Global warming is so rampant that some scientists say we should begin altering the stratosphere to block incoming sunlight, even if it jeopardizes rain, crops and all life on the planet! Anything but give up fossil fuels!
On April 4th 2024 the nation’s first outdoor test to limit global warming by increasing cloud cover launched Tuesday from the deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier in the San Francisco Bay. The experiment, which organizers didn’t widely announce to avoid public backlash, marks the acceleration of a contentious field of research known as solar radiation modification. The concept involves shooting substances such as aerosols and sulfur into the sky to reflect sunlight away from the Earth. The move led by researchers at the University of Washington has renewed questions about how to effectively and ethically study promising climate technologies that could also harm communities and ecosystems in unexpected ways. The experiment is spraying microscopic particles into the air, and the secrecy surrounding its timing caught even some experts off guard.
The planet is warming to a degree beyond what many species can handle, altering or eliminating habitat, reducing food sources, causing drought and other species-harming severe weather events, and even directly killing species without significant melanin that simply can't stand the heat. People living with disability, poverty, and unemployment are further structurally and disproportionately impacted by the projected devastating effects of climate change. Such vulnerable populations include Persons with Albinism and the ethnic people of the British Isles (Irish, Scottish, Welsh and the English) as well as Finns, Norwegians and Estonians, hands down, some of the fairest people on the planet earth. Per capita, there are more natural blonds and fair-skinned people in Estonia than anywhere else. If you are ever in Tallinn, the capital of of that country, you will be drowning in a sea of tall, blue-eyed albinoid people whose health and well-being are impacted by the rising temperatures and increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
After 1990, Estonia lost about 15% of its population (230,000 people). The population decreased to 1,294,455 by December 2011, a figure lower than that recorded in 1970. Currently only 926,000 of the population are ethnic Estonians and the remaining 440,000 are representatives of ethnic minorities. A 2015 Norwegian study shows that increased UV radiation had an effect on human fertility over generations in Norway using 100nyears of data. On average, the lifespan of children born in years that had a great deal of solar activity was 5.2 years shorter than other Norwegian children. Children who were born in years with lots of sunshine and who survived were also more likely to have fewer children, who in turn gave birth to fewer children than others. This finding shows that increased UV radiation during years of high solar activity had an effect across generations. Climate change caused variability in the ozone layer is expected to increase the amount of UV radiation reaching the Earth in the future.
A report presented to Congress outlines research options for a last-ditch effort to slow the heating of the planet and save non-melanated fertility. But the White House says it’s not changing its climate strategy but it is concerned especially for the military. The White House offered measured support for the idea of studying how to block sunlight from hitting Earth’s surface as a way to limit global warming, in a congressionally mandated report that could help bring efforts once confined to science fiction into the realm of legitimate debate. The controversial concept known as solar radiation modification is a potentially effective response to fighting climate change, but one that could have unknown side effects such as the death of all plant life stemming from altering the chemical makeup of the atmosphere, some scientists say.
Some of the techniques, such as spraying sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, are known to have harmful effects on the environment and human health. But scientists and climate leaders who are concerned that humanity will overshoot its emissions targets say research is important to figure out how best to balance these risks against a possibly catastrophic rise in the Earth’s temperature that is currently affecting the birthrate of ALL European nations.
To be clear, nobody is saying sunlight-reflection modification is the solution to climate change. Reducing emissions remains the priority. But for some they would rather risk life on the planet than lose profits from fossil fuels. “You cannot judge what the country does on solar-radiation modification without looking at what it is doing in emission reductions,(Nothing essentially) because the priority is emission reductions,” said Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative. “Solar-radiation modification will never be a solution to the climate crisis.” A landmark report released in March 2021 from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine addressed three kinds of solar geoengineering: stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, and cirrus cloud thinning. Stratospheric aerosol injection would involve flying aircraft into the stratosphere, or between 10 miles and 30 miles skyward, and spraying a fine mist that would hang in the air, reflecting some of the sun’s radiation back into space.
“The stratosphere is calm, and things stay up there for a long time,” Parson told CNBC. “The atmospheric life of stuff that’s injected in the stratosphere is between six months and two years.” Stratospheric aerosol injection “would immediately take the high end off hot extremes,” Parson said. And also it would “pretty much immediately” slow extreme precipitation events, he said. “The top-line slogan about stratospheric aerosol injection, which I wrote in a paper more than 10 years ago — but it’s still apt — is fast, cheap and imperfect. Fast is crucial. Nothing else that we do for climate change is fast. Cheap, it’s so cheap,” Parson told CNBC.
Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), aims to mimic the planet cooling effects of volcanic eruptions by injecting sulfur dioxide (SO2) directly into the stratosphere where it forms sunlight-reflecting sulfate aerosols. Although the overall goal of SAI is straightforward (reflect more sunlight), when it comes to considering how such an intervention could or would be implemented, a complex patchwork of side effects and trade-offs emerges. In a new study published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, scientists from NOAA CSL and CIRES, in collaboration with Cornell and Indiana University, carefully examined a range of potential injection strategies by using a chemistry-climate model to simulate SAI while varying both the amount of SO2 injected into the stratosphere and the latitudes where it is injected.
What they found was a complicated picture: a diverse range of outcomes beyond just decreased surface temperatures. They basically want to create a small version of what killed off the dinosaurs.
One balmy spring day 66 million years ago, a space rock 100 times the size of the International Space Station hurtled into what is now the southeastern tip of Mexico. The impact vaporized massive amounts of seawater and sulfur-rich marine rocks, creating a cloud of dust and aerosols that blanketed Earth and obscured the Sun.
The asteroid impact, remains one of the highest-profile cosmic disasters in Earth history—it coincided with a planetwide extinction event that decimated dinosaurs and wiped out more than three quarters of life on Earth. The long-term biological consequences of this event are well established—the ecological reorganization that followed ushered in the Cenozoic “Age of Mammals.” The long-term environmental consequences of this, or any future, introduction of aerosols and atmospheric sulfur help cut through the haze of catastrophic outcomes. Isotopic analyses of rock samples collected during a recent expedition to Texas yielded clues to the history of the sulfur they preserved for posterity. Did the sulfur reach the stratosphere, and if so, did it stay there long enough to severely affect the climate, and how long was that?
Occupational exposure to ultraviolet radiation is a critical concern for Caucasians serving in the U.S. Military. Work and mission requirements predispose soldiers to significant sun exposure, while sun-protective behavior often comes second to mission accomplishment. Prior research implicated institutional practices and constraints as preventing the routine use of sun protection modalities, but no large-scale studies have assessed service members’ perceptions regarding sun protection modalities available to them in their work environment or their daily sun protection practices.
An important 2018 review article in Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology showed that, indeed, those who have served are at a greater risk of developing skin cancer than those who have not served. There wasn’t a clear consensus on that before. Since then, we’ve seen more evidence to confirm this — including convincing data in a study showing that Air Force officers have not only a greater chance of developing melanoma but also of dying from it.
The other thing that has been a game changer is that both the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs have recognized melanoma as being an identified malignancy from burn pit exposure. That is across all branches of the military. Sunscreen was not an option for many personnel. One of the reasons was because doxycycline, a medication that is given to soldiers in desert and tropical theatres of war for malaria prevention, makes you photosensitive, meaning you’re more apt to get a sunburn. It is not uncommon that we see people with sunburns, and part of that is because they are on this medicine.
Being stationed in the mountains is not an answer either. Levels of ultraviolet radiation increase by 3 to 5 percent for each 1,000-foot increase in altitude. Military personnel need to understand this risk, too. At the University of Colorado Medical Center, many were assigned to the ROTC unit at Boulder. The amount of skin cancer there was incredible. Montana is the same way. People just love being outdoors, but without natural protection as we see UV radiation numbers climb annually they need to protect themselves all year long.
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