End of the beginning?

Tired of the climate debate? Good, let’s do something about it. We’re spending way too much time debating the causes and far too little talking about fixes. The great thing about discussing fixes is that it offers hope, it makes you feel good. Debating origins and causes gets us nowhere and leaves us tired and frustrated. So, enough with diagnosis and debate, let’s look at some real solutions.

I started following the climate issue in the 1970’s and at the time there was great concern over what might happen, but no one really knew if the change would result in a new ice age or one of considerable temperature increases and severe storms like we have today.

Looking back, the lack of precision was understandable. In many earlier climate events in earth’s history the upshot was climate cooling. Major events like volcanic eruptions cause a great deal of particulate matter to be blown into the stratosphere where it can serve to block out solar radiation and cool the planet. This happens naturally all the time, adding matter to the atmosphere increases the blocking. It’s called the albedo effect, a natural tendency to reflect solar radiation back into space due to things like glaciers and cloud cover. So, when a volcano erupts it adds to the albedo effect causing cooling.

Typically, cooling doesn’t last long, maybe a year or two under today’s conditions. But…