Desperate Idea to Rein In Melting "Doomsday Glacier"

Map of Antarctica. The Thwaites glacier is seen 
to the left. If it melts global sea levels
could rise dramatically. 

Climate scientists for quite awhile now have been watching with dread something they've dubbed the "Doomsday Glacier."  

Before you get too panicked,  the glacier won't end the world.  But at some point, it might cause enormous trouble that would be felt around the globe.  

The official name of this thing is Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. It's about the size of Great Britain, and it is melting.

The "Doomsday" label is because the glacier is so huge and is melting so fast, that its effects are already being noticed. The thawing glacier already accounts for four percent of the world's annual sea level rise. 

Were the glacier to entirely collapse, it would raise global sea levels by about 65 centimeters or roughly two feet. Hence the "Doomsday" label as that much of a sea level rise would be truly catastrophic for coastal cities and communities worldwide.  

Each centimeter of sea level rise would expose an estimated six million people worldwide to coastal flooding, so imagine what 65 centimeters would do. 

Oh, and if the Thwaites Glacier collapses, it could destabilize the much bigger ice sheet behind it. If that big ice sheet goes, that could add another 10 to 15 feet of sea level rise. This wouldn't happen tomorrow, but it's a big enough threat to start thinking about, even if the catastrophe is decades or even a century into the future.

At this point, there's no way to stop Thwaites Glacier from continuing to melt. But maybe people can slow the melt down.  And maybe slowing the melt rate would buy time while us humans struggle to stop the flow of fossil fuel emissions into the atmosphere.  If fossil fuel emissions stop, so too, would climate, eventually at least.  

 ut we are nowhere near that moment yet.

One off the wall, expensive but still perhaps viable idea is to put a huge barrier around Thwaites glacier to stop warm water from getting at it. 

According to Interesting Engineering:

"The proposed structure would be just under 0.1 miles (152 meters) tall and stretch roughy 50 miles across key parts of the seabed in front of Thwaites Glacier. Anchored to the ocean floor, the curtain would act as a physical barrier, limiting the flow of warm seawater that melts the ice shelf from below,"

"The plan faces major technical challenges. The structure would need to survive extreme Antarctic conditions, deep water pressure, moving ice and long-term ocean exposure. Even supporters acknowledge it could take years before any full-scale deployment is possible."

It would also be incredibly expensive, to the tune of several billion dollars. It's unclear from where that money might come.  The logic behind spending that kind of money on a Thwaites Glacier barricade is that it would still be way less expensive than dealing with an eventual 10-foot sea level rise. 

At the very least, this whole thing is a potential research opportunity. 

Probably with this giant, expensive curtain in the back of their minds, scientists are drilling way down through the glacier and deploying instruments to see how warm water is interacting with the base of the glacier.

Data will be transmitted daily via satellite for at least a year. It'll be a way to figure out how deep ocean water in a warming climate affects glaciers it comes in contact with. 

"This is one of the most important and unstable glaciers on the planet and we are finally able to see what is happening where it matters most,'" said Pete Davis of the British Antarctic Survey. 

I have no idea whether this barricade will ever get built or whether the collapse of this "Doomsday Glacier is imminent. But it's just one trouble spot in a world of potential crisis points brought on by climate change.  

Rogue Private Companies Trying To Stop Climate Change In Potentially Dangerous, Risky Ways

A company called Make Sunsets wants to pump 
sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to blunt
climate change. Sounds good, but a lot 
can go wrong with this idea. 

You can combat climate change, at least a little, for just $1.00.  The problem is, that $1 to fight climate change might backfire enough to make climate change seem like a trifle. 

The dollar would go to a private company called Make Sunsets. As the Washington Post explains:

"Your dollar will pay for founder Luke Iseman to drive a Winnebago RV into the hills half an hour outside Saratoga, California, to release a balloon loaded with sulfur dioxide, an air pollutant normally spewed by volcanic eruptions. He and his 1,000 paying customers hope the balloon will burst in the stratosphere, releasing particles that will block sunlight and cool the planet."

Of course, just one of those little balloons won't have any effect on climate change. Make Sunsets has released just over 240 pounds of sulfur dioxide this year. You need to release millions of tons of that chemical every year to change global temperatures. 

For instance, in 1991, the Mount Pinatubo volcano erupted in what was easily among the biggest eruptions in a century. It released 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.  

That eruption dropped global temperatures by about 1 degree Fahrenheit for nearly two years. But those cooler temperatures were still above the 20th century average. 

Still, as the WaPo points out, private businesses are diving into the idea of blocking the sun through chemicals. "Make Sunsets has raised more than $1 million from investors and sold more than $100,000 worth of 'cooling credits' to customers this fall. A better-funded competitor, Stardust, has raised $75 million to develop a more sophisticated geo engineering method it says will be ready to launch by the end of the decade- although its founders vow they won't deploy their technology unless a government hires them to do so." 

These companies are jumping in because they say scientists and governments are too slow and plodding with possible solutions to climate change. So they want to speed it up. Reading between the lines, these companies want to make a pile of money and fast.  

There is reason why these scientists and governments are so "slow and plodding." 

The technologies these companies are playing with could have really bad unintended consequences, like altering global weather patterns in ways that could be even more dangerous than climate change. These tech ideas could increase air pollution and cancer rates.

 Here'a a pertinent quote in that Washington Post piece:

"'I do not trust the private sector to make good decisions for people,' said Shuchi Galati, founder of the nonprofit Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering. 'The whole move-fast-and-break-things ethos - I've see it and it hasn't gone particularly well for society."

Most governments don't have specific laws banning geoengineering. But remember those kinda wacky laws in some states, and a Marjorie Taylor Greene-sponsored piece of legislation that banned weather modification due to unfounded fears of chemtrails?  Those laws might just apply to these geoengineering firms. 

The Trump administration Environmental Protection Agency has already gone after Make Sunsets for the minuscule amount of sulfur dioxide the company has put into the air. Which is a bit rich, since the Trump people have rolled back regulations that were helping reduce fossil fuel emissions.  The most obvious way to fight climate change is getting rid of fossil fuel, but that would make the Trump people unhappy. So we can't have that. 

But even if every nation in the world enacted laws and regulations banning freelance methods of trying to blunt climate change, like pumping sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, that might not stop real trouble.  A few rogue  billionaires will probably try to get around nations' "stupid laws"  - possibly at humanity's expense. 

HOW IT GOES SOUTH

Luke Iseman, the founder of Make Sunsets, said he got the idea for his business from the science fiction novel "Termination Shock." The premise of the novel is that billionaires take it upon themselves to fight climate change. 

In the book, a Texas billionaire launches a geoengineering project that does save low lying areas from sea level rise, but also introduces a brutal, deadly drought elsewhere. Obviously, a lot more goes on that in the story, but the book's title refers to the concept that once a geoengineering project starts, abruptly stopping it later results in skyrocketing warming, which is called termination shock. 

Termination shock would have the world abruptly warm to the high levels you would have had if you didn't reduce fossil fuel usage, and never tried to block the sun with sulfur dioxide, or whatever you're trying to use to do that . 

Remember how within a couple years after Pinatubo blew up in 1991, climate change picked up where it left off? That was a couple years. The world without Pinatubo's sulfer dioxide wasn't that much warmer in 1993 than it was in 1990.  In the grand scheme of things, mankind didn't have to make many quick adjustments due to a new climate.

Now imagine if we cut off climate change today by spraying the stratosphere with sulfur dioxide and kept doing it until, say, 2060.  Suddenly, within a year, maybe 18 months after 2060, the world abruptly warms from something like we have now, which is bad enough, to something dangerously hotter. 

It's hard enough adapting to climate change at the pace it's going now. Imagine trying to deal with the sudden extreme heat, even more extreme storms and gawd knows what else if global temperature spikes incredibly sharply in a year or two. 

Then imagine the cascading food shortages, disasters and resulting civil unrest, mass migration and war this snap-of-the-fingers change might bring.  There's a recipe for a dystopian novel at best, an incredibly grim future at worst

The trouble with some (most?) billionaires is that they think they're the Enlightened Ones, who are smarter than everybody else. So they'll just do what they want because their narcissism makes them think they can save the world. Or at least add to their billions in cash they have piled up. 

 The minions the billionaires collect like dust bunnies under the sofa will do it.  (That's why Congress kowtows to the 1% so much nowadays. They want their take of the profits.

Here's the Washington Post quote from Iseman himself:

"If every country in the world bans this, and a billionaire comes to me and says, 'Here's a boat with a flag of convenience that's not going to enforce the ban...I want to take credit if people like it and have plausible deniability if they don't. Go. You know, I can think of no better way to spend the next several years."

The plausible deniability part of the quote really had my eyes rolling to the back of my head.  

What happens when the billionaire runs out of money, or more likely loses interest in the geoengineering project as fast as a dude with ADHD loses interest in any boring spreadsheet you put in front of him? . 

Billionaires almost never suffer the consequences of what they start. So when the climate really goes haywire when the said billionaire abandons his little sulfur dioxide scheme,   he'll be whisked to his safe private island, safe from the global chaos he's created. 

While the rest of us rubes pay the consequences.  

Well-Intentioned Caution Has QAnon Wing Of The GOP Fighting Fictitious "Chemtrails"

 Here, we go again.

Protecting the public or chemtrail lunacy? 
Sometimes shady lawmakers going after geo-engineering.
Not sure if public safety is the motive, or whether
catering to conspiracy-minded 
constituents is behind this.  

Some well intentioned caution is making the conspiracy theorists go into a tizzy again. This time it's back to the old "chemtrail" theme. 

GOP lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Tennessee, and probably a few other places have latched on to the the idea of banning the release of chemicals from aircraft to modify the weather. 

It's a little tough to figure out if those proposing this type of legislation have honest public safety goals, or if they've signed on to this chemtrail stupidity.  

To review, chem trails aren't a thing, despite the intense blowback I'm going to receive on social media when the wing nuts read this post. 

Like most wacky conspiracies, this one starts with a whiff of actual fact. As Raw Story explains:

"The false belief that condensation trails left by high flying aircraft are actually trails of chemicals released by the government for nefarious reasons has become conflated with techniques being explored to reduce the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the atmosphere."

Specifically, some scientists are beginning to looking into a field of research known as geo engineering. 

Says the Washington Post: 

"Scientists have suggested that spraying sulfur particles into the atmosphere could help reflect sunlight, cooling the planet, though the technology remains controversial and untested, as researchers worry about potential unintended consequences."

There are reasonable calls to more closely regulate climate modification schemes through federal laws and/or rule making. Which makes sense 

To be clear, nobody is taking planes up in the air to spray boatloads of sulfur Mostly because not enough is known about this idea to try it. 

However, some believers think this sulfur spraying is ongoing and widespread, despite the lack of evidence that it is happening. Of course people will believe anything. 

The legislation or proposed legislation in Tennessee and Pennsylvania expressly deal with weather and  climate, and not the wackadoodle claims of extreme chemtrail conspiracy theorists.

For instance, the Tennessee bill prohibits the release of chemicals "with the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather or the intensity of sunlight."

At first glance, that sounds reasonable enough. Since we don't know whether we'd see unpleasant side effects from geo engineering to combat climate change, maybe we should hold off on any large scale atmospheric experiments. 

If you read between the lines of interviews with Tennessee lawmakers pushing the legislation, it seems like they're trying to have it both ways: Show intelligent concern over geo engineering, while giving a tacit nod to constituents who are into the chemtrail conspiracy theories. 

In Pennsylvania, State Sen Doug. Mastriano, who was the GOP gubernatorial candidate there he wants legislation because of a supposed proliferation of weather modification patents "owned by a combination of Federal Government Agencies, Non-Government Organized and large multinational corporations."

But apparently there's more to Mastriano's motivation than just that, 

Pennsylvania Capital-Star notes Mastriano has gone beyond just scientific concerns and has embraced the chemtrail conspiracy.

"In a November Facebook post with a photo of condensation trails in the sky above Chambersburg, Mastriano wrote, 'I have legislation to stop this.... Normal contrails dissolve/evaporate within 30-90 seconds.'"

Au contraire!, contrail man.  The water vapor in condensation trails often freeze, and depending on wind conditions, can linger in the sky for many  minutes or even hours. 

Some of the wackier types are conflating this climate geoengineering idea with this conspiracy theory over chemtrails.

As WaPo explains:

"The risk experts say, is that discussion of such unfounded claims may get in the way of real public discussion about solar geo engineering research. At the moment, chemtrails accusations interact and meld with concerns over legitimate academic research, creating more confusion and blocking further scientific research."

The chemtrail conspiracy crowd seems like it might be behind the scenes with the proposals in Pennsylvania and Tennessee and maybe elsewhere. Sort of a back door way of trying to "legitimize" their odd beliefs.

I'm all for being careful not to harm people when science is being done. Let's just not succumb to the conspiracy theorists among us.