Tuesday 12 April 2016

Paul Beckwith contemplates nukes against climate change

I was unaware of this discussion as it was going on yesterday. In the interests of discussion I am reproducing material from Paul Beckwith’s Facebook page as well as reproducing some of the subsequent discussion – I hope nobody minds.

I have always had high esteem for Paul Beckwith and his ability to communicate the reality of climate change and have disregarded his advocacy (along with the whole of AMEG) of geo-engineering because of what he has contributed and because I could recognise that his intentions were sincere and coming from the right place.

However, and especially because these are not privately-held views but shared in the public arena I cannot stay silent about this latest idea of using nuclear bombs to reduce global temperatures.

We are all, each one of is grappling with the reality of a world that is burning while the whole world fiddles. We have LONG reached the point of no-return, the world of positive feedbacks and runaway (yes, runaway global warming).

Paul is saying very publicly that he does not ‘believe’ in near-term human extinction. But I have never seen him come up with any real evidence for holding to that view in the face of the very real evidence that Guy McPherson and others are presenting for NTHE.

In fact Paul is providing the very evidence to support the viewpoint he does not hold.

It is a very strange spectacle to see a scientist confront reality and present evidence only to back away and switch over to a very emotional position that is not at all supported by the very evidence he is presenting.

There is a responsibility, I think, for those of us that realise the gravity of the situation to work on ourselves, to summon up the courage to confront the reality we have helped uncover.

This becomes a spiritual (or at least, psychological) endeavour, rather than a scientific one.

Others have done it. None of us hold to NTHE as a desired outcome (I think) but rather it is an inescapable conclusion from the evidence.

Although I would not express myself in exactly the same way as some of the commenters I am shocked and flabbergasted by suggestions of putting forward the very things that have put humans in this predicament as a ‘solution’.

The mind boggles

I will finish with the words of Bodhi Paul Chefurka:

Paul, as a fellow truth-teller and a fellow Canadian, I plead with you to take a step back and reconsider what you are saying. ….... Trying to remedy our damage to the planet by inflicting one more injury upon it is madness”

And...

I thought you might back away from this April Fools post. Instead, you have doubled down! My god, is it not clear that this sort of madness is what got our civilization here? A revolution from "the heart of nature" is what is needed - not more human hubris and absolutely insane engineering... Having spent my life attempting to bring restoration to major ecosystems, I used to believe that system engineering was not only justified but imperative. Eventually, I began to understand that ending perturbations is the only viable alternative... The unintended consequences of any other course of action are unacceptable and will eventually fail regardless!

---Rick Hill

Please think long and hard about this, Paul.




Paul Beckwith asks "can
H-bombs halt climate change?"

From Paul's Facebook page yesterday:

Last-ditch H-bomb halting abrupt climate change; cooling parameters:

I think there are many variables that are important...

1) yield
2) depth of detonation
3) ground composition, salt, rock, sand
4) surface cover, sand or even combustible materials like a forest, may need ash from organic material up in stratosphere
5) downwind regions
6) radiation release to atmosphere is much less than atmospheric detonation, more than underground explosion that doesn't break the surface (zero in latter case)
7) latitude
8) longitude

This may occur after a global climate emergency is declared by the UN and countries around the planet.

The idea is to chop off about say 0.2 C of the global average warming, then repeat in a year or two. This is in parallel with three-legged-barstool methods (leg 1: zero emissions ASAP, leg 2: remove CO2 from atmosphere, leg 3: cool the Arctic). This is a last ditch attempt to prevent massive global starvation and maintain societal stability and prevent a mass extinction event. This method also helps in legs 1 and 2, since cooler oceans absorb more CO2.



Peter Cohen I somehow can't get excited about this...
LikeReply618 hrs
Paul Beckwith A) It is "basically free" since all the bombs exist already in storage bunkers in many countries around the planet. In fact they have a shelf life and it is very expensive to decommission them; much cheaper to set them off to halt abrupt climate change, taking the oldest ones first.
LikeReply118 hrs
Paul Beckwith Yes, it is crazy.
So is Trump..
So is the death of the Great Barrier Reef, leading to enormous loss of fish (25% live in reefs)
So is changing the chemistry of our atmosphere and oceans, and the patterns of our winds and ocean currents.
So is saying humans are extinct in 15 years.
In fact most humans on this planet would say the latter is much crazier than this idea.

LikeReply317 hrs
Samart Carana In 2011 I came up with the idea of using nuclear bombs to eject sulfur into the high stratosphere....I called it Gaia's junkshot. unsure emoticon
LikeReply17 hrsEdited
Paul Beckwith Abrupt climate change has become a one-way-trip to a much warmer planet, with chaotic weather and ocean behaviour, mass flora and fauna dying and the thing that bugs me the most is the ongoing death of the global coral reefs. If we can turn this around quickly and keep the reefs alive then we must do so...
LikeReply117 hrs
Bodhi Paul Chefurka Your plan wouldn't save the reefs, or the rest of the oceanic species, or the wild animal species that we are extirpating. It might give human beings and their livestock a few more years. Is it really worth it?

Is your own death so frightening that you're willing to risk everything in the world to put it off by a little while? You're looking only outward, and neglecting the inner, Paul. This is classic Shadow projection. Either that or you have gone insane without noticing.

LikeReply4 mins
Robin Westenra
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Jeffrey Winter Paul - I do not think it is news that this is a possible last ditch resort. Better to focus attention for now on forcing political change and cowardly scientists who are delaying it. There are many other things to try first, if people are sufficiently alarmed.
LikeReply117 hrs
Michael Truscello It's not our planet to save.
LikeReply417 hrs
Chris Trautz Thank you!
LikeReply210 hrs
Robin Westenra
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Randy Scovil why is this any better than spraying So4 dust from B52 bombers ?
LikeReply117 hrs
Bruce Becker also a COMPLETELY INSANE IDEA
LikeReply111 hrs
Randy Scovil open to alternative suggestions
LikeReply9 hrs
Robin Westenra
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Guyo Smith Paul what would your dean think about this silly experiment, this is bad mechanics my man
LikeReply217 hrs
Stuart Thrupp https://youtu.be/Y-DNrwurI5I Love this idea and environmentally friendly..

Global warming has passed from been a theory to a reality that threatens humanity…
YOUTUBE.COM
LikeReply117 hrs
James Hutchinson I wonder at what point, given the parameters above, the cost outweighs the benefits if assuming the benefits ever outweigh the costs.
LikeReply16 hrs
John Easton The problem Paul is not ozone loss, climate change, sea level rise, pollution, habitat loss, resource depletion, drought, or starvation. These are but the painful symptoms of the underlying cause - which is runaway human population growth. And the cen...See more
LikeReply313 hrs
Anthony Ackroyd I can't believe you said this.
LikeReply512 hrs

John Easton The problem Paul is not ozone loss, climate change, sea level rise, pollution, habitat loss, resource depletion, drought, or starvation. These are but the painful symptoms of the underlying cause - which is runaway human population growth. And the central problem here is not uncontrolled birth rate, it is an insufficient death rate. Additional artificial global dimming will not fix that problem. A near term extinction event is both necessary and unavoidable now - if any form of life is to reestablish on this planet at some point beyond our future.
LikeReply314 hrs
Robin Westenra
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Rebecca Cummings Fine. Just as soon as you've cleaned up all the messes nukes have already made, you can play w/new toys. When shall I pick you up at the airport to begin cleaning the uranium mining mess here in NM? (There are lots more messes but we'll start with the beginning -- mining.)
LikeReply312 hrs
Bruce Becker ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND???? @_@
LikeReply511 hrs
Bodhi Paul Chefurka I agree with Bruce Becker, Paul. I'd recommend listening to some Stephen Jenkinson, as soon as possible. It sounds to me like your fear of death has upset your inner applecart.
Rick Hill Paul, I thought you might back away from this April Fools post. Instead, you have doubled down! My god, is it not clear that this sort of madness is what got our civilization here? A revolution from "the heart of nature" is what is needed - not more human hubris and absolutely insane engineering... Having spent my life attempting to bring restoration to major ecosystems, I used to believe that system engineering was not only justified but imperative. Eventually, I began to understand that ending perturbations is the only viable alternative... The unintended consequences of any other course of action are unacceptable and will eventually fail regardless!
LikeReply811 hrsEdited
Bodhi Paul Chefurka Paul, as a fellow truth-teller and a fellow Canadian, I plead with you to take a step back and reconsider what you are saying. Especially take in what Rick Hill says right above. Trying to remedy our damage to the planet by inflicting one more injury upon it is madness.
LikeReply710 hrs
Bodhi Paul Chefurka “In order for us to adapt to this strange new world, we’re going to need more than scientific reports and military policy. We’re going to need new ideas. We’re going to need new myths and new stories, a new conceptual understanding of reality, and a ne...See more
LikeReply59 hrs
John Weber UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES!!! Haven't we learned anything! We are slowly technogizing ourselves into extinction. Technology is seductive. Is it the power? Is it the comfort? Or is it some internal particularly human attribute that drives it? Technology ...See more
LikeReply29 hrs
Kathi A Irwin Homo Hubris ~ Nature Bats Last
UnlikeReply68 hrs
Thubten Zhiwa Dr. Strangelove? Will you ride that pony?
LikeReply38 hrs
Veli Albert Kallio I'll need to see if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have any spares in hiding. I recently offered President Saddam Hussain's cousin's old stocks as a fireworks to some Arab Princess if she marries me. So, I do not think these proposals will go much furth...See more
LikeReply28 hrs
Mimi German This was the same mentality for having nukes in the first place! Total 100% Males Going Insane. FUCK OFF!!!
UnlikeReply66 hrs
Dave Bucher How long before this train of thought leads to the "scientific" conclusion that dropping the bombs on a few billion people will take care of the population problem too? I suspect this is all an attempt, Paul, to get people to pay attention to the probl...See more
LikeReply35 hrs
Kevin Hester See my counterpunch interview below, I speak about this from the 1hr .10 mark.
LikeReply52 mins
Robin Westenra
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Mimi German Paul Beckwith just went to zero cred.
LikeReply65 hrs
Robert Leasure Yup, ...^ what Mimi and Dave said. Sorry Paul, this h-bomb crazy talk has hurt your credibility bigtime. Snap out of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x-fkSYDtUY

LikeReply5 hrs
Paul Beckwith Mimi German and Robert Leasure; do you think humanity is going extinct in 15 years?
LikeReply11 hr
Robin Westenra
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Malcolm Mclaren Nuclear winter ??!!.... That's radical geo engineering at its worst....
LikeReply45 hrs
Barb Coddington So when is the right time for the h-bomb?
LikeReply4 hrs
Rebecca Cummings I'm still waiting to find out when to pick Paul up at the airport to start cleaning up the old messes starting with the uranium mines on the rez.
LikeReply2 hrs
Wendy Bandurski-Miller The totality of your obscenity is obviously utterly beyond your understanding.
UnlikeReply31 hr
Paul Beckwith Wendy Bandurski-Miller; do you think humanity is going extinct in 15 years?
LikeReply1 hr
Wendy Bandurski-Miller Paul yes i do. But playing god? i still hope for a non human unintended consequence. The question is @Paul do you?
LikeReply1 hr
Robin Westenra
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Grant MacKinnon nature will take care of everything .... just leave it alone
LikeReply1 hr
Paul Beckwith Grant MacKinnon, surely you realize that we have not left it alone since we have been on the planet. Do you think mountaintop removal for coal mining is leaving it alone?
LikeReply11 hr
Grant MacKinnon mankind is a spec on the timeline of the planet .... it can look out for itself
LikeReply1 hr
Robin Westenra
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Alex McCombie Honestly, if we could just remove the 2 mile high mushroom cloud from the conversation for a moment, this is yet another example of treating the symptom and not the disease.

If we could invent a magically-free device that would propel thousands of ton...See more

LikeReply41 hrEdited
Bodhi Paul Chefurka An opinion I share, right down the line. thanks for putting it so clearly, Alex.
LikeReply2 mins
Robin Westenra
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Bob Evans Geo-engineering is a last grasp thing for me. Odds are our short sightedness will only end up causing more problems. Stop burning fossil fuels and end factory meat farming or the earth lives on without us. The earth isn't in danger, humanity is.
LikeReply1 hr
Laurie McElroy Like Guy McPherson says. All well and good except for 440 odd, nuclear power stations
LikeReply11 hr
Bob Evans Nuclear power is just more short sightedness. It needs stopped yesterday too.
LikeReply157 mins
Robin Westenra
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Laurie McElroy That's certainly thinking outside of the square. Waiting for the UN( worlds most useless organisation, closely followed by FIFA) is grasping at straws. They can't be trusted to sit the right way on a toilet seat
LikeReply21 hr
Bryan Swansburg Lets not forget the primary goal of nuclear weapons is the destruction of cities and murdering of non-combatant civilians.
Given that there is arguably an over population issue it would seem that destroying a city would accomplish 2 goals.
Also given...See more

LikeReply140 minsEdited
Laurie McElroy Build a gorgeous hotel in the middle of the Sahara, invite UN, world leaders and 1%ers for a fully catered talkfest.
Detonate bomb under hotel

LikeReply153 mins
Margie Pickett Laurie  like emoticon good one!
LikeReply42 mins
Robin Westenra
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Kevin Hester When Eric and I recorded my segment of this podcast Eric had to get me to close the doors and windows due to the birdsong and sound of the crickets and I joked that I still live in a functioning ecosystem, how many people get to hear those sounds any m...See more

This week Eric welcomes author and columnist Paul Street, and radical envrionmentalist and political activist Kevin…
STORE.COUNTERPUNCH.ORG
LikeReply455 mins
Allan Wong So let say we took this nuclear option.Humans will continue to create more greenhouse gasses after it's over.So nothing would really be accomplished.A bandaid on a gaping wound.
LikeReply347 mins
Carl Wolf My worry is that leaders combine the H-Bomb "solution" with the Population Problem. Sounds like a Final Solution. Though I completely understand the reasoning, I think there is massive downside of unintended consequence.

The problem of population is ...See more

LikeReply139 mins
Murray Hassard Latitude 44.4605 / The Longitude 110.8288 Would smack the Magma under Old Faithful to make a Super Volcano would tweak the weather but are we willing to pay the price?
LikeReply31 mins
Margie Pickett Now that I have had a couple of days to think about Paul's H-bomb demonstration it reminds me of how the honey bees kill off the drones at the end of a cycle (in the fall) for the good of the hive. They sting them to death or chew off the wings of the...See more
LikeReply227 mins
Pauline Panagiotou Schneider Paul Beckwith sometimes doing nothing is the wise choice. I will repeat the Hippocratic oath because it has always made sense for at least a couple or so years... "first do no harm." Let's try that for a change.
LikeReply125 mins



Paul has made a video on this:



The physics says yes. Controlled H-Bomb detonations [1] under the desert sands every year or two would hurl dust into the stratosphere and cool the planet, arresting abrupt warming.

We have waited forever to do nothing on climate change, and it has now gone exponential and is spiralling out of control.  We do have last ditch, back to the wall options, which need to be in our toolbox to save our hides.
Wouldn’t it be the ultimate irony that the most powerful weapons ever devised could save us [2] [3]!

Here is more from Radio Eco Shock


His segment starts at 23;55 here.

2 comments:

  1. Robin, your position here is one I'm in agreement with for the most part (I've never seen sincerity in intentions regarding the call for geoengineering), and I thank you for saying what you had to say.
    It wouldn't be accurate to say I'm depressed, but I am often somber. Humanity failed. Now each day feels like a requiem for the all dying life forms - humans, animals, insects, reefs, trees/forests... all life systems. Teller wasn't sorry. I'm not seeing Paul show signs of it either - for his pondering the use of such an awful tool in what he calls the "toolbox" of ideas/options. This isn't the time for immaturity, even if it's just a thought. He's angry he wasn't heard to the point of being effective. Despite trying my best, I haven't been either. None of us have. We should all strive to face what is, but I know very few who are willing to acknowledge and speak to the full scope of anthropogenic causes of warming/cataclysmic meltdown/NTHE, including present geoengineering. A deployed weapon will never 'save' us, it'll just ride the soul. Too many weapons are already in use. None should have ever been.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Regarding Paul Beckwith suggesting nuclear explosions moderating global warming, I have two points to present. First, during the years 1950-1970s or so, during which there were many test nuclear explosions, you might notice that there was a moderation in the global temperature. Perhaps this was due to the atmospheric debris caused by these explosions.

    Second, the use of massive nuclear explosions to create enough debris in the atmosphere to block the incident sunshine and reduce the temperature by a degree would have the unfortunate side effect of blocking the sunshine from our plant agriculture, and our food supply would no doubt be severely effected, perhaps creating an even more severe impact on humanity. Our ability to modulate to get the optimum sunlight to allow for agriculture growth on the cool side, yet allow for moderation of temperature on the hot side is unlikely to be successful utilizing nuclear weapons. It might be noted that the use of stratospheric injection to block sunlight is being used to attempt to accomplish this. But, without the halting of CO2 emissions and even some sort of CO2 reduction technique this is unlikely to be successful over the longer term of a few decades.

    ReplyDelete

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