[GJM] Article from The Hindu: Sent to you by Robert Searle

[thehindu at web1.hinduonnet.com]

Dear All,

       Apart from try to reduce emissions there are now emerging a number of technologies in various states of research, and development which could offer alternative approaches. With Transfinancial Economies all this could be speeded up, and lead to saving the planet from climate change destruction.

R.Searle
=============================================================
This article has been sent to you by Robert Searle ( dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk )
=============================================================
Source: The Hindu (http://www.hinduonnet.com/seta/2006/07/27/stories/2006072700091500.htm)
Sci Tech


SPEAKING OF SCIENCE 
 
 
What the mind conceives, man achieves 
 
 
 
 
 
The field of geo-engineering got started in the 1960s when scientists began understanding global warming 
 
 
 
A COMMENTARY titled `Rearranging the earth's environment' was written recently by Mr. William J. Broad, for The New York Times, and was reproduced in the June 30, 2006 issue of The Hindu. I recommend readers to go through the article and ponder over it. 
 
The article talks about how it might be possible to rearrange the earth's environment on a large scale to suit human needs and promote habitability. A new field has emerged called geo-engineering, which addresses the ways and means of such a global rearrangement.
 
 
Plight of island states
 
 
 
The field got started in a quiet way in the 1960s when scientists began understanding the phenomenon of global warming, its causes and measures to contain or reduce it. Global warming will melt icebergs and the permanent snow and ice in the Polar regions, and cause sea levels to rise. Imagine then the plight of island states of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans; some of them might vanish in the ensuing Pralaya. 
 
The causes for global warming are understood, thanks to the work of Paul Crutzen, Mario Molina, Sherwood Rowland, and V. Ramabhadran. Some industrial substances, notably the freon-type gases used in refrigerators, escape to the stratosphere where they break up into very reactive species in sunlight. 
 
They react with the ozone belt there, decomposing it. This ozone belt protects the earth from the deadly ultraviolet rays that the sun emits. With the hole in the ozone layer, the earth faces danger from the solar UV radiation. 
 
In addition, as we burn more fossil fuels in automobiles, powerhouses and factories, the levels of carbon dioxide and other gases that are produced by them increase. 
 
These gases absorb sunlight and emit heat but this heat does not escape out of the earth with any efficiency. As a result, the earth gets heated up much like the inside of a motorcar parked in the sun with all windows closed. Another example is the heat we feel when we walk into a greenhouse.
 
It is clear that we must make a worldwide attempt to reduce global warming. Even as the freon-type industrial gases are being slowly replaced by relatively harmless substitutes, we must make a global effort to reduce the greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and others. 
 
It is here that some nations, notably the U.S., driven by the interests of big industry, are refusing to follow global agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol. It is worth noting that automobiles in the U.S. alone contribute to about one half of the auto-produced carbon dioxide.
 
 
Far-reaching, dramatic
 
 
 
In any event, we need to find ways of reducing the problem. It is here that geo-engineering ideas have been put forth. Some of them are as far-reaching and dramatic as the Archimedean "Give me a place to stand on and I will move the earth". 
 
The astronomer Roger Angel of Arizona has thought up the idea of putting into orbit millions of lenses, each about a metre wide, so as to deflect sunlight away from the earth. Professor Crutzen and Prof. Broecker have suggested injecting sulphur into the stratosphere, so as to cool the planet. Others have suggested floating large white plastic sheets on oceans to reflect off the sunlight to space. 
 
Yet others have suggested dumping iron into the seas and create blooms of plants that would sponge off the carbon dioxide. 
 
Each one of these ideas, fantastic as they seem, are doable and each, in its manner, tries to mitigate the problem created by man himself in the first place.
 
For those who might think these to be the imaginations of the new age, it is worth recalling that mankind has always tried to fashion the environment around to suit human needs. 
 
And to do so, we have used the latest available technology, and even generate new technology to do so. A few years ago, when there was a danger of a huge asteroid coming close to earth and even dropping bang on earth, we thought up a variety of ways to avoid disaster. 
 
One was to send targeted space ships to nudge it off its course. Another was to aim a bomb on it and break it to pieces. Fortunately, the asteroid just flew by on its own, posing no danger and needing no intervention. 
 
Perhaps the very first large-scale attempt to fashion the environment for human needs was the invention of agriculture. Large portions of the earth were reshaped, vegetation uprooted and cleared off, livestock domesticated and rivers rerouted in small and large ways.
 
 
Technological invention
 
 
 
Then man invented technologies, be it the wheel, metallurgy or building and architecture. Some of these affected just the neighbourhood while others covered far larger territories. Dams and reservoirs changed the conditions of large areas in ways we are learning to understand only now. 
 
One clear effect of agriculture and allied technologies has been the focus on a handful of plants for large-scale human use, in food. Of the innumerable plants and shrubs, mankind has been domesticating and farming but 120; and even among these global scale production is of but a dozen — rice, wheat, corn, potato, tapioca, bean, sugarcane and beet, tea, coffee and banana.
 
The effect on plant and microbial biodiversity can be imagined. And with the technology available today, man is even able to genetically modify several of these to suit his needs, thus inventing plants that never existed in nature.
 
 
Transportation area
 
 
 
The other major technology that mankind invented and proliferated is in the area of transportation. 
 
It was hardly 150 years ago that the automobile was invented, and not even 100 when the airplane was. 
 
Together they have changed the environment in many ways, including contributing to the greenhouse effect. And it has been hardly 50 years since we invaded space through satellites and space expeditions. 
 
The number of communication satellites orbiting the earth is over 6000, over half of them contributing in some way to human needs. Our environment has gone beyond Mother Earth.
 
We have exploited the skies to suit our uses. Interestingly, the physicist Stephen Hawking has said that it is not just inevitable but desirable that man sets up colonies in other planets and starts using them. 
 
We have the ability to do so, and will take tentative steps towards it in the near future. I read an interesting slogan recently: `What the mind conceives, man achieves.' Think about it. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
D. BALASUBRAMANIAN 
 
 
 
dbala at lvpei.org
 
 
 
 

Copyright: 1995 - 2006 The Hindu

Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly 
prohibited without the consent of  The Hindu