From “SuperFreakonomics”, by by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.
“…in 1991 when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines…it put more sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere than any volcano since Krakatoa, more than a century earlier…The atmospheric aftereffects of Penatubo were undeniable: a decrease in ozone, more diffuse sunlight, and, yes, a sustained drop in global temperature…”
“In other words: if human activity is warming up the planet, could human ingenuity cool it down?…The 1992 NAS report gave a credibility boost to geoengineering, which until then had largely been seen as the province of crackpots and rogue governments… The NSA report also raised the possibility of intentionally spreading sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere… So all that would be needed to produce a globe-changing effect is one-twentieth of 1 percent of current sulfur emissions, simply relocated to a higher point in the sky….
“So one you eliminate the moralism and angst, the task of reversing global warming boils down to a straightforward engineering problem: how to get thirty-four gallons per minute of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere?
“The answer: a very long hose.”
The chapter then goes on to explain how this would be done.
WATCHDOG: The first half of the book is a tongue-in-cheek demonstration of economic principles, using the businesses of prostitution and terrorism as examples. The middle sets forth a way to prevent the formation of hurricanes at a relatively modest cost. Towards the end, it proposes the above intriguing notion to cool the atmosphere.
This is not a book for those who dislike having their cherished convictions challenged.
A wag of the tail for Levitt and Dubner.
