scientists are somehow above us all and acting in all our best interests? They are acting in their own best, short-term interest; wages, research money, notoriety, journal citations. Same dynamic as motivates a movie star or sidewalk preacher.

We sane people (i.e., non-liberals) all realize that it’s not impossible that there COULD be a global-warming effect of more CO2 in the atmosphere (although personally I subscribe to the “it’s nonsense” camp). But we also realize that it IS impossible for humanity to “solve the problem” (if there is one) by scaling back our CO2 emissions to the per capita level they were at when we all burned candles for light and chopped wood to heat our one room log cabins (and incidentally lived to be 45 if we were lucky.) In fact, that won’t work either because even if we reduce the amount we’re ADDING, all we’ll do is SLOW the growth – not reverse it. To reverse it, we have to stop adding ANY AT ALL and also find ways to pull some of it out.

The only SANE thing to do is to keep increasing our energy supplies so we can remain a modern, technical civilization, in order to retain our ability to invent new ways generate more non-carbon-based energy as it becomes economically practical. Meanwhile, if it turns out that “global warming” DOES happen, and its consequences are actually negative (another “fact” that’s very disputable), then we might need to invent ways to temporarily reverse the effect.

If all it takes is detonating a few nukes in strategically located places where there aren’t any inhabitants (or perhaps places like Washington DC, where there would be only a few hundred innocent victims (note to homeland security – this is a JOKE – see that phrase “innocent victims?” it implies that the rest of the victims in Washington DC (the politicians) wouldn’t actually be “innocent”. See? A joke. OK, maybe not that funny, but not a serious threat to actual people, so leave me alone.)

Anyway, if all we need to do is detonate a few nukes in harmless places (really far away from Washington DC, in the actual proposal here), and solve the warming problem for 2-3 years, that’s an inexpensive, sustainable, reverse-able method that would be FAR superior to impoverishing the entire planet and having about 5.5 billion people die of starvation because they can’t afford to buy the food we can’t grow enough of without diesel fuel.

I do agree though that a “little war” between India and Pakistan wouldn’t be a great idea.

So we can’t have power plants in US that don’t explode, but we can detonate nuclear devices in the open atmosphere?

digging canals and such, why shouldn’t they be able to cool us down every so often.

If they really believed this, then the solution to the millennia-old problems of the Middle East AND the “global warming” crisis immediately presents itself.

That they don’t make the obvious connection and kindergartner would see, indicates how totally unserious that article is. At the very least you’d expect them to address the moral issues in some sort of cost-benefit way – regardless of how you’d feel about their analysis, which no doubt would be morally appalling.

For the life of me, though, I can’t imagine what they’re trying to accomplish – just getting talked about maybe? Bizarre.

He was hardly a leftist.

On the Beach was never intended as a leftist treatise, but rather as a psychological novel on the premise of “what if the entire world had six months to live”?

Shute himself noted the scenario was scientifically impossible, and was a critic of socialism. Unfortunately leftists hijacked the book for their own purposes.

So it’s now *kosher* to detonate atomic weapons within the atmosphere in contravention of the PTBT if it’s to save the world from anthropegenic global warming? Obviously it must be! NatGeo said so! And it’s not like a prestigious magazine like National Geographic would sully its reputation by publishing pablum that implicitly says an Indo-Pakistani nuclear war would be a good thing.

It’s clear that the only way to save Mother Earth is via ground-launching of Orions. Going to take a lot of them, though, because those pulse-units are horribly inefficient at kicking up dust. On the other hand: Titan or bust!

I both subscribe to and enjoy reading National Geographic. So, you can imagine my shock when RMJ informs us that this magazine was supporting the following insane position:

our scientific overlords inform us that if you just pop a few nukes, somewhere far away from where Dr. Genius parks her SUV, it may not be a total suckage field… some sick and benighted members scientific establishment have obliquely proposed [nuclear war] to solve our Global Warming Crisis…and suggest that India and Pakistan could do us all a favor and cool the planet for a few years if they unleashed hell across their contentious mutual border

My interest piqued, I read the article itself. And, probably unsurprisingly, found that neither National Geographic nor the scientists quoted support nuclear war as a solution to global warming. Now, I can agree that the buzzword-driven title “Small Nuclear War Could Reverse Global Warming for Years” is unfortunately chosen. But the content of the article is unequivocal, and can speak for itself:

Even a regional nuclear war could spark “unprecedented” global cooling and reduce rainfall for years… Widespread famine and disease would likely follow…For a time Earth would likely be a colder, hungrier planet… agriculture could be severely impacted…similar to the crop failures and famines experienced following the Mount Tambora eruption in 1815…Even after seven years, global average precipitation would be 5 percent lower…large decreases in the protective ozone layer…harming the environment and people.

If there is a takeaway from this piece, it is rather well-stated by the close of the article itself:

“The main message from our work,” NASA’s Oman said, “would be that even a regional nuclear conflict would have global consequences.”

And isn’t that a meaningful message? Doesn’t that drive home the point that the US can’t just ignore nukes in Iran, North Korea and Pakistan, even if those countries can’t nuke the US itself? There was a story worth seeing in this article, but it sure wasn’t the one being “reported” here.

The National Geographic has been a ‘promoter” of their ‘religion’ since their very first issue. They have been upfront as the official experts on evolution by
promoting that man evolved from monkeys..this has been their ‘thread’
since first issue. To believe this is denial of God.
Since beginning of man, air that is breathed has a constant 21% oxygen,
that we inhale and exhale as carbon dioxide that then is recycled through
plants returning that same 21% again to keep us alive. Who is really in
control of our world? gene howe

In f.d.r.’s adm. wrote that farmers should till up as much of their farmland as possible, to release additional c02 into the atmosphere, to promote rainfall. The result was the “dustbowl”. Listening to a group of people (the environmental sector of the scientific community), who have been abjectly wrong, and for a very long time now, is disastrous, now matter what context they’re writing in.

Just have NASA use the retired Space Shuttles as rocket motors to drive and steer a couple asteroids our way.

Just “land” one remotely on said asteroid, attach it somehow, light the engines, and drive it home!

http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/cgi-bin/crater.cgi?dist=200&distanceUnits=2&diam=900&diameterUnits=1&pdens=&pdens_select=8000&vel=20&velocityUnits=1&theta=75&wdepth=&wdepthUnits=1&tdens=2500

As long as no one lives within 200 miles, a 900 Meter iron asteroid would do just fine! And NO radioactivity to contend with! And it does something useful with the retired shuttles!

It is a liberal “win-win-win!”

with an ill-timed volcanic eruption? (Pesky earth-science unpredictability)

OOOPS! Overkill (literally)

Though not thoroughly studied by me because I am unqualified in the area of expertise – It seems that when the world economies have ripped-off their citizenry enough that there is no productive method of recovery, they resort to massive de-population to restore balance. WWI, Russina Revolution, WWII, a series of smaller skirmishes as Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, serial Southern Hemisphere revolutionary purges, . . .

Also decrying tragedy while capitalizing on incidental genocides like Bangladesh and other food crises, civil wars, legal abortion, disease outbreaks, jihad, terror attacks, drug violence,. . .
I see Obamacare a another small step to engage mini-executions by rationing care to expensive utilizers and those who, in the government model, are surplus or antagonistic, to the administrations totalitarian agenda.

I doubt that most political, union, or industrial leaders are fundamentally different. Few as balatant as Libya, N. Korea, or Sudan, but subtle executioners in their wielding of power.

Unions demand others suffer to support their undeserved lavishness. Hazardous processes leave toxic residue proportional to the per-unit value of their product while government turns a blind eye in exchange for adequate lobbyist graft – and people suffer and die.

Representatives get lifetime pensions & salaries for a part-time, two-year stint as lapdogs to lobbyists. Foreign aid gets filtered through military and political corruption amounting to $200 for a box of Cheerios. Defense contractors and NIH recipients wallow in doldrums of ineptitude to tell us that the believers in VooDoo really believe in VooDoo? Governement workers add to the cost of getting anything done and reduce the likelihood the government operation of anything will produce results.

But I rant.

Okay, o.k.: I can’t resist; I hate to be a “Soggy Covering”, but the greatest contributor to “Global Warming” is – “Clouds” – even contrails from aircraft. They trap heat and don’t allow for a normal atmospheric heat exchange to occur (which is a “Bad Thing”). Except, of course, when they are caused by thermonuclear devices (an anathema to the environmentalist members of the “Limp Left”). Then they cause “Nuclear Winter” (which is also a “Bad Thing”). See? You can “Have your cake and eat it too”. So, with all due respect that “The Gloved One” deserves: “Just eat It – eat it, eat it … .”

In 1950, 50 Bushel Corn per Acre was good….today the average per
Acre is around 150-200. (Who do you think is in control?)

Do you not think that at the same time we don’t really make the man responsible for the seed he has planted .then any man that won’t or can’t support his off-spring, be ‘fixed’, so he doesn’t continue to keep ‘spreading’ his seed and be irresponsible. (would eliminate the abortion mills and
‘welfare’ mothers, generation after generations of ‘takers’, a side
benefit would be less crime and less need of more jail cells, for those
born and not really taken care of by a stable family.