Timothy Birdnow

Does anybody remember the old song about the old lady who swallowed a fly? To get rid of the fly she went on an eating binge, swallowing a spider, a bird, a cat, a dog, and finally a horse - which killed her.

Well, the Gang Green, the hysterics who worry carbon dioxide emissions are going to turn Earth into a twin of Venus and we are all going to die, are suggesting we geoengineer the planet, puffing great clouds of antacids into the atmosphere to reduce Earth's albedo and thus cool it.

A group of kidergarten-challenged Harvard eggheads led by one David Keith (you would think he'd have learned from Buffy and Jody...) suggests we belch massive quantaties of calcium carbonate into the air. The idea is this will block sunlight and cool the Earth while at the same time not damaging the ozone (as sulphur dioxide, the primary component of volcanic gas, would.) Calcium carbonate is the primary ingredient in most antacids, and is what gives Alka Selzer it's fizz.

There are several problems with this cock-eyed scheme, the most glaring being we have had no planetary warming over the last 18 years and starting a cooing trend when the planet's temperature is stable is illogical. If it isn't broken don't fix it. And who is going to pay for this? Who will authorize it? Do the work?

Also, there is evidence the Earth may be entering a new Little Ice Age, and this stupidity could push us into a BIG ice age if that is the case. Also, do we really understand enough to say this would be safe, that it wouldn't have some sort of dangerous effect, one of which we were unawares? Acid in the Earth's atmosphere is natural, and reducing it could disrupt some delicate chain we know nothing of, could perhaps kill off birds, or damage plankton, or who knows what? Certainly this calcium carbonate will fall out with the rains, and while the Gang Green has claimed there is ocean acidification (without any proof) what will this do? Alkalinization could be just as deadly to microorganisms in the oceans, or to fish or other sea creatures. And it won't come down in a thin, even coating but in fits and starts, so parts of the oceans could become quite alkaline (sea water is alkaline, not acidic, by the way.)

So, to fix a problem we created we may well have to do something else, which makes us fix the problems caused by THAT, and so on and so on.

Like our old lady with the dietary problems, we may wind up killing ourselves to save us.


There was an old lady who swallowed a cow.
I don't know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and wiggled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I don't know why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a horse
She's dead, of course.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:27 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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