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Dear Readers This is a thread which, I hope that fellow members of this great forum can discuss practical geo-engineering solutions to fight Global Warming and to arrest some of the egregious regional climatic trends- heatwaves, drought, floods and storms, coastal erosion, etc.,- that have become more apparent in recent years. Whether one believes we are soon to face Apocalypse or that CO2- induced warming will be cancelled out by natural trends in the next thirty years- temperatures globally- and averaged throughout the year- have undoubtedly risen byjust over 1C since the end of the 19th Century: More severe droughts and wild-fires in the sub-tropics and Mediterranean latitudes and more devastating floods and storms in higher latitudes certainly have the potential to not only destroy habitats but also cause great economic hardship, destroy homes and offices and displace significant numbers of people. And, at this time, with China and Russia staying away it looks like COP26 will end up being little more than a jolly of G20 World leaders: If China, Russia and (likely) India will not countenance really cutting down coal production and burning (these are by far the biggest CO2 polluters), what hope is there for curbing CO2 increases to stop global mean temperatures getting above the 1.5C threshold whereby unstoppable feedbacks set in causing sea-levels to rise precipitously? In the light of all this, and the huge economically-damaging costs of Net Zero, forcing people to go electric by a certain date, putting higher costs and taxes on businesses and home-owners in Britain (and potentially bankrupting the country), I think the Government could abolish the Climate change Act (2008) and strike down the legal commitments to make Britain carbon-neutral by 2050 (costs of this in excess of £1 Trillion are conservative estimates). If the Chinese and Indians are not going to bankrupt their economies to persue Net Zero, then why should Britain when it is not going to have much effect? A different approach is needed. Firstly, Britain should incentivise business and companies to go green using tax breaks. There are still over £20 billion of stakes in part-nationalised banks still on the Government's books, these could be sold and the proceeds used to cut taxes on green products- economic growth and the revenues from the increased "Green Economy" will help make these tax breaks self financing. Secondly, rising CO2 levels, Global Warming and some of the unpleasant side effects (like increased drought in the Med and coastal erosion from more winter storms in high latitudes) need completely different, new approaches to tackle them. Again, R & D funds can be directed at the scientific community to develop real solutions to Global Warming, funded more by (perhaps) cutting the size of Quangoes. And talking of real solutions, please feel free to discuss practical, but effective solutions to reducing global temperatures- and dealing with some of the now- apparent unpleasant side-effects of a warmer World. Some ideas I have seen around, that could be economically feasible and practical (but with limited side effects) are as follows. These might need a Coalition of the Willing countries to just do (getting full Global Agreement for anything these days seems to be nigh-on impossible!): 1) Spraying sea-water into the troposphere over tropical oceans (with pumps from the sea-surface supported by large balloons (hot air balloons or filled with helium, whichever is most practical). The fine salt solutions sprayed into the atmosphere leads to moisture and condensation nuclei causing the ready development of more cloud. The increased cloud over tropical oceans would reflect more heat from the Sun back to space and help keep the Earth cool. The costs of a few thousand large balloons and pumps- and some helium should not be more than a few £ billions. 2) A fleet of suitably-modified high-flying jets could spray milions of tonnes of suplhur dioxide into the stratosphere around the Equator- above the altitude where it will be rained onto the surface from rain and high-altitude snowfall. Half a metre thickness of sulphur-dioxide above 20 km would have a dramatic effect in shielding the Earth from the Sun's rays whilst the settling of this sulphur dioxide is likely to be sufficiently gradual as to cause minimal damage to ecosystems, the environment and communities at the Earth's surface. Relatively cheap and practical to do, but likely to be great resistance from Environmentalists. 3) Salt extracted from sea-water. Billions of tonnes of powdered salt could be carried up to the edge of Space by thousands of specially- constructed Earth- orbiting rockets. These rockets would fly west-to-east around the Equator (and other low latitudes) releasing the powdered Salt- which would remain in orbit around the Earth- a man-made Earth ring (like Saturn's). The Earth-ring of powdered salt rotating around Earth at the edge of space would reflect the Sun's rays back into space and help keep the Earth cooler. At a cost of a few ££ billions, this could buy time for global markets to work on CO2-neutral energy and transport solutions. 4) Pump large amounts of purified sea-water (or fresh water from glacial rivers/ lakes) using giant pumps and large pipes to the top of the Antarctic Pleateau and the top of the Greenland Ice Cap (in their respective autumns and winters) where it would freeze in the very low temperatures. The release of latent heat as vast quantities of water freeze would reduce the atmospheric temperature and pressure gradients (that is what meteorologists call the atmospheric baroclinicity) that drive powerful storms at higher mid-latitudes- helping to stem some of the heavy rain, flooding and coastal erosion in places like Britain, western Norway and western Canada. The freezing of water onto the ice sheets would help build up the ice-sheets and (in the process) help to reduce sea-level rises. This process could be taken further by spraying and freezing water onto large parts of northern Canada (with their permission) in the winter, over a designated a new ice-sheet. If ten metres' thickness of ice can be built up over a large part of Northwest Territories the ice would not melt away the following summer and the new ice-sheet would reflect away the Sun's heat. Thereafter the new ice-sheet could be built up the following winter by being hosed from some of Canada's many tundra lakes- the water would freeze and build up the ice-sheet and the release of latent heat would weaken the baroclinicity downstream- meaning less damaging winter storms heading towards Britain. This is practical, the costs are likely to be just a few £ billion (which rather compares favourably with over £1 Trillion for Net Zero!). 5) Cause a mild "Nuclear Winter" (or "H-Bomb Winter") to fight Global Warming by dropping a couple of powerful H-bombs on an evacuated desert island. Hydrogen bombs dont cause nuclear fall-out but (if powerful) they could send enough dust and ash into the Stratosphere to reflect heat from the Sun to but more time as the World moves towards CO2-free energy and transport solutions. A variation of this might be to try and bomb a normally- explosive volcano in a remote area to provoke it into exploding and releasing vast amounts of dust into the Stratosphere. This is probably the cheapest option, but would be very much a last resort! As this is intended to be a thread to discuss Geo-engineering solutions you are welcome to propose your own, different, ideas. If you think the above are non-starters what do you think might work? Should Western Nations bankrupt their respective economies and impoverish their populations for a vain cause (which it will be if China and India keep belching out CO2 and refuse to reduce emissions)? Ian Pennell