Published on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 by Canwest News Service
Plans to Cool Planet Heat Up Geo-Engineering Debate
by Margaret Munro
Billionaire Bill Gates is funding experiments to explore using "artificial" clouds to cool the planet.
"Bill Gates and his cloud-wrenching cronies have no right to unilaterally change our seas and skies," says Jim Thomas, of the Montreal-based ETC Group, that is part of an international coalition calling for a moratorium on geoengineering experiments. (photos adapted from Flickr users World Economic Forum and vsz)Scientists say the experiments are in the early stages and confined to the lab, but critics say they are laying the groundwork for a trial to whiten clouds in a 10,000-square-kilometre patch of the Pacific.
"Bill Gates and his cloud-wrenching cronies have no right to unilaterally change our seas and skies," says Jim Thomas, of the Montreal-based ETC Group, that is part of an international coalition calling for a moratorium on geoengineering experiments.
Gates, the world's richest man, has given $4.5 million to climate researcher David Keith, of the University of Calgary, and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science, to fund research on planet-cooling ideas. Keith is on vacation and could not be reached for comment.
http://www.commondreams.org/print/55975
Plans to Cool Planet Heat Up Geo-Engineering Debate
by Margaret Munro
Billionaire Bill Gates is funding experiments to explore using "artificial" clouds to cool the planet.
"Bill Gates and his cloud-wrenching cronies have no right to unilaterally change our seas and skies," says Jim Thomas, of the Montreal-based ETC Group, that is part of an international coalition calling for a moratorium on geoengineering experiments. (photos adapted from Flickr users World Economic Forum and vsz)Scientists say the experiments are in the early stages and confined to the lab, but critics say they are laying the groundwork for a trial to whiten clouds in a 10,000-square-kilometre patch of the Pacific.
"Bill Gates and his cloud-wrenching cronies have no right to unilaterally change our seas and skies," says Jim Thomas, of the Montreal-based ETC Group, that is part of an international coalition calling for a moratorium on geoengineering experiments.
Gates, the world's richest man, has given $4.5 million to climate researcher David Keith, of the University of Calgary, and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science, to fund research on planet-cooling ideas. Keith is on vacation and could not be reached for comment.
http://www.commondreams.org/print/55975
