Victoria Everman

Don’t be thrown off by the title - this is an actual idea presented at the recent U.N. conference on climate change in Nairobi, by a Nobel Prize winner nonetheless! Paul J. Crutzen and senior U.S. government climatologist Tom Wigley introduced the idea as a sort-of joke, hoping to startle policymakers, showing that this could be our fate. Of course, their good intentions were twisted, and a closed-door high-level workshop at NASA’s Ames Research Center took place not long after the conference, delving into the possibility of a pollution-based “shade.”

Crutzen and Wigley’s idea in particular calls for a cloud made of sulfur.

However, a sulfur cloud could also cause unforeseen health problems. According to the World Health Organization, air pollution such as sulfur kills about 2 million people each year. Furthermore, some people have severe allergies to sulfur-containing compounds such as sulfur dioxide. Wigley agrees with Crutzen’s idea. He used a computer-generated model to determine that an estimated five million tons of sulfur injected into the atmosphere yearly would lower the temperature by 0.9 degrees. Wigley believes after further testing for safety and efficacy, this method could be used until carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are reduced. Sulfur dioxide would be used because it reflects solar radiation from entering the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, keeps heat from escaping. (Clip courtesy of DailyTech)

On a very elementary level, there is something drastically wrong with this idea. Though the concept of curing like with like is effective in other areas, such as homeopathy, using it to try to fix the complex and extensively ruined environment on our planet is out of line. The idea of using a pollution cloud to cool the planet is an unhealthy, short-term solution that would please the big corporations, but come to harm everyone and everything else on our Earth. The down and dirty fact is that humans have a hard time adjusting to change, and the idea of reducing pollution to save the planet is “too extreme” for many. Instead, they want to just keep things going the way they are, or even increase our destructive ways to solve the problem … um, is it just me, or is there no logic in that idea at all?

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this is the last time we hear of this horrible idea. Just because burning oil to heat our homes and drive our inefficient cars is what we have been doing for years doesn’t mean it is the “right” or “safe” way to function as human beings.

(Photo courtesy of charlietyack)

Next time: Green-colored magazine covers are “death on the newsstand”

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