Gashostage.com

One way to curb global warming is to purposely shoot sulfur into the atmosphere, a scientist suggested today.

The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. It also releases sulfur that cools the planet by reflecting solar radiation away from Earth.
 
Most researchers say the warming effect has been winning in recent decades.

Injecting sulfur into the second atmospheric layer closest to Earth would reflect more sunlight back to space and offset greenhouse gas warming, according to Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego.

Crutzen suggests carrying sulfur into the atmosphere via balloons and using artillery guns to release it, where the particles would stay for up to two years. The results could be seen in six months.

Nature does something like this naturally.

When Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in1991, millions of tons of sulfur was injected into the atmosphere, enhancing reflectivity and cooling the Earth’s surface by an average of 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit in the year following the eruption.

“Given the grossly disappointing international political response to the required greenhouse gas emissions, … research on the feasibility and environmental consequences of climate engineering of the kind presented in this paper, which might need to be deployed in future, should not be tabooed,” Crutzen said. 

This proposal is detailed in the August issue of the journal Climatic Change.

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This is a little scary.  I understand that mother nature did this on her own with out any ill effects but it scares me when people decide they want to make like god and meddle.  I don’t think we are helping our planet by putting so many greenhouse gases into our air, but should we be mucking around with the planet but coming up with these schemes?  Who gets to regulate this?  What happens if one country says they don’t want to take the chance on this causing more long term damage to the environment?  I am not suggesting we should do nothng, but I would like to think that there are a lot of less potentially damaging solutions that can be employed first.  But hey that is just me. What do you think?

Hong Kong motorists may face fines for leaving their engines idling under legislation being considered to help reduce the city’s worsening pollution problem, the government said.

The announcement came as air quality monitors recorded “very high” pollution over the city for the second day in a row, a classfification that carries with it an automatic health warning to sufferers of respiratory and heart problems.

Environment Secretary Sarah Liao said officials would make a decision on introducing legislation after they had studied the effectiveness of a voluntary appeal urging drivers to turn off their engines while stationary.

“We are investigating the effect of stopping idling car engines,” Liao told reporters. “Of course we need to go through a very extensive consultation process before we embark on anything.”

Air quality has deteriorated in Hong Kong so much in the past decade that smog reduced visibility to less than a kilometer (half a mile) on more than 50 days last year, a record in this southern Chinese territory.

Surveys say pollution is also hitting Hong Kong financially. Companies are finding it hard to attract executives from overseas because of the haze, and the travel industry says tourists are increasingly suffering health problems.

Tour operators say visitors are also complaining as the city’s famous harbour, its premier tourist attraction, is rendered invisible by the thick blanket of pollutants.

Tuesday was such a day, with the high-rise skyline shrouded in a grey haze and impossible to see from the Tsim Sha Tsui tourist district less than a kilometre away across the harbour.

The government claims the problem is mostly due to the industrialisation of southern China’s neighbouring Pearl River Delta region. Green groups blame Hong Kong’s coal-burning power stations and diesel-powered buses.

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This is an interesting idea.  Not only will this help Hong Kong control their pollution problems but it will also help save fuel in the process.  Ultimately, everyone is going to have to consider taking steps like this to not only control pollution but help reduce our dependencies on fossil fuels.  I would not be surprised to hear many cities across North America and Europe take similar steps.

Nationwide gas prices hit an all-time high in the last two weeks, rising nearly 2 cents to just over $3 per gallon, according to a survey released Sunday. The national average for self-serve regular stood at $3.0150 a gallon Friday, up 1.98 cents in the last two weeks, according to the Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations across the country. The price exceed the previous high of $3.0117 set in September last year, analyst Trilby Lundberg said. A gallon of mid-grade gasoline averaged around $3.12, and premium at nearly $3.22. Nationwide, the lowest price for regular was $2.77 a gallon in Charleston, S.C., while the highest - $3.28 a gallon - was in San Diego.

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I guess this shouldn’t come as no surprise.  I haven’t had much to post about lately but I knew this was going to be the topic of conversation soon.  What can we do?