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Al Gore Answers Some Questions

Posted by Average Voter on Monday, November 02, 2009 3:23:54 PM
   Spiegel Online had a question and answer session with Al Gore, and he is "optimistic".
 
The part of the article I thought entertaining was this exchange:

SPIEGEL: Seventeen years ago you, a young Senator from Tennessee, and Bill Clinton, a young governor from Arkansas, moved into the White House on the promise of change. Clinton played the saxophone and there was a feeling of spring in the air. Why has it been so much tougher for Barack Obama?

Gore: It was hard for us, too. Just remember the resistance to our health care reform bill. Obama's progress on health care has already surpassed what we were able to do on health care. He will get a climate change bill adopted. So I am optimistic. These are still the early days of the Obama presidency. He had a bad summer, but he is having a good fall.
 
   By whos standard are you going by regarding his "good fall"? According to this chart, he's tanking::
 
They go on...

SPIEGEL: Isn't it getting harder and harder to remain an optimist?

Gore: I think there is a realistic basis for optimism. The Internet empowers individuals to play a more active role in the political process, as Obama's campaign has manifested. They felt shut out of the conversation of democracy during the television age, but they are coming back. It is not an accident that virtually every progressive reform movement in the world is now based on the internet. There are more than 1 million, perhaps as many as 2 million grass-roots organizations that have been established worldwide on the issue of the climate crisis, most of them on the Internet.
   And thanks to Al Gore for inventing the internet! Okay, maybe not literally, but he was instrumental in it!
 
 
 
 
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Could They Make It Worse?

Posted by Average Voter on Monday, November 02, 2009 2:50:05 PM
   After reading this NY Times article on geoengineering, you have to wonder if these scientists are grasping at straws. Depending on which type of geoengineering idea you like, it seems possible these scientists could actually make matters worse regarding the climate.
 
   The first category includes proposals to shoot sulfate particles into the upper atmosphere, creating a cooling haze that mimics the effects of a volcanic eruption, and a similar plan to use thousands of special ships to spew sea salt into the sky, encouraging the formation of clouds. Scientists believe many approaches in this category could cool the Earth rapidly -- but they might produce unacceptable side effects.

"The risks are so high with some of these reflection options," said Tim Lenton, a professor of Earth system science at the University of East Anglia. "We need to do more research, but we need to reserve them for use in case of emergency."

There are also engineering challenges to overcome. Because sulfate doesn't linger in the atmosphere, temperatures would shoot up quickly if injections ended before the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stabilized at a safe level -- meaning that the world would likely have to commit to continue geoengineering for generations.
   
   That sounds like a nightmare; an expensive nightmare.

"The thing that's always frustrated me," said Philip Boyd, a professor of ocean biochemistry at the University of Otago in New Zealand, is that geoengineering "has great press coverage. It has that science fiction component that makes good copy. But there's been precious little or no science done."

David Keith, the University of Calgary scientist, agreed. "The actual number of real, serious science done on this topic is pitifully small," he said.
 
   Until recently, all these ideas were considered science fiction. The fact is, if it comes to the point were we have to use these kind of methods, it is probably to late anyway. Sounds to me like these scientists are looking for some funding. They should first sign the wall.
   
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