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July 31, 2006

AC, finally; 'Escape route' from global warming? Men who don't work (?)

Bought an air conditioner today. It's not in, not until we get brackets to spare the storm sash in the morning. We'll head into the cool cave by nightfall, if all goes well. ("Uncle!") This did it:

.Forecast discussion, National Weather Service..HIGH CONFIDENCE FOR TWO DAYS OF DANGEROUS HEAT AND HUMIDITY AND EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING POSTED FOR MOST OF AREA TUE THRU WED WITH INCREASING LIKLIHOOD OF HEAVY OR EXCESSIVE RAINS PARTS OF REGION MASS PIKE SOUTHWARD THU INTO EARLY FRI...

Scientist publishes 'escape route' from global warming

A Nobel Prize-winning scientist has drawn up an emergency plan to save the world from global warming, by altering the chemical makeup of Earth's upper atmosphere. Professor Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize in 1995 for his work on the hole in the ozone layer, believes that political attempts to limit man-made greenhouse gases are so pitiful that a radical contingency plan is needed.

In a polemical scientific essay to be published in the August issue of the journal Climate Change, he says that an "escape route" is needed if global warming begins to run out of control.

Professor Crutzen has proposed a method of artificially cooling the global climate by releasing particles of sulphur in the upper atmosphere, which would reflect sunlight and heat back into space. The controversial proposal is being taken seriously by scientists because Professor Crutzen has a proven track record in atmospheric research.

Nature seems to have shown us this idea:

His plan is modelled partly on the Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption in 1991, when thousands of tons of sulphur were ejected into the atmosphere causing global temperatures to fall.

Pinatubo generated sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere which cooled the Earth by 0.5C on average in the following year. The sulphate particles did this by acting like tiny mirrors, preventing a portion of incoming sunlight from reaching the ground.

Professor Crutzen calculated that a relatively small amount of sulphur could cause similar cooling if it was released at high enough altitudes into the stratosphere, rather than at the lower altitude of the troposphere. Weather balloons or even artillery shells could be used to carry the sulphur.

Men Not Working, and Not Wanting Just Any Job: Talk shows will be all over this one, I bet. It begins,

ROCK FALLS, Ill. — Alan Beggerow has stopped looking for work. Laid off as a steelworker at 48, he taught math for a while at a community college. But when that ended, he could not find a job that, in his view, was neither demeaning nor underpaid.

So instead of heading to work, Mr. Beggerow, now 53, fills his days with diversions: playing the piano, reading histories and biographies, writing unpublished Western potboilers in the Louis L’Amour style — all activities once relegated to spare time. He often stays up late and sleeps until 11 a.m.

“I have come to realize that my free time is worth a lot to me,” he said....

Well, yeah.

The next wave of trophy wives: Working wives.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:57 PM | Permalink