From RICHARD COURTNEY
Susan Watts’s story (Technology, 5 May) had the headline ‘A technical
fix for the greenhouse effect’. However, it reported suggestions of the
Watt Committee on Energy for methods to reduce human carbon dioxide production.
These are not technical fixes for the effect. They are a set of difficult
and expensive methods to avoid a possible future problem.
A true fix would correct global warming if it were detected and before
it became a problem. Such fixes warrant consideration. For example, one
is suggested by vulcanism. Erupting volcanoes are known to blow reflective
compounds into the upper atmosphere with resulting immediate global cooling
which lasts for years. If global warming were detected then similar shielding
could be artificially generated while causes of the warming were corrected.
Note that global warming is an unproven hypothesis which derives from
very imperfect computer models. Evidence for or against the hypothesis is
at best inconclusive. In these circumstances, activities to detect global
warming and ideas to fix it if it became detectable are preferable to massive
industrial changes with reduced standards for all.
Richard Courtney Cheltenham Gloucestershire
Advertisement
