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As a fan of science fiction, I have been wondering how long it would
be before someone started talking about terraforming planet Earth,
and it has finally come up for discussion with scientists talking about
pumping sulphur high into the atmosphere.
(See the transcript of Radio National’s Background Briefing here.)
Anyone nervous yet?
History, rather than science fiction, is where we should start looking
when this idea starts to grow legs. And grow legs it will, because
cheap and nasty will always appeal to economic rationalists.
This particularly nasty idea has all the hallmarks of being favoured
for a number of reasons: It allows folk to continue abusing the planet
thoughtlessly, politicians would love a short term fix, it involves
getting to use big arse guns, and the scientists get to test their
theories on a real planet.
If you are thinking that scientists won’t support this patch fix, then a
brief look down memory lane is in order. Whether it be experimenting
with live human beings like the Nazi doctors, or disposing of nuclear
waste in the North Sea like the English, there are always scientists
who will sign up for the action. Sometimes they will have 2nd thoughts
after the damage is done, but youthful enthusiasm will always find
ways to excuse the moral argument.
Working with the environment is a very complicated operation. Just
ask the farmers who have tried the seemingly easily-achieved target
of seeding rain clouds. They do have some success, but you need a
statistician to prove the result. Also consider chemical warfare using
two components. It’s very difficult to deliver accurately simply
because of weather conditions, even with all the computer power
attached to weather prediction. Building a climate modelling program
has taken years, as thousands of variables have gradually been
added to the model and I’m guessing it still has a long way to go. If
the model isn’t accurate, then prediction is problematic.
Now we have a “quick fix” for a complex system that offers a far
cheaper result if you don’t mind totally trashing the balance. Like the
elegant English solution to nuclear waste, this has the unacceptable
feature of being irreversible. When the problem rose of 44 gallon
drums of nuclear waste splitting after a year or two submerged, they
were not able to easily recover the problem drums, which are still
sitting at the bottom of the North Sea.
The last, and most frightening aspect about this new idea, is that the
United States can act unilaterally and damage everyone else on the
planet. The Chinese probably fit in the same category. Large
countries with the wherewithal and the arrogance will try something
that ‘might’ work, regardless of what the world, or indeed their own
people, want.
And tragically, we won’t even regard these scientists as mad until
after the damage is done. Some folk will probably even be reassured
by their sponsorship of the scheme. No matter how dangerous or
crazy an idea is, someone will either believe it, or be prepared to sign
off on it for money. These rationales are a pretty poor basis for
deciding how to approach a problem, especially if it has long term
consequences.. If economists only think ahead by five years and
politicians only as far as the next election, then they are not the folk
to be allowed to control the response to global warming.
July 2008
Living Under a Yellow Sky, or Detecting the “Mad Scientist” Peter McCarthy |
Email this writer with your thoughts and they could be published in the next issue of Harlot's Sauce Radio: petermccarthy@harlotssauce.com |
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