From: Phil Osborn (philosborn2001@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Aug 10 2002 - 15:24:56 MDT
As reported in the Orange County Register, Friday,
Aug. 9th, 2002, from the most recent issue of
"Nature," temperature date from the days after 9/11
indicate that vapor trails left by commercial jets
have a significant effect on temperatures over a wide
area, especially in terms of mediating night vs. day
extremes. During the day, the trails reflect incoming
solar radiation. At night they act as a blanket for
radiation emitted by the Earth.
I have suggested for many years that vapor trails
almost certainly had such an impact. Here in S. CA,
with several major airports nearby, it is rare to not
have vapor trails occluding a noticeable percentage of
the usually clear, cloudless sky. Just observing with
the naked eye would convince you that some thermal
impact must be occurring.
My suggestion has been for some time that it seems
likely that this effect could be used to deal with
global warming as well as general weather control.
Surely it is possible to greatly enhance the
trail-making. Robot jets that were specifically
designed to do nothing but generate vapor trails in
the high atmosphere all day long could be used to
create a large area solar/earth radiation shield,
probably at a fairly minimal expense compared to the
costs of heating/cooling, the extra need for
irrigation on hot days, etc.
Temperatures in S. CA during the summer tend toward
uncomfortably hot, altho other areas, such as Mexico,
Saudi Arabia or the Middle East, might benefit even
more. When we have what local weatherpersons call an
"offshore flow," meaning clouds throughout the morning
typically, then we get major relief from the
oppressive heat, often to the tune of ten degrees or
more.
However, the offshore flow also brings increased
humidity, whereas the jet vapor trails have no such
impact and in fact would have the opposite effect, as
most of the excessive humidity hereabouts is due to
the idiots dumping enormous amounts of stolen and/or
subsidized water on lawns or street dividers, yielding
the ubiquitous nightly streams of water down the
gutters thoughout yuppiedom. The need for such would
be reduced by a vapor trail sheild, while
simultaneously the evaporation rate from such would be
reduced by the lower temperatures, for a win-win
result.
The only significant negative result that I can see as
being possible would be the reduced photosynthesis.
This poses an interesting challenge to libertarians,
in that a public good is contemplated that cannot, by
its nature, be separated out for separate prior
contract. Does that free-rider problem make it
economically un-doable in a true libertarian society?
Or do we need to formulate a system that works when
the Earth is considered as a spaceship in which
impacts cannot be truly isolated to individual
landowners?
What about other possible uses of the proposed
technology, such as hurricane prevention or other
weather control? Let's say you managed to prevent a
major hurricane from striking the Carolinas but it can
be shown that this was likely the cause of a
disasterous storm striking Puerto Rico. If you can't
bill the Carolinians for the positive impact, then how
can the Puerto Ricans sue you for the negative?
This is not a new problem for libertarians, but it is
one that has never been satisfactorially solved.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
http://www.hotjobs.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:15:59 MST