General – Page 29 – The Wacky World of Chris Knight

2007/06/06

Hiding the problem with smoke and mirrors…

Solar shield could be quick fix for global warming – earth – 05 June 2007 – New Scientist Environment
* 15:35 05 June 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
* Catherine Brahic

A solar shield that reflects some of the Sun’s radiation back into space would cool the climate within a decade and could be a quick-fix solution to climate change, researchers say.

Because of their rapid effect, however, they should be deployed only as a last resort when “dangerous” climate change is imminent, they warn.

Solar shields are not a new idea – such “geoengineering” schemes to artificially cool the Earth’s climate are receiving growing interest, and include proposals to inject reflective aerosols into the stratosphere, deploying space-based solar reflectors and large-scale cloud seeding.

The shields are inspired by the cooling effects of large volcanic eruptions that blast sulphate particles into the stratosphere. There, the particles reflect part of the Sun’s radiation back into space, reducing the amount of heat that reaches the atmosphere, and so dampening the greenhouse effect.

The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled Earth by a few tenths of a degree for several decades.

While this idea is leaps and bounds better than venting our atmosphere into space… It does have two critical flaws:

It does nothing to help that the rising CO2 levels are causing our ocean water to become more acidic, which is killing off coral reefs.
In fact, the solar shield could reduce the amount of light making it to plants, adversely affecting their ability to bind Carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere. This would only aggravate the problems we already have.

Hey, try these on for size… Close the SUV loophole in the emissions laws! Consume less! Take public transportation more! Require office buildings to turn their computers, as well as their lights, off at night! There are a thousand little things that individuals and businesses can do that are easier, and make more sense, than hiding the planet behind a set of mirrors.

-Chris Knight

2007/06/06

Jerk that Knee, Home Depot…

Man Says Home Depot Fired Workers For Catching Thieves – Yahoo News

A former Home Depot employee said the company fired him and three other workers because they helped police catch several suspected shoplifters in May.

[Click the above link to read the whole story.]

I am the first to admit that I really didn’t like Home Depot’s door receipt procedure. It made me feel like a thief, for doing nothing more than buying their merchandise. I’ve written about how it bugs me, other people have written about how it bugs them, and some of those people linked back to my post. So, I would say that the disdain for the door receipt checking guard was fairly wide spread.

I’ve been to Home Depot a few times lately. I’ve noticed that the door guard checking receipts is gone. I asked someone at Home Depot about it, and they said the contract for that service had expired. They didn’t mention whether or not it was a policy change. I, for one, am gload to see them gone. Customers should not be treated like thieves.

On the other hand, thieves should be treated like thieves. If you spot someone actually stealing something, you should be able to stop them. Seems that Home Depot has gone off the deep end in the other direction, and you can get fired for stopping someone from stealing.

Home Depot needs to understand that there is a middle ground. Apparently they are unfamiliar with the “Shopkeeper’s Privilege“. While it is unreasonable to treat all customers like thieves, it is perfectly reasonable to detain someone for which there is a reasonable belief that they have committed a crime.

Home Depot, your word for today is: Balance

-Chris Knight

2007/06/042007/06/04

Venting Our (Carbon Dioxide) Problems into Space (TreeHugger)

Venting Our (Carbon Dioxide) Problems into Space (TreeHugger)
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 06. 3.07
Science & Technology

This week’s issue of The Economist reports on an interesting scheme proposed by Alfred Y. Wong, professor of physics and director of the Plasma Physics Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles, to rid the Earth of carbon dioxide emissions. Wong posits that a conveyor built in the Arctic could take advantage of the Earth’s magnetic field to expel emissions into outer space.

[SNIP] .. Read the whole article by clicking the link above… [/SNIP]

If only the astronauts in Apollo 13 had thought of that! Venting the atmosphere into space solves all your space problems. Sure, we are on a planet; but a planet is just a really, really, really big self-sustaining space ship that uses a gravity core to maintain atmosphere instead of a hull.

I’m sorry, I just can’t believe this idea is getting any serious traction. It’s the sort of idea that sounds good at first, but in the end is no better than dumping waste into the ocean or airborne pollutants into the atmosphere. Sure, the ocean is big, and the atmosphere is huge, but that doesn’t mean they are infinite. You can’t vent the Earth’s CO2 into space long term any more than you can dump mercury salts into the ocean, and not expect to cause long term harm.

Oxygen == Life. NASA has spent a lot of money researching the viability of extracting O2 from moon rocks, because O2 is necessary for Life. Carbon is also necessary to life. Plants extract Carbon from CO2 as a basic building block of their chemistry. We can not afford to vent the natural resources of Life on Planet Earth into space! For every molecule of CO2 ejected into space we lose, forever, a molecule of life sustaining Oxygen!

Wouldn’t it be better, and smarter, to be replanting lost forests and jungles, reducing our consumption of fossil fuels, and working on new ways to extract Carbon from CO2?

We are, for now at least, permanent residents of Planet Earth. We can not afford to continue acting like our resources are unlimited. We can’t afford to vent our atmosphere into space, any more than the astronauts of Apollo 13 could have.

-Chris Knight