Re: Why lack of interest in Global Climate Control?

Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Fri, 27 Sep 1996 12:16:28 +0200 (MET DST)


On Thu, 26 Sep 1996, Chris Hind wrote:

> I suppose you could control any greenhouse effect with seeding the ocean
> with iron for algae bloom

Yes, but what about the ecological consequences? Algae blooms are
complicated things, and influence a lot of other systems. I think we have
to develop a new technology, ecoengineering, to deal with deliberate
modifications of ecology, climate and other aspects of the environment.
Maybe we could start algae blooms in the tropical "desert" seas, where
normally very little life lives?

> and also I've read about them using silver nitrate
> injected into the I-wall of hurricanes to dissolve them but Cuba got upset
> since this experiment occurred around the cuban missile crisis and Cuba
> thought the US was attempting to learn ways of redirecting the hurricanes
> toward them. Pretty stupid to stifle research for that.

Well, if you lived on Cuba you would probably think it was reasonable.
Besides, I got the impression the results were rather inconclusive.

My guess is that it is easier to influence systems with no strong
positive feedback loops, especially chaotic ones. Hurricanes seem to be
rather stable structures. Of course, if we can set up our own feedback
loops (as with algae blooms), then we can get interesting abilities.

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