WASHINGTON — The president's new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air.

John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed.

One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

"It's got to be looked at," he said. "We don't have the luxury of taking any approach off the table."

Holdren outlined several "tipping points" involving global warming that could be fast approaching.

Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, it increases chances of "really intolerable consequences," he said.

Twice in a half-hour interview, Holdren compared global warming to being "in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog."

At first, Holdren characterized the potential need to technologically tinker with the climate as just his personal view. However, he went on to say he has raised it in administration discussions.

Holdren, a 65-year-old physicist, is far from alone in taking geoengineering more seriously.

The National Academy of Science is making climate tinkering the subject of its first workshop in its new multidiscipline climate challenges program.

The British parliament has also discussed the idea.

The American Meteorological Society is crafting a policy statement on geoengineering that says "it is prudent to consider geoengineering's potential, to understand its limits and to avoid rash deployment."

Last week, Princeton scientist Robert Socolow told the National Academy that geoengineering should be an available option in case climate worsens dramatically.

But Holdren noted that shooting particles into the air — making an artificial volcano as one Nobel laureate has suggested — could have grave side effects and would not completely solve all the problems from soaring greenhouse gas emissions.

So such actions could not be taken lightly, he said.

Still, "we might get desperate enough to want to use it," he added.

Another geoengineering option he mentioned was the use of so-called artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide — the chief human-caused greenhouse gas — out of the air and store it.

At first that seemed prohibitively expensive, but a re-examination of the approach shows it might be less costly, he said.

[source]

Simpsons already did it:

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
¦
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Al Gore has suggested moving the Earth 1 million miles further from the Sun for every billion tons of gas produced, not counting the Chinese of course.

__________________
Irish Liberty Forum

Would it be too simple to plant REAL trees??

__________________
"To be is to do"-Socrates; "To do is to be"-Sartre; "Do Be Do Be Do"-Sinatra

And with that statement of his we find ourselves 2 million miles further from the sun......

__________________
We are "they"

More Obama scare mongering,next he'll find a solution that will cost the taxpayers all over the world a fortune.He's bluffer ,populist spivver.

__________________
The trifling economy of paper, as a cheaper medium, or its convenience for transmission, weighs nothing in opposition to the advantages of the precious metals... it is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted." --Thomas Jefferson to John W. Eppes, 1813.

I suspect the publication date was inadvertently pushed out by a week on this one.

It is like some terrifying nightmare that a man like John Holdren has been placed in such a position of potential inflluence.

And what gives Obama the right to experiment on the planet?

F%*KING AMERICANS....

Do you actually read or just let the chip on your shoulder form opinions for you?

Obama isn't going to experiment with the planet. The American Meteorological Society and National Academy of Science think it has some merit. Are you suggesting that geoengineering shouldn't be looked at?

The idea is to look at means of last resort - like a program for intercepting incoming meteoroids. It isn't going to happen next week, and it won't ever happen unless things have gone completely haywire down here. And even then it won't happen because no one provides money to look at averting global scale calamities. Except for F%*KING AMERICANS every now and again.