Geo-Engineering: Laying Foundations

Unlike BIO-Engineering, which seeks to apply pure Science via Technological processes to produce engineered results in Biological fields (from GM’d corn, to the materials of Orthpaedic hip-joint replacement hardware), GEO-Engineering seeks to take the same approach to producing engineered results for the entire Earth, in order to effect positive changes to our environment. Regrettably, the term Geo-Engineering seems to have been misappropriated and popularized as a description of Ecological or Environmental engineering applications on a global scale, even though the terms Enviro, Global, or ECO-Engineering would likely have been much more appropriate descriptors for this sort of work. Unfortunately for the real Geo-Engineers out there (who’ve been working long and hard on true Geological Engineering), the term GEO has already been co-opted by Environmentalists, adopted by the Media, and is now popularized to represent applied technological solutions to our most pressing issues around Climate Change. So thanks to prevailing trends in the Media, Geo-Engineering has effectively come to mean something else entirely to all of us who are not engineers.

Geo-Engineering has been categorical science since the Sixties (when it first became popular to believe that Technology could fix anything), and it seems to be finally coming into vogue after being brought to back to public attention by mainstream Media sources such as the New York Times. Geo-Engineering (as we currently accept the poorly named field) has become a notably complex endeavor that requires the collection, collation and application of knowledge from three VERY large areas of study:

* Scientific disciplines including Climatology, Biochemistry, Ecology, Meteorology and several subsets of Biology and Physics
* Engineering disciplines including aeronautical, naval, architectural, ballistics, propulsion, and materials Engineering.
* Regulatory/Management and other control disciplines such as business process and risk management, and realtime operational research…and of course an insanely complex and interdependent maze of International Politics, Regulations, Diplomacy, and Trade.

Before delving into these ridiculously broad categories of study, first, let’s just put away any indignant or ignorant self-righteousness about “playing God” with the environment. Instead, let’s simply admit that we’ve already been toying with our Ecology, and changing the Earths environment in countless ways for a long time now already.

Whether it’s by altering watersheds and aquifers, re-engineering entire drainage systems for irrigation or hydro power, or by clearcutting the heat and CO2 consuming capacity of entire forests, and let’s not forget the ongoing and always contentious issues behind enormous volumes of CO2 (and other more potent greenhouse gases) escaping into the atmosphere, as Humans we are already very deeply ensnared in the tricky game of Geo-Engineering. Thus the dire scenarios described as AGW, or “Anthropogenic” (man-made) Global Warming are directly attributed to Human activities, which nobody questions as being capable of changing an entire planet.

So since we’ve already been behaving like foolish Gods (or rather like some lesser being that has self-provisioned itself with Godlike dominion over nature according to some self-distorting Judeao-Christian fallacy) let’s then look at the risks of Geo-Engineering more realistically.

The True Nature of Contrails

	If you’d like a clear view of what creates Jet Contrails just: Click for Facts…

If you don’t think that jet travel could be playing a major role in either climate change, or modified atmospheric chemistry, then you probably don’t need to dive into this deeper exploration. If however you see Climate Change as an enormous combination of factors, you might find some points of interests below. There is far more at play here than even the most outrageous “Chemetrail Conspiracy” has ever even touched upon.

In our explorations of jet exhaust and ‘vapour contrails‘ and the impact of air travel on our Future Environment, we’ve made previous attempts to speculate upon why certain channels in the Mainstream Media have taken interest in a rather weak Conspiracy Theory like “Chemtrails”, rather than digging into the underlying science of Contrails (and environmental impact of jet exhaust) for a bonefide piece of investigative journalism on a possibly much deeper conspiracy.

If there’s such a thing as covering up an actual conspiracy with weaker, more easily discredited, conspiracy theories, then it’s quite possible that the airline industry knows full well that its altering the stratosphere, and affecting the environment. That the prevalence of “Chemtrail” theories might simply be serving to throw people off the trail by simply associating any negative environmental news about airliners with more easily dismissed “conspiracy theories”. It certainly not as simple as a supposedly well-intentioned geo-engineering initiative.

Cloudy Coverup for Climate Change

        

In an effort to wrap our collective heads around all the Causes that can Effect Climate Change, perhaps we could go up into Space to gain some seriously wide-angle perspectives on the subject, and then come back down to Earth with a more grounded view of what’s driving this change.

The first layer of atmosphere that we encounter upon re-entry is the Mesospehere, and it’s a frontier zone that’s only now being better explored for it’s peculiar properties. What’s driving this curiosity are visible signs of changes going on up there, which are impacting some wild theories about geo-engineering the skies, to counteract climate change down here.

More than 120 years after their discovery, Noctilucent Clouds (from the Latin words for “Night Shining”) remain a mysterious enigma that only appears up at the very edge of space – or about 75-85 kilometers (50 miles) straight up! This area is called the Mesosphere, and it’s not only very cold (-193F/-125C), but it’s also incredibly dry. Studies show that the mesosphere is about 100 MILLION times drier than the Sahara, so one of the questions that we find 80 kms above us is: just how do these eerie clouds form under such poor conditions? Just to contrast abit, the highest clouds that we normally see are called Cirrus, and form at only about 11 km (36,000feet) where it only gets down to about -40C.

So…Let’s consider what makes clouds to begin with? Basically ice crystals, or rain need to two things to form. A dust (1)particle that allows (2)water vapor to collect/condense around the particle in a process called “nucleation”. The theories on Noctilucent Clouds are that the dust required to form them at that altitude is either coming from space, or somehow coming up from the surface far, far below. Water vapor is also incredibly scarce at that altitude, which suggests theories that the water is actually coming from rocket exhaust. An even more fascinating theory suggests that oxidized Methane* is at the supply base for the components of water since atmospheric methane levels have been increasing since the 19th century, and have more than doubled in the past century! So we might be just seeing the early signs of some new form of climate change at work up there at the edge of space…

A New Mission…

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