Primer on Greenhouses and Geo-Engineering

E-mail to Congress:

I presume your specialty is politics, and I know my specialty is science. It also seems that they meet occasionally, such that some scientific knowledge is necessary to make a reasonable political decision.

On that basis, I would like to give a little primer on greenhouses, since that is the current catchy word being used as the basis for climate control.

As you know, a greenhouse is traditionally a glass-ceiling building, generally used for growing plants. The glass ceiling allows sunlight to enter the building. Sunlight is composed of radiation of various wavelengths. It all passes through the glass ceiling on its way into the building. When it strikes a hard surface, such as concrete, growing plants and other paraphernalia in the building, some of entering radiation is converted to heat. That heat is unable to pass back out through the glass ceiling and results in an increased temperature within the building. This is not theory. It is observable fact.

The theory of global warming is that the 0.05% carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere acts in the same manner as the glass ceiling in a greenhouse, thereby leading to increased temperature of the whole earth, similar to the interior of the greenhouse. Consider that carbon dioxide is a gas, much like nitrogen and oxygen, which constitute most of atmospheric gases. Laboratory tests also show that the insulating effect of carbon dioxide to passage of heat is only slightly more than for nitrogen and oxygen. With these facts available, does it make sense to you that low concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have a significant effect on climate, and particularly global warming?

The term geoengineering means manipulating the Earth's atmosphere by physical means. For example, one proposal to reduce the amount of solar radiation striking the earth is to place large amounts of sulfate particles in the atmosphere.

There was a recent climate conference in California. The major topic was geo-engineering, but the conferees agreed that geoengineering should only be applied after all aspects of carbon dioxide control have been instituted. The implication of this statement is that if carbon dioxide controls are not instituted, geo-engineering will be pushed.

The conferees also agreed that research should be continued. This is always a "motherhood" statement, which generally has merit, even though the conferees stand to profit most by federal funding of various research projects.

Another aspect, which was not mentioned by the conferees, is the military potential. If a specific country can control the climate of another country, it is only an indirect act of war, but could be more effective in establishing control then even a traditional military operation.

My bottom-line recommendations are for you to fight tooth and nail against any attempts to control carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, support limited geochemical research for its potential application to military use, and avoid any research on geo-engineering for general attempts at climate control with respect to the theory of global warming.