Egg and Nog talk about climate over a traditional Christmastime drink.
Egg: “Here’s an idea. You know how volcanoes throw sulfur into the upper atmosphere and how that sulfur in the form of sulfur dioxide goes through a couple of reactions to turn into sunlight-blocking sulfuric acid aerosols?”
Nog: “Yeah. Learned that in two different college classes and saw it on a Nova special—or was it a National Geographic special? I can’t remember.”
Egg: “I got this idea. We send rockets into the stratosphere, mesosphere, or thermosphere, where they can spread sulfur or sulfur dioxide. The stuff will eventually become sulfuric acid. It’ll block sunlight. Earth’s temperature will drop. Walla! End of global warming. Problem solved. I’m a genius.”
Nog: “Not so fast, Einstein. How would you ensure that we would’t turn Venus-like with a sulfuric acid rain. I don’t have much hair to protect my scalp, and even umbrellas couldn’t withstand the acid attack unless they’re made of molybdenum stainless steel. You want us either to wear steel hats or to suffer burned heads? What about all the plants and animals that don’t have protection? And didn’t we go through a clean-air era when we made coal-fired plants install sulfur scrubbers? Everything we do to the planet has a downstream effect. So, now, in a panic over climate change, you’re thinking that we could bring back acid rain that will necessitate our spraying the troposphere with an alkaline mist to neutralize the acid falling from the stratosphere. We’ve been through this kind of conversation before, and every time we talk, I have to tell you that your cure is often worse than the disease. Reminds me of those TV commercials for drugs that end with the statement, ‘may cause death.’ Hey, i guess itchy skin is worth the risk.”
Egg: “No, we’ll figure how to balance the sulfur distribution. Make sure it doesn’t alter the chemistry of the atmosphere.”
Nog: “You mean the way we ensure that pollutants don’t enter soils, rivers, lakes, and oceans?”
Egg: “But if we’re under the threat of climate change, shouldn’t we be willing to chance any stop-gap measure, anything that might work?”
Nog: “So, let’s look at your assumptions. First, you think you can control the chemistry of an atmosphere that took billions of years to evolve. B, you think you have the money to launch the sulfur into the atmosphere on a scale larger than that of single volcanic eruptions. And next, you think that the climate will change in a predictable manner enabling you to inject just the right amount of sulfur dioxide. So, let me get this straight. You have yet to produce a reliable set of predictions on climate…
Egg: “What do you mean? This climate change stuff is serious. We need to do something. Look, here’s what one website says: ‘Nothing good can come out of global warming.’” **
Nog: “Nothing? Really? Nothing? This is where extremism meets hysteria. Nothing? So, when the last large continental ice sheets melted under global warming, exposing the land of Canada and the U.S. and the lands of northern Europe, nothing good happened? You think the farmers of the upper Midwest would agree? You think the whole country of Canada would agree? You think even the Left-leaning professors at the University of Wisconsin would have offices on the ice sheet that covered Madison? Maybe lecture while ice fishing year round? Where’s the proof that your past predictions have come true? Check out the temperature patterns in most places. Except for the city heat-island effect, can you honestly and objectively say that the patterns of warming and cooling indicate an unshakeable knowledge of atmospheric chemistry and physics? Show me the website.”
Egg: “Here it is. Look. It says here, “According to a continuous study conducted by the NASA’s Goddard Institute the Earth’s average global temperature has risen by 0.8 degrees Celsius or 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880.”
Nog: “And?”
Egg: “And? What?”
Nog: “Read the rest of the paragraph. “Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the thermometer readings have risen continuously.”
Egg: “Reason to panic.”
Nog: “But not true. So, over the course of, let me do the math; 2021 minus 1880 equals 141 years the temperature of the planet has fluctuated by less than a degree Celsius. Seems pretty steady to me, not a definitive ‘continuous rise,’ especially in light of the records we don’t have over the same period and the so-called hiatus of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Those people at The World Counts website would have gone crazy with the temperature change that occurred in the same duration or shorter period following the Little Ice Age or with the change that occurred prior to the Medieval Warm Period and the rise of the Vikings. What if the Vikings had the technology to pump sulfur into the stratosphere 1,000 years ago? Would that have been wise? Would they have stopped the global warming of their time without consequence to the planet or its inhabitants? Would they even have thought that ‘nothing good’ had come of the warming they experienced? I can hear Sven say to Leif, "What are we going to do with this ice-free margin of Greenland? We need some global cooling.' And would the Europeans have thought that the end of the Little Ice Age was a bad thing? I think your panic is unwarranted. I think your solution to spray sulfur is silly. I think your noggin is cracked, Egg.”
Egg: “Now, let’s not get personal. Isn’t that one of the complaints you have, getting personal, arguing from ad hominem attacks?”
Nog: “Sorry. It’s just frustrating to see that people are willing to jump to radical changes or experiments with both technology and social structure on the basis of 0.8 degrees change over 141 years, a change, by the way, that hasn’t been ‘continuous,’ as that website claims and that hasn’t been definitively demonstrated to result in ‘nothing good.’ It’s frustrating to see how emotions have played a role in decisions, emotions of kids like the famous Greta who said adults have robbed her of her childhood. What the H does that mean? Did adults keep her from skipping rope, playing with dolls, going to Disney movies, playing catch in the school yard, or eating ice cream? Look at the reactions of fawning adults when she said that. Geez. The kid got to sail across the ocean. Sorry I didn’t think of such an easy way to get an experience like that in my childhood. I think I was on a rowboat in an amusement park once, but my memories are vague; might be false memory.
“One hundred forty-one years and less than a degree Celsius, and you’re ready to throw sulfur into the atmosphere, the same element your predecessors wanted to eliminate from the atmosphere during the era of the Clean Air Act. Sorry. I have little response to your logic other than to suggest that your shell might be a bit cracked. Is this sulfur stuff really your idea?”
Egg: “Well, I have to confess, I read it in ACS Publications. It was in an article by Javier Carmona-Garcia and others and published just this month in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.” ***
Nog: “Whoa. You’re telling me that ‘real scientists’ are actually toying with the idea?”
Egg: “Yeah. So no more name-calling. You might think my shell is cracked, but these are real eggheads. They know what they’re talking about.”
Nog: “Show me this article.”
Egg: “Right here.”
Nog: “I see that the authors deal with the photochemistry of sulfur compounds. But look here. I see that a guy named Joe Francisco, well, Dr. Joseph S. Francisco, one of the chemists who was a co-author, says that the process they examined was an important step in understanding how ‘geoengineering’ the atmosphere might work. That’s all we need. Geoengineers. No danger there, right? What's next? Keeping the moon in a retrograde orbit for a continuous solar eclipse?
“Well, at least Francisco has scientific questions. Look, here he asks, ‘Will the atmosphere find a way to get rid of the SO3 or will it collect and start initiating new chemistry elsewhere?’ That’s a statement in an article about the original study. **** He asks the question I would ask, ‘If we put the sulfur dioxide in, can we get it out of the stratosphere without some dire after effect?’
“Yet, we have people around the planet who probably would, just like you Egg, jump on Apollo’s chariot and race across the sky spewing sulfur into the stratosphere on the grounds that they and you know the precise way to control the atmosphere and the precise quantities of stuff that will do the trick you want. They and you with your limited understanding of the complex processes that interact to make Earth what it is, would decide to experiment on the world and people. And on the basis of what? A 0.8 degree change over 141 years?”
Egg: “I think it’s worth a try. What can we lose?”
Nog: “Egg, you guys wanted to clean up coal burning, and you did. You reduced acid rain. Now, you want to use the very element you insisted on scrubbing from the coal to be put back into circulation. Why not just remove the scrubbers from the coal-fired power plants and go back to the happy days of acid rain? This is what I mean about toying with the planet as a whole when the people ‘in charge’ can run from one end of their logic to the reverse end of it, when what's condemned becomes what's condoned by the very same people. Make up your minds, please. Is sulfur pumped into the atmosphere good or bad? What can you lose? What can you lose! Egg, do you want to spend virtually all your personal resources to maintain the easy lifestyle that fossil fuels gave you? Have you been to the gas station recently or looked at your electric bill? But, let me guess. You would prefer to have some anonymous ‘they’ solve the dire problem of a zero point 8 degree Celsius rise over 141 years. What could go wrong when the ‘they’ is composed of non-scientist politicians and in-the-know entrepreneurs? Their motives are pure and logical, aren’t they? I can see the business end of this already. Musk, Bezos, or Branson getting contracts with governments to launch sulfur—good business plan, I think. Gore and Kerry will invest. If a little global warming is bad, then a little global cooling should be good, right? I believe you think the political and financial people who control the planet’s destiny know exactly how much to add or subtract from the atmosphere.
“Pass me the brandy, rum, AND whiskey. I think the best thing I can do is just over-spike my eggnog. After all, if a little alcohol makes an eggnog good, why not put more in the drink?”
Notes:
*https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.1c10153
**The World Counts. Online at https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/temperature-change-over-the-last-100-years Accessed November 21, 2021.
***Carmona-Garcia, Javier, et al. Photochemistry of HOSO2 and SO3 and Implications for the Production of Sulfuric Acid. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 44, 18794-18802. Online at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.1c10153 Accessed November 21, 2921.
****https://phys.org/news/2021-11-geoengineering-mitigate-climate-fundamental-chemistry.html
Egg: “Here’s an idea. You know how volcanoes throw sulfur into the upper atmosphere and how that sulfur in the form of sulfur dioxide goes through a couple of reactions to turn into sunlight-blocking sulfuric acid aerosols?”
Nog: “Yeah. Learned that in two different college classes and saw it on a Nova special—or was it a National Geographic special? I can’t remember.”
Egg: “I got this idea. We send rockets into the stratosphere, mesosphere, or thermosphere, where they can spread sulfur or sulfur dioxide. The stuff will eventually become sulfuric acid. It’ll block sunlight. Earth’s temperature will drop. Walla! End of global warming. Problem solved. I’m a genius.”
Nog: “Not so fast, Einstein. How would you ensure that we would’t turn Venus-like with a sulfuric acid rain. I don’t have much hair to protect my scalp, and even umbrellas couldn’t withstand the acid attack unless they’re made of molybdenum stainless steel. You want us either to wear steel hats or to suffer burned heads? What about all the plants and animals that don’t have protection? And didn’t we go through a clean-air era when we made coal-fired plants install sulfur scrubbers? Everything we do to the planet has a downstream effect. So, now, in a panic over climate change, you’re thinking that we could bring back acid rain that will necessitate our spraying the troposphere with an alkaline mist to neutralize the acid falling from the stratosphere. We’ve been through this kind of conversation before, and every time we talk, I have to tell you that your cure is often worse than the disease. Reminds me of those TV commercials for drugs that end with the statement, ‘may cause death.’ Hey, i guess itchy skin is worth the risk.”
Egg: “No, we’ll figure how to balance the sulfur distribution. Make sure it doesn’t alter the chemistry of the atmosphere.”
Nog: “You mean the way we ensure that pollutants don’t enter soils, rivers, lakes, and oceans?”
Egg: “But if we’re under the threat of climate change, shouldn’t we be willing to chance any stop-gap measure, anything that might work?”
Nog: “So, let’s look at your assumptions. First, you think you can control the chemistry of an atmosphere that took billions of years to evolve. B, you think you have the money to launch the sulfur into the atmosphere on a scale larger than that of single volcanic eruptions. And next, you think that the climate will change in a predictable manner enabling you to inject just the right amount of sulfur dioxide. So, let me get this straight. You have yet to produce a reliable set of predictions on climate…
Egg: “What do you mean? This climate change stuff is serious. We need to do something. Look, here’s what one website says: ‘Nothing good can come out of global warming.’” **
Nog: “Nothing? Really? Nothing? This is where extremism meets hysteria. Nothing? So, when the last large continental ice sheets melted under global warming, exposing the land of Canada and the U.S. and the lands of northern Europe, nothing good happened? You think the farmers of the upper Midwest would agree? You think the whole country of Canada would agree? You think even the Left-leaning professors at the University of Wisconsin would have offices on the ice sheet that covered Madison? Maybe lecture while ice fishing year round? Where’s the proof that your past predictions have come true? Check out the temperature patterns in most places. Except for the city heat-island effect, can you honestly and objectively say that the patterns of warming and cooling indicate an unshakeable knowledge of atmospheric chemistry and physics? Show me the website.”
Egg: “Here it is. Look. It says here, “According to a continuous study conducted by the NASA’s Goddard Institute the Earth’s average global temperature has risen by 0.8 degrees Celsius or 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880.”
Nog: “And?”
Egg: “And? What?”
Nog: “Read the rest of the paragraph. “Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the thermometer readings have risen continuously.”
Egg: “Reason to panic.”
Nog: “But not true. So, over the course of, let me do the math; 2021 minus 1880 equals 141 years the temperature of the planet has fluctuated by less than a degree Celsius. Seems pretty steady to me, not a definitive ‘continuous rise,’ especially in light of the records we don’t have over the same period and the so-called hiatus of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Those people at The World Counts website would have gone crazy with the temperature change that occurred in the same duration or shorter period following the Little Ice Age or with the change that occurred prior to the Medieval Warm Period and the rise of the Vikings. What if the Vikings had the technology to pump sulfur into the stratosphere 1,000 years ago? Would that have been wise? Would they have stopped the global warming of their time without consequence to the planet or its inhabitants? Would they even have thought that ‘nothing good’ had come of the warming they experienced? I can hear Sven say to Leif, "What are we going to do with this ice-free margin of Greenland? We need some global cooling.' And would the Europeans have thought that the end of the Little Ice Age was a bad thing? I think your panic is unwarranted. I think your solution to spray sulfur is silly. I think your noggin is cracked, Egg.”
Egg: “Now, let’s not get personal. Isn’t that one of the complaints you have, getting personal, arguing from ad hominem attacks?”
Nog: “Sorry. It’s just frustrating to see that people are willing to jump to radical changes or experiments with both technology and social structure on the basis of 0.8 degrees change over 141 years, a change, by the way, that hasn’t been ‘continuous,’ as that website claims and that hasn’t been definitively demonstrated to result in ‘nothing good.’ It’s frustrating to see how emotions have played a role in decisions, emotions of kids like the famous Greta who said adults have robbed her of her childhood. What the H does that mean? Did adults keep her from skipping rope, playing with dolls, going to Disney movies, playing catch in the school yard, or eating ice cream? Look at the reactions of fawning adults when she said that. Geez. The kid got to sail across the ocean. Sorry I didn’t think of such an easy way to get an experience like that in my childhood. I think I was on a rowboat in an amusement park once, but my memories are vague; might be false memory.
“One hundred forty-one years and less than a degree Celsius, and you’re ready to throw sulfur into the atmosphere, the same element your predecessors wanted to eliminate from the atmosphere during the era of the Clean Air Act. Sorry. I have little response to your logic other than to suggest that your shell might be a bit cracked. Is this sulfur stuff really your idea?”
Egg: “Well, I have to confess, I read it in ACS Publications. It was in an article by Javier Carmona-Garcia and others and published just this month in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.” ***
Nog: “Whoa. You’re telling me that ‘real scientists’ are actually toying with the idea?”
Egg: “Yeah. So no more name-calling. You might think my shell is cracked, but these are real eggheads. They know what they’re talking about.”
Nog: “Show me this article.”
Egg: “Right here.”
Nog: “I see that the authors deal with the photochemistry of sulfur compounds. But look here. I see that a guy named Joe Francisco, well, Dr. Joseph S. Francisco, one of the chemists who was a co-author, says that the process they examined was an important step in understanding how ‘geoengineering’ the atmosphere might work. That’s all we need. Geoengineers. No danger there, right? What's next? Keeping the moon in a retrograde orbit for a continuous solar eclipse?
“Well, at least Francisco has scientific questions. Look, here he asks, ‘Will the atmosphere find a way to get rid of the SO3 or will it collect and start initiating new chemistry elsewhere?’ That’s a statement in an article about the original study. **** He asks the question I would ask, ‘If we put the sulfur dioxide in, can we get it out of the stratosphere without some dire after effect?’
“Yet, we have people around the planet who probably would, just like you Egg, jump on Apollo’s chariot and race across the sky spewing sulfur into the stratosphere on the grounds that they and you know the precise way to control the atmosphere and the precise quantities of stuff that will do the trick you want. They and you with your limited understanding of the complex processes that interact to make Earth what it is, would decide to experiment on the world and people. And on the basis of what? A 0.8 degree change over 141 years?”
Egg: “I think it’s worth a try. What can we lose?”
Nog: “Egg, you guys wanted to clean up coal burning, and you did. You reduced acid rain. Now, you want to use the very element you insisted on scrubbing from the coal to be put back into circulation. Why not just remove the scrubbers from the coal-fired power plants and go back to the happy days of acid rain? This is what I mean about toying with the planet as a whole when the people ‘in charge’ can run from one end of their logic to the reverse end of it, when what's condemned becomes what's condoned by the very same people. Make up your minds, please. Is sulfur pumped into the atmosphere good or bad? What can you lose? What can you lose! Egg, do you want to spend virtually all your personal resources to maintain the easy lifestyle that fossil fuels gave you? Have you been to the gas station recently or looked at your electric bill? But, let me guess. You would prefer to have some anonymous ‘they’ solve the dire problem of a zero point 8 degree Celsius rise over 141 years. What could go wrong when the ‘they’ is composed of non-scientist politicians and in-the-know entrepreneurs? Their motives are pure and logical, aren’t they? I can see the business end of this already. Musk, Bezos, or Branson getting contracts with governments to launch sulfur—good business plan, I think. Gore and Kerry will invest. If a little global warming is bad, then a little global cooling should be good, right? I believe you think the political and financial people who control the planet’s destiny know exactly how much to add or subtract from the atmosphere.
“Pass me the brandy, rum, AND whiskey. I think the best thing I can do is just over-spike my eggnog. After all, if a little alcohol makes an eggnog good, why not put more in the drink?”
Notes:
*https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.1c10153
**The World Counts. Online at https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/temperature-change-over-the-last-100-years Accessed November 21, 2021.
***Carmona-Garcia, Javier, et al. Photochemistry of HOSO2 and SO3 and Implications for the Production of Sulfuric Acid. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 44, 18794-18802. Online at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.1c10153 Accessed November 21, 2921.
****https://phys.org/news/2021-11-geoengineering-mitigate-climate-fundamental-chemistry.html
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