Dr. Edward Teller, who helped develop the atomic bomb 60
years ago, has turned his attention to possible ways to
reverse global warming. Most scientists have decided that if
current trends continue, the Earth's average surface
temperature will be 2.7 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit higher in 100
years.
One solution may be to blast tiny particles into the
atmosphere. The particles would deflect enough sunlight to
trigger global cooling. Another plan would be to launch 50,000
mirrors into orbit to reflect sunlight back into space.
"The sooner, the better," says Teller. "The simplest plan is to
put into the high atmosphere small particles that scatter
away one or two percent of the sunlight."
Interestingly, those who believe that the government is
secretly spraying a substance into the atmosphere, in the
form of chemtrails, say that the reason may be to deflect
sunlight and cool down the atmosphere.
Ken Caldeira, Teller's colleague at Lawrence Livermore
Laboratory, checked Teller's theories by running computer
models. "My first thoughts about this was that it simply
wouldn't work," he says. "Much to our surprise, our model
results indicated that geo-engineering schemes would move
our climate back to what it was before."
Caldeira feels the best plan of action is "putting a huge
satellite out in space between earth and sun." The huge solar
shield would act as an orbiting sunshade to cool the earth.
With this scheme, particles wouldn't have to be blasted into
space, which would turn our blue sky white. The 50,000
mirrors would cause the sunlight to flicker here on Earth.
Steve Schneider, an expert on global warming from Stanford
University, doubts that geo-engineering will work. "We don't
know what the precise effects would be, whether the cure
would be better or worse than the disease," he says. He's
concerned that eliminating harmful greenhouse gases on
Earth will take at least 200 years of planning and negotiation,
which is a long time for a global treaty to last. "Two hundred
years of continuous planetary management on a global scale-
that's asking a lot of political institutions that have never
been able to get along for mo re than a few decades at a
time."
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