Could We-Should We-Modify the Planet
James Trefil asks two questions in this article. They are:
1. “Does our present technology allow us to make large-scale changes in the climate?”
2. “What political, legal, and ethical considerations are involved?”
Trefil also mentions some ways we could counteract the green house effect and global warming. He speculates that if we could reflect a portion of the sun’s rays back into the atmosphere then there would be less heat to get trapped in our atmosphere and therefore less global warming. He also talked about using flocks of balloons and stratospheric dust to get the job done. Another focus of the article was reducing CO2 in the atmosphere. Trefil discussed the use of plankton that took in CO2 being stimulated by adding iron to the oceans. This would cause a swell in plankton population and they would absorb the CO@ into their bodies then when they die, fall down to the bottom of the ocean and bring the CO2 with them.
Trefil suggestions were out there but they were also very thought provoking. Some of the thing he mentioned would be large scale tasks that could potentially end up disastrous, but could also maybe help out with global warming. While they are cool, i don’t think many of them will ever go into play.
