off-hours schemes scrawled on cocktail napkins, such geoengineering is getting a serious look in the political realm.
"We're moving into a different kind of world," says environmental economist Scott Barrett of Columbia University. "Better we turn to asking if 'geoengineering' could work, than waiting until it becomes a necessity."
A National Academy of Sciences' best estimate has global warming bumping up average temperatures by 3 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. Meanwhile, greenhouse gas emissions that are largely responsible, most from burning the modern economy's main fuels, coal and oil, look set to continue to rise for the next quarter-century, according to Energy Information Agency estimates.
"That's where geoengineering comes in," says international relations expert David Victor of the University of California-San Diego. "Research into geoengineering creates another option for the public."
Geoengineering takes its cue from the natural experiment that actually had made the only dent in global warming's rise in the last two decades — the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which blasted more than 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide 21 miles high, straight into the stratosphere. The stratosphere suspended those sulfur particles in the air worldwide, where the haze they created scattered and reflected sunlight away from the Earth and cooled global atmospheric temperatures nearly 0.7 to 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit in 1992 and 1993, before finally washing out, according to NASAGoddard Institute for Space Studies estimates. Firing about half that much sulfur into the stratosphere every year for 30 years would help stabilize global warming's rise, National Center for Atmospheric Research climate scientist Tom Wigley estimated in a much-debated 2006 Science journal report.
Humanity would effectively become addicted to sky-borne sulfates to keep the cooling on track. The tradeoff is that rain and snow patterns would likely shift, a 2008 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study found, consigning hundreds of millions of the poorest people on the planet in Africa and Asia to recurring drought.
No longer eyed askance
"Geoengineering is no longer a taboo topic at scientific meetings. They are looking at it as one more policy prescription," says Science magazine reporter Eli Kintisch, author ofHack the Planet: Science's Best Hope — Or Worst Nightmare — For Averting Climate Catastrophe. "But it is yet to become a household word."
That may be changing, as the terms of debate about geoengineering become clear. On the pro-research side, this October the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology called for more research into geoengineering, "to better understand which technologies or methods, if any, represent viable stopgap strategies for managing our changing climate and which pose unacceptable risks." On the more cautious side, a United Nations Environment Programme species conservation meeting in Nagoya, Japan, ended that same month with a call for, "no climate-related geoengineering activities," without environmental and scientific review.
What are the actual geoengineering proposals? Broadly, they come in two flavors: those that deal with greenhouse gases directly by soaking up carbon dioxide (the greenhouse gas with the biggest warming impact); and those that seek to limit the sunlight that warms those greenhouse gases. Here's a sampling, from the deep ocean to deep space:
•Ocean fertilization. Dumping iron filings into the ocean to spur phytoplankton blooms is the saltwater version of forestation. The increased mass of the plankton's cells would swell with carbon pulled from the air. On the downside, it may kill fish, belch out other greenhouse gases such as methane, and hasn't worked very well in small trials.
•Forestation. Intense planting of trees and reclaiming deserts with hardier plants is one of the ideas endorsed at the recent Cancun, Mexico, climate meeting, where representatives of 192 nations made some progress on an international climate agreement. More fantastic versions, endorsed by Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson, would rely on genetic engineering to produce trees that act as natural carbon scrubbers, their trunks swollen with carbon pulled from the air.
•Cloud engineering. Painting rooftops white, genetically engineering crops to have shinier surfaces, and floating blocks of white Styrofoam in the oceans are all proposals to mimic the effects of clouds, whose white surfaces reflect sunlight. Pumping sea salt into the sky from thousands of "spray ships" could increase clouds themselves. Cost-effectiveness aside, such cloud-seeding might end up dumping rain on the ocean or already soggy regions, instead of where it's needed.
•Pinatubo a-go-go. As mentioned above, sulfur aerosols could be fired into the sky by cannons, released by balloons or dropped from planes.
•Space mirrors. Hundreds of thousands of thin reflective yard-long disks fired into a gravitational balance point between the sun and Earth could dim sunlight. Cost aside, rocket failures or collisions might lead to a tremendous orbital debris cloud circling the Earth. And a recent Geophysical Research Letters space tourism report suggests the rocket fuel burned to launch the needed number of shades would dump enough black soot — which absorbs sunlight and heats the atmosphere — to increase average global temperatures about 1.4 degrees.
"Most of the technologies are not yet proven and are at the theoretical or research phase," an August Congressional Research Service report noted.
On the environmental side, cutting temperature increases through these techniques may still shift rain and snow patterns, leaving the planet cooler, but it could also trigger droughts across vast swaths of farmland in Africa and India. Further, ocean fertilization could contribute to mass killing of sea life and releases of methane greenhouse gas, while using sulfur aerosols could bring not only drought but also enlarged ozone holes.
Leaving aside the environmental risks each one carries, the estimated costs tend to increase with how quickly each method removes carbon or deflects sunlight. The space reflectors would top the bill at a cost of several trillion dollars over 25 years.
"Geoengineering technologies, once developed, may enable short-sighted and unwise deployment, with potentially serious unforeseen consequences," said a 2009 American Meteorological Society statement. Turning over weather management to human beings raises, "legal, ethical, diplomatic, and even national security concerns," the statement added. Deflected storm tracks could result in floods such as the ones hitting Australia last month or Pakistan last year. And simply cutting temperatures won't stop the rise in ocean acidification arising from increased carbon dioxide levels in the air, which may affect marine life underlying the ocean food web.
Simply putting a worldwide price on carbon emissions from smokestacks and letting the marketplace lead to lower carbon emissions would likely be cheaper and more sensible than geoengineering, says Barrett, the economist. "But let's face it. We're talking about (geoengineering) because we don't have a price on carbon."
That's why geoengineering could happen before a global climate treaty ever passes the U.S. Senate, suggests Victor. International climate talks rest on getting 192 self-interested and short-sighted nations to cooperate in ways that will benefit some and cost others, particularly coal-powered ones such as the United States and China. But with geoengineering, you only need one nation to start "hacking," or geoengineering, the planet.
"It would be not at all surprising to wake up one morning and discover that Chinese testing (of geoengineering) has begun on a large scale," Victor says. "That would freak everyone out and create huge international tensions."
No international treaty governs geoengineering, other than a 2008 amendment to ocean pollution agreements limiting ocean fertilization to research studies.
Still a foreign concept to many
A Yale University survey of 1,001 people nationwide last year found that 1% could correctly describe geoengineering. The field needs to be researched, suggests climate scientist Michael MacCracken of the Climate Institute in Washington, D.C., before opinions harden without accurate information. Geoengineering at this point looks like one of many options in addressing climate change, MacCracken adds. "You can only geoengineer so much before the side effects become so much worse than the cure that it doesn't make sense to bother."
He and others argue geoengineering research should begin in earnest, before some abrupt climate change, such as Greenland's ice sheet melting precipitously, stampedes the world into an overreaction and rush to costly technology as a quick, untested fix.
"No research is really going on in a lot of these areas," he says, raising the prospect of a lot of fruitless or counterproductive climate engineering efforts suddenly sprouting in a global panic about collapsing ice sheets decades from now.
Global warming by itself is a kind of geoengineering, noted as far back as 1896 by the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, who calculated that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide (the most noted greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels would likely warm the atmosphere by 9 degrees. Arrhenius supposed that would take thousands of years to happen, based on fossil fuel use rates at the turn of the century. Instead, the global average temperature has warmed about 1.4 degrees since he made his estimate, as carbon dioxide levels have increased tremendously, and his 9-degree increase is now within the range of forecasts for 2100.
"I think it is settled that some climate engineering research will go forward," Kintisch says. "We haven't seen it enter the national debate yet. Hard to know what will happen when it does. That may be the biggest question."
WoE:
