TheHerbDoc's Abundant Living Newsletter

Thursday, April 09, 2009 by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) Of all the hare-brained ideas about climate change I've heard in the last few years, this one takes the grand prize: John Holdren, the new science advisor to President Obama, is actively considering radical geoengineering ideas in order to halt global warming. One such idea now being discussed with the Obama administration involves -- get this -- launching enormous amounts of pollution particles into Earth's upper atmosphere to block the sun's rays and "chill" the planet.

Let me explain why this is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. And keep in mind this is not about the debate of whether global warming is even real or not, since that's a different article altogether. This is about the short-sighted stupidity of even considering polluting the atmosphere in order to protect us from the CO2 pollution we've already dumped into the atmosphere.

First off, there's the whole idea that intentionally launching pollution into the atmosphere is, by any reckoning, a dangerous ecological experiment that potentially puts the entire Earth ecosystem at risk. Let's face it, folks: Human beings have proven themselves to be remarkably bad at anticipating the ecological effects of their own actions. The ramifications of such misguided efforts to fight global warming simply cannot be foreseen by any scientist (or group of scientists).

On top of that, human scientists have demonstrated themselves to be astonishingly arrogant when it comes to dealing with Mother Nature. The idea that we can save the planet by polluting the atmosphere is reckless at best, and delusional at worst.

Secondly, suppose blocking out one percent (or so) of the sunlight actually does halt global warming... then what? If the scheme somehow works, it will teach human beings that controlling CO2 emissions isn't necessary at all, because no matter how bad the pollution gets, governments can always launch more particles into the atmosphere to dim the sun and make up for it.

This could result in a vicious cycle of atmospheric dimming, followed by yet more CO2 emissions, followed by yet more dimming, and so on until the whole planet is left suffocating in a literal haze of pollution. The root of the problem, meanwhile, will remain completely ignored: CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants, automobiles and other fossil fuel burners.

In fact, this whole idea of dimming the sun instead of reducing CO2 emissions is a classic example of the kind of "treat the symptom" stupidity that characterizes western medicine. Instead of showing a cancer patient how to heal their own cancer, western medical doctors poison the patient with chemotherapy. This is essentially what the "global dimming" idea entails: Poisoning the planet with yet more pollution while calling it a "solution."

It's all quite ridiculous. More pollution will not save the planet any better than more poison saves cancer patients.

Enjoy the rest of the article here.

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