Bill Gates aims for the clouds..

The below is taken from a recent article at the guardian environment site. Whilst it is welcome news that billionaire entrepreneurs like Gates are donating to good environmental causes, it is a little disturbing that these projects may transform from the drawing boards and into practical exercises without any global cooperation or governmental regulations whatsoever.

We must ensure that at the very least bodies like the UN are involved and informed beforehand to sanction any such practical projects and experiments. However, as always the key antagonist to any progression towards geoengineering for climate change is once again world bureaucracy and delay. So I would say that what we need is guided global co-operatives and practical policies aimed towards swift investigation and evaluation of these kinds of projects?

It could well be the case that many numerous and diverse geoengineering projects will appear quickly in the near future, all lining up in the bureaucratic queue awaiting evaluation, and therefore stuck in stasis, and some of these innovations may well prove to be invaluable. We must ensure that the project evaluations are dealt with in a proficient and timely manner.

This project itself seems to me to be somewhat as irrelevant in that it only concerns “Global warming” and the reflection of the Sun’s harmful rays, rather than to tackle our own damage to the environment and the CO2 emissions that constitute “climate change”? Whilst it may have great benefits to counteract global warming from the Sun, it may in fact obscure the main goal of emissions reductions and progress towards renewable energy solutions.

However, this is not the only environmental project that Gates has been involved with. See below for more details. In any case, Gates should be congratulated for applying his monies and fortune to these positive causes. And at present any ideas towards reduction of Global warming and causes of climate change must be welcomed and investigated, no matter how crazy they may appear to be?

“Bill Gates’ cloud-whitening trials ‘a dangerous experiment’ “

“A US-based research body, Silver Lining, which has received $300,000 from Mr Gates, is developing machines to convert seawater into microscopic particles to be sprayed into clouds. Scientists believe this will increase the whiteness, or albedo, of clouds and increase their ability to reflect more sunlight back into space, reducing global warming.”

“However, campaigners say such a large-scale trial is ‘risky’ and that a global ban on geoengineering experiments should be put in place until regulations governing the sector can be introduced.”

” ‘We knew Microsoft was developing cloud applications for computers but we didn’t expect this. Bill Gates and his cloud-wrenching cronies have no right to unilaterally change our seas and skies in this way,’ said Jim Thomas from Canadian environmental campaigners, ETC Group.”

Read more here…http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/14/bill-gates-cloud-whitening-dangerous

“Bill Gates Funding Geoengineering Research”

“Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has been supporting a wide array of research on geoengineering since 2007, ScienceInsider has learned. The world’s richest man has provided at least $4.5 million of his own money over 3 years for the study of methods that could alter the stratosphere to reflect solar energy, techniques to filter carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere, and brighten ocean clouds. But Gates’s money has not funded any field experiments involving the techniques, according to Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Palo Alto, California.”

“Recipients of the funding include Armand Neukermans, an inventor based in Silicon Valley who is working with colleagues to design spray systems for the marine clouds, and students and scientists working for Keith and Caldeira. Funding has also helped support scientific meetings in geoengineering in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Edinburgh, Scotland, and aeronautics research related to altering the stratosphere.”

“What’s his ultimate goal? Gates “views geoengineering as a way to buy time but it’s not a solution to the problem” of climate change, says spokesperson John Pinette. “Bill views this as an important avenue for research—among many others, including new forms of clean energy…”

Read more here…http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/01/bill-gates-fund.html

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