Individual rights versus the survival of a society

I am having a great deal of trouble reconciling my deeply held beliefs about individual rights versus the survival of our society. I am not going to go into a lot of details at this point because they could easily make it very difficult for some people to think rationally about the overall subject.

I see our society based very strongly on individual rights. I grew up during the Cold War and I remember the American view of the Soviet Union.

Yet I am looking at a number of things that are happening and I do not think our society will survive them. Lots of changes, some of which I think will lead to the death of our society.

I am troubled and conflicted.

But what about Global Cooling?

Ok, I am really fed up with the fearmongering and the constant reinforcement of the "humans are evil" meme that goes along with the topic of Global Warming. A bit of analysis shows that there is a lot of money in pushing the whole Global Warming idea. From a media standpoint, Americans are real suckers for being made to feel guilty. From a scientific standpoint, most folks in the weather and climate research arena are just as scared by the current economic problems as anyone else. There's major research money to be had by siding with the doomsayers and very little funding for standing up and saying "wait, the problem may not be that bad". In fact, the (formerly) respected scientists who have done that have also been villified.

So, here's a fact. The actual amount of warming is small and really isn't visible in temperature graphs until a fair amount of data smoothing is done. Then it is visible. If there wasn't a lot of press about it, the vast majority of people wouldn't know it is happening.

Here's another fact. The majority of greenhouse gas emissions are not anthropogenic. This means that humans will need to make major changes in the amounts that we generate to make even a minor change in the overall emissions. Even then, a volcanic eruption in someplace unlikely such as Finland can vastly overshadow all the reductions in emissions that humans are accomplishing.

Here is a big question: Why is no one standing up on the subject of Global Cooling? We know it can be done.

How? Here are the three basic ways:

1. Reduce the amount of solar energy reaching the ground
2. Increase the amount of solar energy reflected from the ground
3. Increase the amount of radiative cooling at night.

I'm going to go over these in reverse order, because it's my blog and that's what I want to do.

Increase the amount of radiative cooling at night

Sounds pretty silly, huh? Well, the ancient Egyptians knew how to make ice in the desert and this is just more of the same. Take a pan of water, insulate it from the ground and let it face a clear, cloudless sky. By morning, ice. Basically it is just a matter of radiating heat into a very cold sky.

So, what would happen if there was a much larger temperature differential? Well, if you take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body_radiation the amount of energy radiated increases to the 4th power of the temperature differential. So, pumping a really hot working fluid through what is effectively a solar thermal collector can cause global cooling. Do I think it would be practical? Not really, but there has been at least one science fiction story written with the exact mechanism as a key part. Of course, the amount of cooling needed isn't all that great either.

Here's another idea. Clouds at night reflect the majority of heat being radiatied from the ground right back at the ground. This is why cloudy nights are often much warmer than cloudless nights. We already know how to do cloud seeding, so how about scheduling seeding operations for the early evenings? Technically, it could make a very measurable difference. Politically, the wars over water rights would start up again. Still, it is an idea.

Increase the amount of solar energy reflected from the ground

A number of years ago I made a motorcycle trip across part of the southern US in July. Yeah, not my brightest moment, but I was headed to a Mensa Annual Gathering in Alabama. Interstate the whole way. Asphalt paved Interstate for most of it. The heat really hurt me. It wasn't until a few years later that I read about the temperatures on that kind of road can easily exceed 140F.

So, maybe concrete is a much better idea than asphalt. In addition, maybe we could promote lighter covered ground cover. Kudzu is pretty dark green and probably soaks up a lot of energy. Maybe choosing more reflective roofing materials could help. None of these will make a big difference, but remember that the amount of warming to offset is also small.

Realistically, I don't think there's much that can be done here, but I felt it was important to include it as one of the places that a change could be made.

Reduce the amount of solar energy reaching the ground

Here's a place where I think a big difference could be made. Humans have already made some huge unintentional changes in the amount of energy being prevented from heating the ground. Just take a look at temperature graphs starting on September 12th, 2001. Remember what wasn't happening then? No air traffic.

So, what if a deliberate effort was made to create high altitude clouds? Most of the airline traffic tends to be below 40,000 feet. What's the optimal altitude for clouds to reflect solar energy? I don't know, that's a good question for folks a whole lot smarter than I am, but I do know that planes capable of flying above 60,000 feet have been designed and built for over 50 years. And instead of just the exhaust from jet engines, I suggest dumping tons of water vapor.

Here are some ideas and numbers to go with them:

• Build a UAV with a fairly good autopilot. Being unmanned means. that there is no pressure vessel to worry about and the certification is going to be much simpler. People's lives aren't at stake, so cost reducing them to the point of losing 1% of the fleet per year is perfectly reasonable.
• Go talk to Burt Rutan (or even his brother, Dick). I'll bet he could deliver a working prototype for under $2M.
• Tool up for mass production of 1,000 to 10,000 aircraft and I'll bet the price will be between $100K & $250K. Compare that cost to the cost of other climate protection approaches.
  
• The planes don't have to be designed for travel. They don't need to fly around Mach .8. Something designed to fly around 80 knots indicated (I'm not going to try to convert that to a Mach number at FL600) would be just fine. In fact, if they have to be launched the evening before just to get up to altitude by sunrise, that's just fine.
• Jet engines are most efficient at high speeds and high altitudes. For something like this a propellor driven plane would be a better idea. Possibly even one with a piston engine instead of a turbine.
  
• These planes can operate out of the middle of nowhere, it doesn't take a big airport near an urban center, so operational costs can be low.
  

So, in summary, maybe some of these ideas would work and maybe they wouldn't. But unlike the masses out there, I am saying "Wait a minute! Maybe we can do something to counter Global Warming". Not only that, we can do it starting now and on a tiny (in government terms) budget. Forget running around saying the sky is falling, go buy an umbrella.

It will be interesting to see if anyone comments on these ideas.