Far fetched plans for controlling Earth's fever

Climate experts are coming up with some weird ideas for stopping global warming. The scientists' worry is that global temperatures are now rising steadily and the process may get beyond any hope of being stopped by cutting greenhouse gas emissions alone. ABC news has a summary of all of the proposals. A snippet is as follows.

Blanketing the Deserts

A number of scientists have suggested blanketing enormous sections of the planet's deserts with plastic sheets to reflect sunlight straight back into space, preventing it from warming the earth.

That might work because sunlight, coming in or reflected back out to space, passes right through greenhouse gasses — unlike the infrared heat a warmed earth gives off, which gets trapped in those gasses.

But scientists admit they're not sure how to maintain such immense reflectivity: would a few good dust storms — already increasingly common on our warming planet — dull the giant reflective sheets, requiring a huge cleaning staff ? How many vacuum cleaners would they need?

Read the full article from the following link.

Link & Image: ABC News
Tags: Global Warming | Science