Questão 29021

(UEFS 2015 - Meio do ano)

The shock of superstorm Sandy last year got a lot of people wondering about better ways to deal with the weather — perhaps even how to change it. John Latham, a climate scientist based in Colorado, has been 5 proposing ways to do that for more than two decades. His studies show that it should be possible to spray fine particles of sea water into clouds, increasing their ability to reflect sunlight and thus reduce temperatures below. Latham argues that global warming is leading to 10 “irreversible and possibly catastrophic consequences” and that the major polluting countries appear unwilling to take dramatic action.

But Latham claims his cloud-seeding techniques would help to hold Earth’s temperature constant “until a 15 clean form of energy is developed to take over from oil, gas, and coal.” He says, quite optimistically, that they could keep the planet’s temperature stable for “perhaps 50 years.” If true, that would be a welcome breather from impending doom. But what’s missing is money to fund 20 large-scale experiments — and perhaps for a reason. One thing we should know by now about our climate is that when you fix one problem, you may create another.

DICKEY, Christopher . BIG THINK: Around the world in six ideas. Newsweek, March 25, 2013, p. 9. 

The author of this text, Christopher Dickey,