An idea so dumb big government just might do it.
Bill Gates has a plan to cool the Earth with chalk dust
John Naish, Daily Mail
This initial $3 million test, known as Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx) would use a high-altitude scientific balloon (pictured) to raise around 2kg of calcium carbonate dust — the size of a bag of flour — into the atmosphere 12 miles above the desert of New Mexico
Spraying 2 kilo of dust costs how much?
This initial $3 million test, known as Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx) would use a high-altitude scientific balloon (pictured) to raise around 2kg of calcium carbonate dust — the size of a bag of flour — into the atmosphere 12 miles above the desert of New Mexico
Indeed, the plans are so well advanced that the initial ‘sky-clouding’ experiments were meant to have begun months ago. … (to) seed a tube-shaped area of sky half a mile long and 100 yards in diameter.
Here comes the precautionary principle on steriods:
SCoPEx is, however, on hold, amid fears that it could trigger a disastrous series of chain reactions, creating climate havoc in the form of serious droughts and hurricanes, and bring death to millions of people around the world.
So 2kg of dust could kill millions of people and we still let planes fly? Surely they are talking about the “big” version of this, not the 2kg test? And the big version needs to be gargantuan, with 800 planes working to lift “millions of tons” of chalk dust to 18 kilometers or 12 miles up. How much money can someone waste?
Why not just spend the budget for just one plane to “audit the science”. That’d be a first.
But follow the reasoning:
There is no way of predicting how the world’s long-term weather may respond to having a gigantic chemical sunshade plonked on top of it. Climatologists are also concerned that such tinkering could unintentionally disrupt the circulation of ocean currents that regulate our weather.
This itself could unleash a global outbreak of extreme climatic events that might devastate farmland, wipe out entire species and foster disease epidemics.
The technology may even spark terrible wars. For tinkering with our climate could send sky-high the potential for international suspicion and armed conflict.
They are professional climate spooks and they’ve totally spooked themselves.
But ponder: here’s a group of people who think climate models can predict exactly what happens when we add two parts per million of a trace gas to the sky, but the same models have “no way of predicting” what happens when we add an aerosol even though we know the exact composition and placement of said dust?
I’m with them this time, it’s bound to end badly. If it cools the world it’s bad, and if it doesn’t it’s a “waste of money”. It’s just odd to hear them admit their models are useless.
In the end, even though the UN has Global Dumbness boxed and packed, this’ll never be rolled out. All the two-bit worrier nations want the money, not the cooling. And every government, surely, has one scientist that knows that cooling the planet will kill crops and people. Besides the Chinese and Russians will surely hate it.
The whole project looks like just another excuse for more Global Panic PR. Cheap advertising for the cause.
h/t Marvin, Greg in NZ, Pat, Original Steve.
Smells like a multi- funtion device to me.
50
So these people are prepared to risk destroying the eco-system with man-made events, in order to save it from natural events.
340
It is well known that a leaf falling from the tree can cause a hurricane. Let’s forbid falling leaves!
50
Trouble is… they haven’t watched the 2013 movie ‘Snowpiercer’.
It’s a good laugh and also an unwitting warning against fiddling with the weather.
20
Bill Gates has too much money,
Bill Gates has too much power,
Bill Gates has far too much EGO,
Bill Gates thinks he is GOD and
Bill Gates thinks the world needs saving and he is just the God to do it!
WRONG BILL, the world needs saving from and YOU and your maniacal geoengineers!!
280
The whole idea is a giant virtue signalling hoax. Almost as big as global warming itself.
140
If it’s anything like Windows, could this become Gates’ version of the BSOD – but, in this case, the Green Screen of Death?
20
This mindset is terrifying.
What else are they doing or planning to do without our knowing about it I wonder.
Gormless gullible Gates thinks the earth is his to fiddle with and he has the money to try absolutely anything .
What sort of mentality seriously considers and PLANS such mammoth interventions but doesn’t give a moment’s thought to apparently relatively easily-achieved mitigation of the black carbon that blankets the Arctic ice, glaciers and permafrost causing up to 50% or more of the Arctic & glacier melt[testimony to Congress in 2010]…setting up a self-perpetuating GW cycle …with the melting of the permafrost releasing methane ..a much more potent GHG than CO2?
They won’t give up palm oil to bring a halt to deforestation…won’t stop the burning of rainforests to prevent the deposition of soot on the polar ice from diminishing earth’s albedo…but they’re prepared to play dangerous games with the stratosphere. What next?
Never has the earth been so threatened…not by GW but by the witchdoctors of this new Dark Age of propaganda and mass hysteria.
And if they can get Greta’s go-ahead they’ll do it.
40
It’s been only 10,000 years since the world was covered in ice and the seas 100 metres lower and we are using the technology of the last 50 years to cool the earth and start the return of the ice age? Who has gone completely mad? All based on a half cooked unproven idea that the world cannot handle +1C?
This nonsense started in 1988 and there is nothing to show for the dire predictions. No sea rise. No climate change. No drowned cities. No extinctions. No flight of humanity. And the idea that every storm, flood, drought, earthquake, tsunami, bushfire is due to alleged man made Global Warming is absurd. And the idea that the planet would be frozen without CO2 equally absurd. It was frozen anyway.
Where are the world authorities calling out this nonsense? It is environmental activism gone completely mad. If we cannot have nuclear winter, we are going to wreck the joint anyway with chalk? The mad and illegal Precautionary Principle will be the end of a perfectly healthy patient.
360
And we have already had a 1℃ higher temperature for (mostly) five thousand years in the Holocene Optimum.
190
Well, no one I am aware of (present company excepted) called out against, “Could Space Mirrors Stop Global Warming?,” so I guess the virtue signalling eco-fascists felt sufficiently encouraged to venture forth with another utterly stupid idea.
As others have pointed out elsewhere and doubtless you know, the reason appears that the corporatist globalist Left elite are in the grip of mass psychosis. I’ll wager Gates peddled his theory amongst the attendees at the Goolag secret Sicily fest recently and they all chanted in bare feet that it was a ripping idea. I’m not given to quoting from the Wickedpedo, but I’ll make an exception here with a definition that suffices:
So, a geoengineering ‘idea’ from a man who wants to surveil the entire Earth?
When power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, the only solution is to remove the power from these infantilised ideological nincompoops. I believe that is slowly happening. It is clear that the rate of alarmism, MSM frenzy and absurd ideas has increased exponentially of late. My own feeling is echoed by others, the globalist movement is dead or dying.
One must make sure that in its gasping spastic death throes it doesn’t succeed in destroying a ‘perfectly good civilisation‘.
180
Chalk dust! They cannot be serious!?!?!
Sorry to the younger readers – John McEnroe, you had to be there.
90
Really, do they know 1000m3 of air equals 1 metric ton in weight of water vapour?
You know the stuff that really affects climate weather etc…
What’s next a giant frickin lazer….
220
Ah Y,
Methinks you need a few provisos on that. In particular something about relative humidity??
Cheers
Dave B
50
you need sharks for frickin lazers, but I don’t know what is needed for this stupidity.
30
No, only CO2. Haven’t you heard of CO2 lasers? Prof William Happer knows a lot about CO2 because he was building CO2 lasers for some years — and may still be doing that.
20
It’s the Stanasflowski Method.
Seigfried from KAOS explains …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-tdYP7shac
100
“It’s a giant electric fan!”
Ninety-Nine was the hottest scientist EVAH when I was a boy of 12. “Ooooh Max…”
So having eliminated blackboards and chalk from classrooms worldwide, and replacing them with digital Windows, these freaks now want to dust the whole planet with… chalk? I always knew William the Turd was an alien from outer space…
[whooda thunked 99 was a prophetess when she exclaimed giant electric fans / windmill turbines would turn the planet into an ice age!]
70
Off Topic – Texas Wind Power
The jump in energy costs shows just how unpredictable the Texas power market has become as coal-fired generators are retired for cheaper natural gas and renewable energy sources.
ERCOT said its reserve margin, which is the spread between total generation available and forecast peak demand, with the difference shown as a percentage of peak demand, is at an all-time low of 7.4% because several coal-fired power plants have been retired as of recent.
Monday’s price spike also shows how renewable energy, which makes up about 25% of Texas’ energy generation, had difficulty generating enough power to handle the demand surge.
Grid data from Bloomberg showed wind power generation in the region slid by 50% Monday, with most of the energy generation coming from fossil fuel power stations.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-13/blowing-texas-energy-costs-hit-record-high-monday-heatwave-strikes
170
One thing to note sbout Gates is his early history is a bit of what appears to be a small underdogs rise to success, but it appears he comes from an Elite family, who are powerbrokers in America……
90
When we’re told that Bill is going to dump a whole bunch of stuff into the atmosphere it’s a nice way of telling us they’ve already been doing something and they’re about to do a lot more. Just like how Elon digs tunnels in geologically unstable places for giant vacuum tubes (or sleds?) and Jeff is hollowing a mountain to make a better clock. They need to tell us something, and it’s best if we think it’s Bill or Elon or Jeff doing stuff.
After all, we’ve seen that funny buddy movie where Bill hoodwinks IBM to become the world’s richest dude. It’s almost as far-fetched as the giant online retailer that grew and grew and never needed to make a cent. Or Elon’s two days of rocket school. But as long as we can attach to some familiar characters, we’re happy. It’s that big ole guv’mint we don’t like.
What was that big sound, Alexa? Oh, it’s just Bill or Elon or Jeff, mucking about. Such scamps.
151
This is what I’m afraid of, Mosomoso…what else are they up to?
Contrail fever and theories about the freaky behavior of the most recent fires in California suddenly becomes a lot more credible.
30
It helps to have an education, and to pay attention to more than selling software:
“Cloud seeding,” at least the idea of it, has been around for years (since 1891), and lots of things have been dumped into the atmosphere over the years, from the lovely left-overs of airplanes, rockets, bombs, volcanoes, and so on and on. Granted, I doubt cloud seeding much made it to 12 miles up… Wiki has a long article on it with plenty of examples of man’s attempts to control the weather, like more snow in Wyoming.
20
OK, but when we enter another 1970s type cool decade or two what are they going to want to add to the stratosphere to heat the earth? Perhaps they’ll attack that one from the other end, and build an oceanic wind farm then stick a giant electric hot-water element in the ocean and warm it up? Or maybe systematically nuke the sun, see what happens? Here’s a really radical idea, maybe they just buy a new jumper and burn coal to provide for much cheaper heating bills? it worked last time.
110
He must have got the idea when he was over in India working on the “Better than Cash Alliance”attempt to force their economy out of currency.
When all else fails have a chalk fight [Holi Festival]:-
https://www.9news.com.au/world/holi-festival-2019-in-pictures-india-world-celebration-colour/30f441a9-4c58-4f4d-89da-a7172cb2f18b
I wonder what other than dye can use chalk dust as a delivery medium?
https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/bill-gates-and-eugenics-the-world-needs-fewer-people/
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Bill says the world needs fewer people, but has spent a fortune on anti-malaria work. That’s logical, of course.
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“That’s logical, of course……………”
Check out Bill’s Tetanus vaccination:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWvcwYsMDew
30
The Left have never been capable of ‘joined-up’ thinking anywhere at any time. Hence they never see unintended consequences until the damage is done.
They allow several million Followers of Mohammed into Europe to help with the destruction of European societies but…..how will these left elites control the new population?
30
All of this geoengineering crap is incredibly stupid and while the 2 kg experiment will likely not even produce detectable results, scaling this up is useless and potentially harmful. Might as well drop a nuke into a super volcano caldera and they can control population growth as well …
The only thing we need to save the people of Earth from are the effects of the collusion between the IPCC and the UNFCCC whose primary goal has nothing to do with the climate, but is to replace freedom with centralized control, starting with the control of energy.
130
If they were really concerned why not use ammonium sulphate? A known reducer of temperatures as shown by any volcano e.g. Krakatau or Tambora. The latter resulted in “the year without summer” (1816) in Europe and Nth. America and the deaths of thousands.
90
Time for my morning caffeine; I meant to add that there is probably not where they want the reduction to happen. And affecting the population in Europe and the USA would kill off any support for this lunacy.
90
Are these people really that stupid or is there more sinister motives
Remember agenda 21 is basically to reduce the earth’s population back to 500 million with a ruling elite and the rest serfs.
Accelerating the the next mini or even full blown Ice Age together with reducing co2 will have a devastating impact on food production
I hate conspiracy theories, but can’t believe the extent of the stupidity surrounding man made climate change!!
160
A conspiracy theory is only an idea that may not be able to be proven and is a bit “out there”.
The rise of the Ministry of Truth – believe the govt line…or else…..?
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/fbi-document-conspiracy-theories-domestic-terrorism-threat-2019-8?r=US&IR=T
40
Exzachary!
60
“reduce the earth’s population back to 500 million”
First, they need to destroy systems that can deliver copious amounts of dispatchable electricity.
Happening !!
120
But Bill Gates has said:
He wants to kill off the whole human race!
50
“Gates said every person on the planet puts out an average of about five tons of CO2 per year.”
EVERYONE knows that the biggest impact on ‘average’ is to address the outliers first (the big “Carbon Polluters™”).
That would be YOU Bill. Take Al, Leonardo and all the other climate flogs with you.
Now THAT is what I call saving the planet.
20
Hopefully us peasants will wake up enough to be revolting before that happens. 😉
111
Indeed Mal. It beggars belief that ALL the worlds politicians, leaders and bureaucrats who make policy (apart from Trump) are so foolish or uneducated or incurious as to believe the CAGW/climate emergency stuff so unquestioningly. It’s not as if the UN/IPCC etc have been coy about their intentions, or the use of “climate change” and CO2 to being about the change they desire.
10
Such and idea to cool the earth is very likely the most evil thing anyone could imagine. It would lead to many more millions of deaths due to starvation. Hitler would be so envious.
100
It will never reach fruition, but I’m confident we can reduce the CO2 on Mars and Venus by bombarding those planets with UV rays, which should oxygenate them.
50
I was going to suggest they try their dangerous exercise on Mars but first they have to terraform it. Never say never.
50
If we focus on Venus, which has a runaway greenhouse effect, then it would be a start. Using UV cannons held aloft by large balloons it maybe possible to terraform the planet.
‘Reducing Venus’ surface temperature of 462 °C and eliminating most of the planet’s dense 9.2 MPa carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide atmosphere via removal or conversion to some other form is a priority, with the addition of breathable oxygen to the atmosphere.
‘These three changes are closely interrelated, because Venus’ extreme temperature is due to the high pressure of its dense atmosphere, and the greenhouse effect.’ wiki
31
Then if we can just sort out that slow retrograde spin, Venus might be quite useful.
110
The same could be said for our politicians.
60
Venus spins in a clockwise motion and is least retrograde of all the planets.
The general talk is that the upper atmosphere is habitable.
‘Because nitrogen and oxygen are lighter than the carbon-dioxide that makes the atmosphere, breathable-air-filled balloons will float at a height of about 50 km (31 mi). At this height, the temperature is a manageable 75 °C (348 K; 167 °F); or 27 °C (300 K; 81 °F) if we could get 5 km (3.1 mi) higher.’ wiki
21
Average crustal rock surface temp is 467 degrees C so we won’t be growing a suburb full of lawns and swimming pools there within the next 10 million years.
20
Who in their right mind would trust,
A plan to scatter chalk dust,
In space by the ton,
To block out the sun,
Because warmists deranged think they must?
250
The arrogance of this proposal is breathtaking. After decades of crashing around the world creating carnage as the worlds self appointed policeman now the US is going to adjust the climate for us?
51
If you recall POTUS DJT withdrew the USA from the Paris Discord.
The machinations of individuals like Gates is quite another thing altogether.
He clearly occupies the category of the Corporatist Globalist Elite.
As such, those Davos folk, the Silly-Con Elite, the MSM and their Hollyweird cling-ons think, they rule the World.
They damn well don’t and they know it. So, their insane calamitous rhetoric grows daily more shrill, vapid and vexatious.
Their time is dwindling fast.
140
It’s just a jump to the left… madness takes its toll. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w0WPkB3XJ4
60
Since we cannot find any evidence of a problem, let’s do some engineering and see if we can’t create one.
140
Dust and even bacterial material make their way well above 12 miles in the stratosphere. No doubt there are already more than a couple of kilos wafting about up there. Considerably more, I’d reckon. It’s a bit like the episode in ’09 when some boffins were polluting tiny areas of ocean with iron sulphate at the same time that El Nino decided to dump countless tons of iron-rich red silt into the Pacific.
As globalist tools, geo-engineers aren’t so bad. Their silliness always outweighs their malevolence. But give them time…
110
If they are going to dim the sun, won’t that affect electricity from solar panels
140
Bingo!
But that’s when Plan B comes into force… oh wait, Greta’s eco-fa$cists said there is no Plan B…
Tune in next week – same time, same channel – for the next episode of Dimwits of Humanity (D’OH!).
120
“won’t that affect electricity from solar panels”
Ha! You think the purpose of solar panels is to produce useable electricity.
Next, you’ll be telling us Windmills are not built for the express purpose of guzzling subsidies.
Is there no end to this madness! 😛
130
Oh yeah!
And then there’s the problem with using only non-fossil-fuel-sourced electricity…otherwise known as renewable energy…otherwise known as intermittent energy…
…whilst trying to do 24/7/365 surveillance of 7 billion people. How do you keep the data flowing if the power goes out unpredictably at random locations of the world like it does in third world countries?
Let’s build an extremely fragile data-handling system that has to have 24/7/365 energy to maintain data integrity…then power it with unicorn farts and fairy dust!
And tell ourselves that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be trusted to keep everything copacetic!
40
This has to be a ‘dim’ idea.
But seriously the idea of spraying the upper atmosphere with tons of dust is not a good one in my opinion. Doesn’t nature already do this?
I’m surprised that Gates would be involved in such a scheme.
GeoffW
60
Green groups in connivance with educators are making another concerted effort to brainwash our schoolchildren with warmist propaganda and create future Greens voters. They are talking about seeking ” Climate Justice ” (whatever that is) and about transitioning Audtralia to a 100% renewables future.
Now, we know all that is pie in the sky, but do the kids sitting in the classroom have sufficiently developed critical thinking skills to recognise complete nonsense when it is force fed down their throats by teachers and guest speakers? Or not?
60
Of course he does. Fresh out of his responsibilities to Microsoft where he saved the world from IBM and Apple, retired and rich, he needs another technical challenge. And what’s better for a savior type than to save the world from certain death by frying in the heat of global warming? AOC should introduce legislation to buy the chalk. It doesn’t seem fair to make the savior of the world pay for it out of pocket.
Only Bill, the last savior who came around proposing to save the world ended up nailed to a cross for his trouble. Do be careful. If you rock just one boat too many you could come to a bad end.
50
The only original idea Bill Gates ever had was to listen to his prospective customers and then give them what they said they wanted. He bought available software from someone else every time and then just reworked it into what became known a Microsoft Windows with bells and whistles in it for everyone.
And what did the customers want more than anything else? They wanted every computer to be able to talk to every other computer. Thus we have the Internet and have been regretting it ever since as we buy ever more sophisticated and expensive security software to keep that other computer out there from giving our computer digital AIDS.
40
hm, I think he’s come up with another original idea (that must make 2 original ideas!)
This latest one is to reduce Human CO2 emissions (what we exhale) to zero. See my post above: @ 11.3.1.
The man’s both Mad and Dangerous.
You say:
Only MS software requires that sort of security effort. All the Unix derivatives are far more secure. None of the Unix-based software has that problem. Check out OpenBSD if you want ultra-secure or FreeBSD, Linux and others if you can handle medium security …
MS could fix their software if they wanted to but they don’t want to. They own an Anti-virus software company so they make money out of selling you a fix for their rubbish. Make you feel like a Mug?
I use NO MS software at all. I’ve used Debian Linux since 1995 and haven’t had any problems except for Firefox. This year it’s been unspeakably unreliable so a few weeks ago I dumped it and went to Vivaldi (a modified Chrome with some Opera-like features.) It’s far too early to fully assess and appraise it yet but I’ve already found it handles printing, especially conversion to PDF (my favourite archiving format for articles and papers) much more reliably than FF.
20
I would love to have spent the last 17+ years that I worked writing code for almost anything but Windows. Unfortunately Windows was king of the road and if I didn’t know Windows my job opportunities were, shall we say, constricted. But for windows the pay was good and the opportunities many. Gates had a certain genius for selling everyone what he wanted all in one package. I don’t know anyone else who captured so large a share of the computer world so easily as he did.
Mind you, I’m not arguing that his product was superior. But he had it in hand to sell when the buyer wanted it and it worked.
10
Sophocles,
At first I thought I wouldn’t mention this, mainly because I don’t have the numbers to back it up. But the more I think about it the more I think it deserves a little consideration.
There is so much more MS stuff out there than anything else that I’ve asked myself this question over and over: If I were looking for computers to take over, what would be my best target? It would be Microsoft. It would be MS simply because there are so many more of them for target practice than anything else and if there’s an exploitable weakness you would want to go after those first.
I also have a little trouble believing that any other vendor has engineers so much better than Microsoft’s that their product would be impervious to attack.
Just something to think about.
10
Saw the other day
“What is the difference between God and Bill Gates?”
“God doesn’t think he’s Bill Gates”
50
The very first thought I had when reading this, was ‘Unintended consequences’
40
To keep up with the great socialist caused as espoused by the great vision of SCoPEx planning team, I suggest that they read more, particularly the great scientific papers HERE.
20
We have barely finished trashing diesel, the wonder fuel of the 70’s, due to the now unacceptable emission of particulate matter, to propose introducing particulate matter of a different kind into the atmosphere. At least with diesel, we had the comparably better fuel consumption in our vehicles, whereas in this case, the benefit, of anthropogenic global cooling, is neither demonstrable, nor desirable.
50
Diesel particulates is one thing, but has Bill considered how much CO2 would be emitted from the 800 planes that will distribute this dust.
Or perhaps he is planning on using electric aircraft ?
The stupidity is palpable.
10
Sorry, meant to attach link below.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-crash/norways-first-electric-plane-crash-lands-on-lake-idUSKCN1V423N
The best quote from the article is “The cause of the crash was not immediately clear”
Anyone want to hazard a guess?
10
Whoops!
10
Endless legal liability.
40
Bill Gates should get back to working on his computer. Idle Hands are the Devil’s Workmate.
30
“But I was told by the IPCC and the Great Greta that only man made CO2 could affect the climate? What is this nonsense about the sun having any effect, it says so in the Holy IPCC book that the sun does not have any forcing on the climate?” ~ said by a standard climate alarmist
50
The young Dr. Stephen Schneider seems to have shed common sense (and yards of pants fabric!) as he gained prestige in the Climate Community. In the 1978 documentary “In Search of the Coming Ice Age” he urges caution about the plans to deal with the emerging climate emergency by spreading coal dust to melt the icecaps because the results could be… unpredictable. Doubt leads, of course, to heresy and must be stamped out.
The whole program, narrated by Leonid Nimoy, should be required viewing in any serious academic program.
10
What could possibly go wrong?
10
So now it’s chalk dust … sounds better than Tim Flannery’s idea 10 years ago …,
https://www.news.com.au/national/climate-plan-could-change-sky-colour/news-story/73658ed39309995e07bd13191dcbd051
30
We already have a fine control mechanism up in the sky. It is called clouds and they work excellently for shielding the Tropics from excessive heat and keeping the heat in, within Polar regions, No further Heath-Robinson devices are needed. They could endanger us all wit unexpected consequences.
10