Friday 28 August 2009

The government can...

Wonderful musical satire of over-reaching government. HT: Pete Jackson

Wonder what Tim Hawkins would make of the British government?!

Thursday 27 August 2009

Playing with fire

This is scary.

Usually my disagreements with the climate warriors are to do with the fact that:
  1. It is still not at all obvious that climate chaange is man-caused, or carbon-caused.
  2. The tyrannical attempts of the climate warriors to silence their opponents (like having them expelled from the Royal Academy)
  3. The call to give overbearing powers to governments and the UN to enforce this hypothesis.

However, the idea of "geo-engineering" artificial trees and reflecting sunlight back into space with mirrored roofing rings alarm bells.

I am not a scientist, at all. But I do recall lots of situations where previous generations of scientists have 'solved' one problem by creating a new one. In 1935, 102 cane toads were released into Queensland to control beetles who were destroying the sugar cane crop. It failed, and the beetles are still wrecking crops. However, the cane toad succeeded in becoming massively widespread, but it is so poisonous it kills both its prey and its predators, even crocodiles, and has almost wiped out many of Australia's endangered species.

Of course, each generation of scientists thinks they're so much better informed now that they wouldn't have made the same mistake. But if we really could reflect a significant quantity of sunlight back into space, who's to say we won't overdo it. We're always being warned that doing the wrong thing vis-a-vis our climate could have apocalyptic consequences. I hope the climate warriors listen to their own warnings.

Sometimes the cure is worse than the problem.

Perhaps my scientific readers may care to comment (not you Marc!)?