Home > KYOTO and GEOENGINEERING by ATTAC GREECE

KYOTO and GEOENGINEERING by ATTAC GREECE

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 6 July 2006
2 comments

Movement International Environment

KYOTO

The Protocol of Kyoto is a 1997 international agreement providing for a 5.8% reduction by the year 2010 in emissions of greenhouse gases on the basis of 1990 levels. Implementation of the agreement is under threat because it has not yet been ratified by large countries such as the USA and Russia.

GEOENGINEERING)

‘The intentional large-scale manipulation of the global environment. The term has usually been applied to proposals to manipulate the climate with the primary intention of reducing undesired climatic change caused by human influences. ...(G)eoengineering schemes seek to mitigate the effect of fossil-fuel combustion on the climate without abating fossil fuel use; for example, by placing shields in space to reduce the sunlight incident on the Earth.’ (Keith, D. W. 1999. Geoengineering. ?ncyclopaedia of Global Change. New York)

Geoengineering includes land, sea and air-based components. Some of the remedies it proposes, e.g. large-scale planting of trees, appear uncontroversial. (Greenpeace, though, has expressed reservations concerning proposals for so-called ‘carbon sinks’). Others, such as the ‘Geritol’ cure of sowing iron filings into the oceans to stimulate the growth of carbon-consuming phytoplankton, seem more problematic. Others again, such as the ‘sunscreen’ proposal of scattering millions of tons of metallic particles in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space before it could be emitted in heat radiation and then absorbed by carbon dioxide, are clearly seen by most geoengineering theorists as virtually impossible to sell to the public.

continue (attac greece) :
http://www.attac-hellas.org/seminars/geoengineering/programmeenglish.htm

Forum posts

  • The ultimate solution to this problem is SOLAR energy. But of course, because it’s free, the average consumer won’t be allowed to have it until they can figure out a way to SELL THE SUN.

    In 1976, in California, someone put a 1.5 hp electric motor on a MOPED with a solar collector and a car battery. The thing did 55mph. IN 1976!!!!!

    • Solar is the way to go, but you still have to buy equipment and the panels or photovoltaic mats are still quite expensive. We could easily populate the deserts in Nevada or Arizona with solar power plants, using even some of the sand to produce those panels.
      But a stock market crazy nation will have to go a long and painful way before it concludes this.