Climate engineers meet to develop Earth-saving toolkit
By Charles J. Hanley
AP Special Correspondent
CHICHELEY, England – To the quiet green solitude of an English country estate they retreated, to think the unthinkable.
If Earth overheats, can it be artificially cooled? This question left many participants in a March conference of international experts uneasy.
Are we overheating the globe with our energy usage? And if so, what corrections can we make in an emergency? NRG Energy’s W.A. Parish Electric Generating Station in Thompsons, Texas, is one of the largest power plants in the United States.
Scientists of earth, sea and sky, scholars of law, politics and philosophy: In three intense days cloistered behind Chicheley Hall’s old brick walls, where British saboteurs once secretly trained, four dozen international thinkers pondered the planet’s fate as it grows warmer, weighed the idea of reflecting the sun to cool the atmosphere, debated the question of who would make the decision.
The unknown risks of “geoengineering” – in this case, tweaking Earth’s climate by dimming the skies – left many uneasy.“If we could experiment with the atmosphere and literally play God, it’s very tempting to a scientist,” said senior Kenyan earth scientist Richard Odingo. “But I worry.”
http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20110414/NEWS06/704149981/When-the-world-melts