According to the Associated Press,

The president’s new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth’s air. John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed.

One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort…

…At first, Holdren characterized the potential need to technologically tinker with the climate as just his personal view. However, he went on to say he has raised it in administration discussions.

What could possibly go wrong?

This is a potential boondoggle of apocalyptic proportions. Government routinely shows that it is not concerned with the needs of common people, regarding them as little more than tax hosts or cannon fodder. Government did not even keep the New Orleans levees from breaking. Why should they have more control of the environment?

Politics is based on the pursuit of power. Every technology that they can find a way to use for strengthening social control will be used for strengthening social control.

If climate control research yields the ability to trigger local weather effects, the government will find a way to weaponize the technology.

Science and technology can solve many problems. But if the goal of research is to find solutions that require centralization, then the results will not only be less flexible than the technology of decentralization, but will also require centralized control to work.

Why should the entirety of the only inhabited planet become an experiment controlled by the political class? Regardless of what happens to carbon emissions, the climate of the world will change over time. Attempting to make nature static is insane.

Adaptation to climate change can be accomplished through voluntary forces on a scale much smaller than the entire world. The demand to have your possessions above water is strong enough to stimulate free market solutions.

Government always has been and always will be a tool for connected interests to secure advantages by force. When the state is eliminated, the privileges of those who profit from the status quo will be gone. The stage will then be open to seemingly unlimited competing and cooperating innovations, and there will be no political forces to hold the productive in poverty. Money that today goes to things like building thousands of $25,000 bombs would be left in the hands of people who desire a cleaner environment or democratic space settlement. Flexibility requires freedom, and the stasis that the powerful want to put all of Earth into cannot hold for long.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 10th, 2009 at 8:51 pm and is filed under current event, libertarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.