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Good news: Obama to geoengineer the Earth’s climate or something

posted at 5:45 pm on April 8, 2009 by Allahpundit
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They’re spinning this as a Hail Mary option in case they can’t regulate global warming away, but it’s really not because they can’t. Developing countries will go on developing no matter how much the British and the American left wring their hands about emissions, in which case if it’s true that industry’s turning the planet into a baked potato, we’ll have to take drastic action to stop it. Enter the Messiah, master of the heavens and earth, and his magic pollution-particle ray. Like Krauthammer says, his ultimate agenda isn’t to warranty your car, it’s to warranty your life. All this is, really, is weatherproofing.

John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

“It’s got to be looked at,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”

Holdren outlined several “tipping points” involving global warming that could be fast approaching. Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, it increases chances of “really intolerable consequences,” he said.

Twice in a half-hour interview, Holdren compared global warming to being “in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog.”

I’m looking forward to the inevitable “we need to act now”/”no, we can contain the problem” debate over whether we really have reached a tipping point. It’ll be the Iraq WMD argument all over again, replete with unreliable information, except on a global scale and with even more unintended consequences in the mix. Exit question via Ace: Who’s up for a new Ice Age?


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pumping sulfur in to the air now everybody be quiet we have a genius at work here.for you youngsters back in the seventies we had alot of factories pumping out sulfur the goverment find them and they either to there good paying jobs to china or mexico name any poor country or they spent alot of money to fix them ,also the geniuses where saying we were going to have an new iceage.you youngsters stick around long enough you will hear all kinds of stupid nitwit garbage.any of this sinking liberals.obama is using every weapon he can to stir you up to where you want action you don’t care what kind of action just something.if you think things are bad now when jimmy carter was the idiot in charge it was real bad remember the misery index.young liberals stop being mind numbed robots read your history books what obama is doing is the same thing lenin done in 1917 go ahead prove me wrong.

wade underhile on April 8, 2009 at 6:43 PM

Like Krauthammer says, his ultimate agenda isn’t to warranty your car, it’s to warranty your life. All this is, really, is weatherproofing.

Next, Obama will be packing every car deal with mandatory rustproofing treatment.

Greg Toombs on April 8, 2009 at 6:44 PM

This is really cool. Given their new closeness, maybe Arnold will volunteer to be Mr. Freeze for the new program.

Wait… that’s already been done.

Pianobuff on April 8, 2009 at 6:44 PM

Brilliant.

Let’s fight pollution with pollution.

Greg Toombs on April 8, 2009 at 6:45 PM

This stuff makes blood shoot from my eyes….

“continued consumption/pollution will destroy the planet”

However,

An asteroid approximately 10 miles in diameter can strike the earth 65 million years ago….

Super volcanoes can belch 3,000 cubic kilometers of material into the atmosphere…..

10,000 gigatons of dissolved methane can suddenly erupt…..

but we are to believe that the real killer will be coal burning plants in Illinois or a Volvo diesel in Germany.

Never mind we’re using data sets only 40 years old or that throughout geologic time earth temperatures have adjusted sometimes suddenly and in the extreme…..

but this time it is different……

We’ve identified the fools and they are working feverishly to depart with our money.

moxie_neanderthal on April 8, 2009 at 6:47 PM

We’ve identified the fools and they are working feverishly to depart with our money.

moxie_neanderthal on April 8, 2009 at 6:47 PM

Snake oil salesmen and political whores, all.

Wanderlust on April 8, 2009 at 6:52 PM

Obama is brilliant. Not brilliant enough to figure out that we entered a period of Global Cooling two years ago but brilliant enough to fool the average American and European.

And AP your Iraq example is misconceived for two reasons. The other Hussein would today be developing nuclear weapons if he had not mercifully been removed from power by The Great Liberator. Secondly, the notion of fighting Islamic extremism by helping moderate Muslims to establish a democracy in the most stratgic Islamic country was a good one. And it worked, as Iraqis fought al Qaeda alongside Americans. Iraq is now an ally in The Overseas Contingency Operation-Man Caused Disaster Prevention Project.

OTOH, the notion that climate is controlled by a molecule comprising 3.8 one hundreths of one per cent of the earth’s atmosphere is preposterous.

Basilsbest on April 8, 2009 at 6:52 PM

I’m looking forward to the inevitable “we need to act now”/”no, we can contain the problem” debate over whether we really have reached a tipping point.

The tipping point has been reached. Those Gloooobal Waaaarimg believers can now official be declare to have gone quite mad.

Despite all the evidence that no Gloooobal Waaaarming has occurred in the last 10 years, in fact their has been a bit of global cooling, in sharp contrast to what the Goracle their Oracle had ordained, they have not even questioned their faith.

Even Mother Teresa is reported to have questioned her faith. But have they? No, not all all as they are insane.

MB4 on April 8, 2009 at 6:53 PM

President Obama returns this week from his whirlwind “It’s good to be me” tour through continental Europe and Asia. Many here stateside are beginning to whisper that Mr. Obama is the most arrogant leader this country has seen in a generation. He holds Americans and the Constitution in utter contempt.

He fires private-sector CEOs, wages class warfare on taxpayers (the top 1 percent of income earners pay 40 percent of all federal income taxes, and the bottom 50 percent pay a minuscule 3 percent), and covets open-ended power to spend taxpayers’ money without check that would have made Gosplaners in the Soviet Union green with envy. He turns the Constitution on its head by describing the payment of taxes as a “patriotic duty” and staggering government spending as the beneficence of his band of Platonic Guardians. He has erased the vital distinction between public and private.

Read the whole thing, nails this narcissist very well.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/08/a-suboptimal-showing-abroad-and-at-home/

Keemo on April 8, 2009 at 6:53 PM

Dammit, if he can micromanage this complex economy, he can micromanage the environment. Just like obscene bonuses, we will outlaw obscene temperatures!

BTW, how hot/warm/cool/cold should it be right now anyway?

TexAz on April 8, 2009 at 6:55 PM

Perhaps I’m remembering this wrong, but didn’t the Dark Lord have Mount Doom send up a cloud of smoke to darken the sky, so Sauron could send his armies out of Mordor to take over Middle Earth?

Loxodonta on April 8, 2009 at 6:56 PM

obama, he can do it all, GOD bless him…

foxone on April 8, 2009 at 6:57 PM

Al started a hoax. Which started the whole world thinking they were going to be a frying.
But what Al didn’t see was that the joke would be on he.
Oh, no, Al started to cry. Which started the whole world laughing.
Oh, if he’d only seen that the joke would be on he.

Al looked at the skies. Running his hands over his cold eyes.
And Al fell from his throne. Cracking his head on the ice and choking on things that he’d said.

Till Al’s power finally died. Which started the whole world living drilling.
Oh, if he’d only seen that the joke would be on he.

Oh, no, that the joke would be on he.

MB4 on April 8, 2009 at 7:00 PM

I say Holdren is gone is six months…he is a kook and people will start making fun of him.

right2bright on April 8, 2009 at 7:00 PM

obama, he can do it all, GOD bless him…

foxone on April 8, 2009 at 6:57 PM

How does one bless himself?
Obama bless him..

right2bright on April 8, 2009 at 7:01 PM

BTW, how hot/warm/cool/cold should it be right now anyway?

TexAz on April 8, 2009 at 6:55 PM

Well, I dunno about your state there Tex, but out here in the west I could use another 20 degrees right now.

MB4 on April 8, 2009 at 7:08 PM

I’m looking forward to the inevitable “we need to act now”/”no, we can contain the problem” debate over whether we really have reached a tipping point. It’ll be the Iraq WMD argument all over again…

Could be, but WMDs are so last century. I’m thinking it will be more of a like the manufactured crisis of the “Stimulus Package”. The planet will die on Tuesday if we don’t sign this legislation!

Buy Danish on April 8, 2009 at 7:09 PM

The only thing scarier than politicians ‘fixing the economy’ is the thought of them trying to ‘fix’ Gaia.

God help us.

Dr. ZhivBlago on April 8, 2009 at 7:21 PM

The planet will die on Tuesday if we don’t sign this legislation!

The idiots within the administration are self-identifying. Half the battle is won. We now only need to put a camera and microphone in front of them and let them prattle on. A few leading questions and souls are revealed….

Conservatives should start developing organizations that have a lefty sound to them and start interviewing as many of these radicals as possible.

The videos get uploaded to YouTube and conservatives link to the vids and bloggers comment…..

Within a year or two a number of these folks could decide to “take time off to spend more time with their families”

moxie_neanderthal on April 8, 2009 at 7:22 PM

Who needs geoengineering? The way the Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers is handling defense, we’ll be experiencing a nuclear winter real soon now, anyway.

Daggett on April 8, 2009 at 7:45 PM

Isn’t this sort of… you know… arrogant?

karl9000 on April 8, 2009 at 7:57 PM

Wait just a minute…

Lets not even talk about global warming until the middle of summer ok?

It will be easier to convince the masses the absolute seriousness of global warming once its the middle of July in the Northern hemisphere.

Rationality anyone?

RedbonePro on April 8, 2009 at 8:26 PM

Maybe Obama can strap on his extra-large Icarus wings and levitate toward the sun.

Wow, we have our own version of the Sun King in the White House.

We now have ensconced the dimmest bulbs in the nation’s highest seats of power. Have mercy on us.

onlineanalyst on April 8, 2009 at 8:45 PM

I disagree with all of you. I would much rather have the government researching pro-active technological responses to global warming than conceiving of carbon sequestration and limitation measures. If we let them persuade themselves and the public that, in a worst case scenario, they could adequately manage the climate, then we can get them leave us alone, and stop pursuing pointless measures like cap-and-trade, and stop confusing themselves and others about whether or not economic growth was a good thing. If and when any real evidence arises that some catastrophe is in the offing, or even that their AGW modeling is being verified, then, fine, the geoengineering Manhattan Project can proceed, and maybe we’ll have an economy rich and productive enough to allow for other environomentally more friendly technological advances…

CK MacLeod on April 8, 2009 at 8:50 PM

Obama: turning the world Green through envy!

Dhuka on April 8, 2009 at 8:55 PM

Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman are wetting themselves over the possibilities for more POWER OVER THE MASSES!!!

onlineanalyst on April 8, 2009 at 9:02 PM

John Holdren: “We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”

These clowns believe there own fantasies. They think they are geniuses saving the planet.

It’s stunning.

Nothing is more dangerous than arrogant zealots. Nothing.

And they won.

don’t just grab your wallet. grab the kids and the dog. they could convince themselves that everything under 100 pounds needs to be incinerated.

notagool on April 8, 2009 at 9:24 PM

this should grab other countries’ leaders attention:

listen guys, we’re going to put a lot of aersols in the atmosphere…no we’re not entirely sure what’s going to happen, but otherwise we’re all going to die.

r keller on April 8, 2009 at 9:25 PM

29Victor on April 8, 2009 at 6:38 PM

Yes! I was thinking the same thing: Highlander 2. The “highlander” after the first movie was granted some supernatural ability to help work with people and they made some ridiculous energy shield to block out the sun’s radiation (think Spaceballs but more ridiculous. This sounds a lot like that.

Then again you have the Matrix scenario, where the humans poisoned the sky to rid the world of the Sun to kill the solar powered machines.

smfoushee on April 8, 2009 at 9:32 PM

Soooooo, we don’t REALLY know how the climate of the Earth works, so lets tinker with the thing. Thats like saying we don’t really know how this nuclear bomb works, but lets play with it anyway! Is there anyone with a double digit IQ in the Obama administration??? They could cause floods or droughts or God knows what somewhere else. And suppose a flood occurs in China and it wasn’t really our tinkering that caused it. Think the Chinese will believe that?
Its Climate Roulette, Obama Style!!!

gordo on April 8, 2009 at 9:43 PM

The planet does not need saving, but our country now does.

Dhuka on April 8, 2009 at 9:59 PM

Okay liberal, tree-hugging eco-nuts, the jig is up. You’ve had fun demonizing styrofoam and hairspray and cars and things most people don’t give a second thought about. But this? This ridiculous scheme to blow trash into the sky to STOP THE FREAKING SUN FROM SHINING SO HARD??

This is too much. You’ve gone too far this time. This is INSANE.

citrus on April 8, 2009 at 10:13 PM

One of the problems with government departments, they are all filled with zealots of there own causes. A bad mixture.

Zealots at the EPA, Zealots at NASA, Zealots at Treasury… etc. We are doomed. The Zealot TOTUS will save us all.

Dasher on April 8, 2009 at 10:23 PM

I mean, don’t we have enough to worry about? Can’t this guy take a few days off or something? (Or maybe a few years?)

Now we gotta worry that he’s gonna SCREW UP THE WHOLE PLANET?

I mean, talk about hubris.

I really don’t think they should be allowed to do things like this.

When the aliens dig up our fossils millenea from now, they are gonna find the evidence and think it’s pretty hilarious that we elected this hominid who decided to ruin the planet for everybody.

Is there ANYTHING Obama doesn’t get to do, just because he happens to feel like doing it? Is he really all that flippin’ special?

Since when was a president able to do anything he wanted to, just because he decided to? This guy is truly a disaster every day. We’ll all die of sheer nervous exhaustion from these constant insane plans of his if he doesn’t destroy the planet first.

People need to learn not to elect egomaniacs with God complexes to President.

Where’s the BRAKES? I hate having a dictator. This is insane. I think we’ve all entered some other dimension, some sort of Twilight Zone.

Alana on April 8, 2009 at 10:37 PM

From the beginning of this hoax, I said that we ought to let coal fired plants expand and bypass the electrostatic precipitators and just blow the smoke out tall stacks. That would cool the planet in a hurry. (After all, when Krakatoa let go, I understand that the planet received less light and cooled.) I was only half serious, but this is just a more costly variant to that idea, but my idea would at least cause the environmentalist wackos to have to weigh their global warming hoax against their desire for a pristine planet.

Christian Conservative on April 8, 2009 at 10:41 PM

Too hot for you? Use more hair spray!!!!

landlines on April 8, 2009 at 10:52 PM

You know, of all of the idiocy spewing from the office of the PotUS and Congress, this is actually much more frightening. At least with the moronic departure from history/reality and driving the nation into the ground nose first we have the ability to one day turn things around and rebuild.

When mankind starts messing around with things they know nothing about I really start to fear for the survival of our species. Its like developing super viruses to release into the population to see if we can develop a “cure” for a man-made disease…

Honestly, if this plan were set into motion you guys can call the police and turn me in, because I’m going to go ‘postal’ on these morons before they cause the extinction of life on earth.

What could go wrong, indeed!

Geministorm on April 8, 2009 at 6:06 PM

I completely agree. This alarms me on a very fundamental level. It’s one thing to monkey with the economy — that’s bad enough — but how he’s going to take on the freaking SUN??? God help us all.

And didn’t he just the other day apologize to the world for the United States being arrogant and lording it over other countries? Now he’s gonna control the entire world’s weather? How is that not arrogant?

Words cannot describe the depths of my contempt for this man.

NoLeftTurn on April 8, 2009 at 11:18 PM

One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.

What kind of pollution particles? Wouldn’t there be the risk of pollution particles falling back into the LOWER atmosphere and poisoning us? Is Obama going to bring back acid rain that EPA policies against sulfur dioxide reduced in the 1970’s?

By the way, to cover the surface of the earth with a film of particles only 1 millimeter thick, would require about 500 billion tons of particles, which is about 20 years’ worth of world CO2 emissions. What would be the energy source for “shooting” or lifting these particles into the upper atmosphere? Wouldn’t generating this energy require burning fuel, and increasing CO2 emissions?

Compared to these morons, Rube Goldberg was a practical man.

Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, it increases chances of “really intolerable consequences,” he said.

Has Holdren ever watched the Weather Channel talking about lake-effect snow? That’s when cold autumn air sweeps over relatively warm Great Lakes, picks up moisture and dumps it downwind as snow. When the lakes freeze over in late winter, the air becomes drier, and snowfall in downwind cities is lowest in February.

If the Arctic had more open water in the summer next to the Greenland ice cap, more moisture would be picked up and dumped as snow on the Greenland ice cap, most of which is at 2,000 to 3,000 meters altitude, and never gets above the freezing point. Open water in the Arctic would make the Greenland ice cap THICKER, and lower sea levels.

Steve Z on April 9, 2009 at 12:16 AM

its not so bad when its 75 degrees out, but i tell ya, when it reaches 75.5, oh mother effer, its time to go inside where i can cool off. ya that half a degree can really eff things up. but im from vegas, so actually, 75.5 is still kinda chilly. but whatever

cando333 on April 9, 2009 at 12:26 AM

Project Wormwood?

- The Cat

MirCat on April 9, 2009 at 1:21 AM

I’m still waiting for evidence that global warming even exists. And I guess I’ll be waiting till I die. because there is no global warming, just like there is no “global climate”. CO2 levels rise and nobody manages to prove the connection between CO2 and rising temperatures because… despite the rising CO2 levels the temperatures aren’t going up. Whoops!

But Obama is soooo smart.

That’s what you get when you hire a lawyer for such a position.

Penguin on April 9, 2009 at 7:33 AM

This dude is showing distinct signs of megalomania.

sheesh on April 9, 2009 at 8:10 AM

Obama is brilliant. Not brilliant enough to figure out that we entered a period of Global Cooling two years ago but brilliant enough to fool the average American and European.

Basilsbest on April 8, 2009 at 6:52 PM

I’m quite sure that Obama and his ilk are brilliant enough to notice that the world stopped warming 10 years ago.

That’s why their rhetoric has reached cataclysmic proportions. They realize that they only have a few years left to convince people to buy into their programs.

I can’t remember who said it, but he worked for the UN. He was quoted several years back as stating that it didn’t matter whether global warming was true or not, because the things being pushed to fight it, were things that needed doing anyway.

The goal of these people is power for themselves. And if there isn’t a crisis available, they will invent that crisis, and then ride it to power.

MarkTheGreat on April 9, 2009 at 8:13 AM

This planet was built by the greatest mind in the universe. (No, AP, not you). If we try to mess with natural processes in any way it will bite us in the backside. God knew what His children were capable of and built a planet with self-cleaning features that account for the messes we make. Does that give us license to trash our world? No. We are bound by conscience to clean up after ourselves, as any civilized society would do. But the planet can deal with what we puny humans dish out.
We need to respect what we have and the Creator who gave it to us, but we are wrong and sinful to pretend to be Him.

SKYFOX on April 9, 2009 at 9:22 AM

I’m shocked this administration would take such hasty and provocative action as to actually attack the Sun’s rays.

Why no dialogue? Not even the suggestion of meetings with or without preconditions? Why isn’t this administration willing to “observe the situation” prior to taking such hasty action?

We can ill afford to have a “climate cowboy” like Obama pre-emptively engaging our solar neighbor!

catmman on April 9, 2009 at 9:23 AM

Of course, missle defense is far to unproven and speculative a technology to even consider. We should scrap that in favor of this. Plowshares into swords — Star Wars into universe pollution transporter.

m2 on April 9, 2009 at 9:29 AM

So by injecting pollutants into the upper atmosphere to reflect Sunlight, are they confirming that global warming / global cooling (pick one) is caused by the Sun?

Dasher on April 9, 2009 at 9:49 AM

One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.

And what, exactly, makes these Americans believe that the rest of the world will allow them to do that? Are they truly so imperialistic that they think they own the entire frackin’ planet?

I would rather expect that the Chinese and the Russians would treat this as an attack on their sovereignty, if not some sort of military threat, and threaten to respond accordingly.

Paul_in_NJ on April 9, 2009 at 1:18 PM

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