Transcript Slide 1
The sequence of events that willoverseas lead us into amight new Ice Age WALLY HARRY The search BRYDEN BROECKER was on For from toreaders of discover England’s Columbia the National University trigger who for Oceanography is these be guru sudden unfamiliar of is Centre climate jolts.with is science. unsure if Athere SPECTRE ISthe HAUNTING theoretically well-founded. First will be global warming . currents . . EUROPE He believes the But conveyor most scientists climate slow-down the thought change great is array temporary the is triggered oceans of UKorpoliticians never by indicative thechanged. great who of ocean a pontificate long-term They trend. on . . . and asthought human activity creates a greenhouse that locks us into rising the spectre of unemployment. Twenty-five ANGEL and colleagues atsouth the oneROGER “We’re in A particular: not they sure had if the things ait steady-state will Gulf shut they Stream. down, do not and Itproposed but comprehend, rises went we are on nervous of before. let theme equator, about Then introduce ourabsorbs findings.” you were heat for bigger, heavier space sunshade was first inas 1989. "The earlier ideas temperatures. This will, in the first instance, lead to aMexico wetter world million people without work, hundred from After came the the something tropics warm waters and that to one then shocked rise such flows in the ineveryone; around England: tropics the they something NIGEL Gulf divide, ofLAWSON. so some small before flows it asouth heading and University of Arizona are well-advanced structures that would have needed manufacture and launch from the moon” says Roger Angel. because warm winds draw more moisture from the oceans. The across some might flows have North been north. Atlantic overlooked But thethe towards division – but Greenland, appears formore the have changed ofwith one itman. since the light heat surveys in million incarrying work that keeps them still in thin so they could "Ithe wanted to sunshade from small 'flyers'; small, and extremely in developing amake space sunshade .Indian .inspiration .toto be Nigel Lawson was Chancellor of the Exchequer monsoon rains in Asia are affected by the Ocean and will equivalent 1957, 1981 ofand a million 1992.and power Bylaunched measuring stations .the . .Earth enabling amount ofuswater in Britain flowing to swim south the When they reached L-1, be assembled from stacks of the a million at ain time. poverty as politicians flounder and LLOYD KEIGWIN under works Margaret from the Thatcher Woods Hole andin Oceanographic he refutes claims become more intense. Rivers will then burst their banks and deployed if our planet is headed for seas Harry at Bryden the same calculated latitude that as polar the amount bears in of Alaska. water flowing As the north warm has waters fallen flow by they would concerning bemud dealt off the stack into a the cloud. to assemble in space." Institute, samples global taken warming. from He’s ocean a There's prudent floornothing man –for solutions. who floods on aexamining biblical scale will follow. Over Asia’s northerly economists search vain disaster. Roger Angel’s collaborators are across 30%. The the fact North that Atlantic the Atlantic they give conveyor up moisture is slowing to the is in beyond warm winds doubt. above, It But will what be a very long time before the world can manage without fossil fuels. Meanwhile, some guys have all wouldn’t the fun.waste Mud money cores, like solving ice cores, aa problem tellThe us that doesn’t landmass the threat to humankind will unfold more slowly. The lightweight flyers would be made from transparent film pierced with holes. Each which is really then troubling falls asscientists rain over isEurope. the possible But the effect salt of stays a complete behind and shutthe down. the Massachusetts Institute of rainforests that we relywould on tobe remove CO2 from the atmosphere are being felled at what’sOb, going oninaround exist.Elena And them. if the Keigwin problem was wasn’t looking time-sensitive for tiny shells I might Rivers Enesai and drain fresh water fromas Siberia and two feet diameter, 1/5000 of an inch thick and weigh about a gram, the weightrate of afor large waters become progressively heavier and colder they journey towards an ever increasing agriculture and for their raw materials. And across five continents the pace of the University of Arizona’s TheTechnology, from last forams, conveyor creatures not shutdown waste that feed time caused arguing on nutrients a temperature with sinking him. But drop to if the he’s of between sea wrong 5°C and discharge it into the sinking zone . . . twenty times more fresh butterfly. They would use "MEMS" technology mirrors as tiny sails that tilt to hold the flyer’s Greenland. By the time the waters reach the landmass of Greenland they’ve population growth will mean another five 10°C bed. To inposition. Europe make their during and shells, time the forams Great isand running Ice absorb Age. out, nutrients can’t There hemay comprehend from also thehave water, that been a it from being blown away by Steward Observatory, the NASA water than thebecome melt water from Greenland. But rising rainfall over The flyer's transparency and steering mechanism prevent cooled and heavy with salt. Colder and heavier, the waters then sink PROFESSOR KLAUS LACKNER, a geo-physicist, has developed a synthetic tree that slowing so the shells ofincrease theindicate conveyor only what’s adischarge twerp before in would the theby water. Little posture Ice When he the which does? conveyor lasted is onwater, off from Siberia will that half .would . zone. .Age itas might be the billion people needing food, work Ames Research The plan radiation pressure the However, the total mass ofand the fliers would 20 million to the ocean bottom –Centre. its from called thesun. sinking With Greenland blocking mimics the waybe natural treestons pull CO2 out of the air as it flows over their leaves. A real 1300 flowing to the 1850 nutrients and lowered get swept temperatures past the forams, enough so in their England shells to are freeze the trigger that brings Atlantic to awould halt this century. and conventional rocket launching be too expensive. But electromagnetic space launches and energy by the end of the thisocean century so thebe way, coldthe Not waters content then with turn helping around and to destroy flow back my country on by floor in its leaves to the launch trillions of conveyor small free-flying tree spreads to catch the sunshine for photosynthesis, but in his artificial tree Thames poor incould nutrients; at London. but Whilst ifcost the down conveyor some to climatologists is ‘off’ or flowing think that slowly global the warming will bringinto the $20 aa pound. The sunshade could beare deployed by electromagnetic a southerly direction, infecting making it with way Milton for the Friedman’s waters arriving nonsense, overhead. Lawson Within the lifetime of our grandchildren it seems probable that they tightly-packed to collect 90,000 tonnes of CO2 each year. The CO2 is that even trebling of global production an orbit aligned with the give‘spacecraft’ nutrients Britain sink a weather to the sea pattern bed and similar are to absorbed the South by of the France shells. within By 30 years, launchers throwing up destroy a stack of flyers every 5 minutes for us 10absorbed years and us from a wouldAtnow the entire planet bywill wishing to these events willthat unfold. least, we assume they and byprotect a solution of sodium hydroxide in the ‘leaves’, making liquid sodium will not keep pace humanity’s called the L-1 orbit ascenario million miles Thissun, others measuring circulating believe their belt nutrient the of warm ice-age concentration water isshould called Keigwin is the more could Atlantic likely. tell conveyor. ifall the It is not doubling of CO2 emissions –our which isthe the verywith least that prudent politicians should allow for.can be recovered as a concentrated gas for storage. do nothing. At least the politicians who attended the not hope they won’t, for by the time grandchildren get to hold carbonate from which the CO2 unlike conveyor a radiator was ‘on’ ator home. ‘off’. To The his conveyor surprise, warms he found thewarming slow surrounding changes air run and gives needs and global will above the earth. They would form a long, 2009 Copenhagen Conference Climate Change the reins it Europe will be too late. Politicians can argue till on the cows come The launchers would use hydroelectric power but even with coal-generated electricity each ton Western over long periods, a and temperate then the climate. conveyor But switched there’s evidence off suddenly that the -are radiator (CLICK) RICHARD ALLEY oftoPenn University knows that icethey ages not 30 billion tonnes of CO2 completely out of control. cylindrical cloud with aState diameter half that agreed that the problem does exist, but couldn’t home about how best curb our greenhouse gas emissions, but Some each year so it would of carbon for electricity would offset 1000 tons of atmospheric carbon. Once beyond Earth- are being pumped into the airCopyright is then slowing suddenly down switched . . . there’s back been on again. a 30% This reduction seemed in the to support flow-rate in the past © 2009 National Academy of Sciences. events. They follow predictable pattern, taking ninety thousand find the money, so they too decided to do nothing. torandom noyears, For it is those cows and ever more of them feeding need isfewera than 500,000 synthetic ofavail. earth. About 10% ofathe sunlight gravity the flyer stacks would steer towards L-1 orbit by ion propulsion, method proven by the trees to capture all the CO2 we emit. Compare this 50 Broecker’s caused work. Sudden by the melting changes of in Greenland’s the heavy water ice cap. found The in melt-water years to grow an ice sheet the size of Greenland and ten thousand years for And why couldn’t they find the money? They couldn’t ever more people, and more forests felled forGulf farmland, and more with the 50 million carsand made globally required to (CLICK) European Space Agency andarriving "The concept builds on existing technologies could be each year and if car makers were passing through the synthetic cloud Only aNASA. new economic model can save salt-free and ice aspredictability itand mingles sudden with changes the in the shells Stream, pointed which to the is heavy with itGreenland’s to melt. This allows scientists toneed calculate when the next ice find itdeployed because economic like Lawson remain factories needing more energy asthese people more jobs make oneAngel. synthetic tree for every 100 cars they manufacture our planet’s problems developed and atmore aless cost of twerps aseemed few trillion dollars” says Roger salt, conveyor the combined being ‘off’ waters or ‘on’ become and events heavy, sink more to be slowly linked. . . . and so would be deflected away from Earth, humanity now and we are all caught up in agebuy is due . .cars . andin it’s still thousands of years away. Tothe beworld. sure of this, The ice cores taken depths how heavy the water was control of all the treasuries around and more that need fuel that generate the might cease – and two trees for every 100from carsdifferent might bring us indicate outright victory. the Something radiator was slows simultaneously down, andmore soon influencing might stop. the There’s deep water evidenceover it has It’s not solar activityice that’s melting the ice cap now, it’s humanofactivity. Butthe the Richard Alley went tothe Greenland to get of its weather the past in Greenland’s sheet at different dates – an indication how well reducing sunlight by 2%the over theevidence planet. quandary: how to halt ourthat relentless emissions that cause global warming. stopped formation before. off Greenland Europe The ENIGMA then and the became will conveyor deliver colder belt $20 than of trillion Alaska over water, . 20-years, . . and that’sthe when effect will be the When Atlantic conveyor stops,ofrainfall hundred thousand years. Since Greenland’s ice iswarm preserved inrelentless layers, conveyor wassame. flowing. Thisthe would indicate the speed climatepatterns change in in the This would counter the global warming population growth, halt our need the causing last you Great sudden Ice climate $40 Age trillion got change. over That 40-years It ‘something’ started $60 10,000 had trillion visited years ago us60.due And that’s before Siberia’s permafrost melts and releases its Central willice move much ofofthe Amazon willhave die, the deeper drill the older isunderway. the snow that turned into ice allover those eonstoago, past.America If the next agesouth, is thousands years awayRainforest Alley should seen (CLICK) from a doubling of CO 2 emissions. for economic growth, and so bring respite solarstore many activity times: it’s melting What the global say ice cap warming. now, over Greenland. Before Shall we The over-populated we have melting awas public iceformed. then The great of greenhouse gasyou into the atmosphere. Inthe the last monsoon rains in Asia fail, harvests will falter, livestock will perish, which provides acalled frozen record of the Nigel? weather when ice slow changes in thewill heavy water(CLICK as everywhere the TO world slowly warmed and cooled. END) switched the planet off the turned Atlantic debate it into ‘radiator’ since ato greenhouse the and risks areto was something so high? enough else restore was freezing (CLICK) four 31% more and itthat can’t be long millions will this starve, markets will crash, civilisation as we know it will the economic, environmental iceyears cores that Alley extracted enabled him plot changes inwe the of amount of trillion Usually wasstock so, but sometimes the temperature changed with thecease speed “ .it’s .and .released developed and deployed atbefore atocost aand few dollars” that aswitch small group of thoughtful, temperatures our planet and enable tothe make the itice uninhabitable. cap to grow again. (CLICK) (CLICK) reach thewater’ tipping point ofyou no return. So we’re all . . . of and England’s green and pleasant land turn tocommitted snow and ice.(CLICK) (CLICK) (CLICK) Awarming PEOPLEPOWER WILL £240 BILLION OVER TENdoubt YEARS TO EQUIP EVERY HOUSE WITH FREE WHILST CREATING (CLICK) ‘heavy held inGOVERNMENT ancient ice. (CLICK) a light being turned on and off. willELECTRICITY (CLICK) cultural pollution of Mother Earth.“Never (CLICK) Just and me, what doPROVIDE youdoomed? say? (CLICK) (CLICK) 300,000 JOBS IN THE BUILDING SECTOR AND RECOVERING THE FULL COST IMPROVED TAX REVENUES AND LOWER SOCIAL SECURITY PAYMENTS people canINchange the world” – Margaret Mead, Anthropologist (CLICK TO VIEW) (CLICK) FREE ELECTRICITY LEE LEEFROM EVERY ROOF THE SPACE and the budget deficit wiped SAVING out. SUNSHADETHEENGLAND’S BIG SKY GREEN AND SCRUBBERS PLEASANT LAND