I remember an old friend of my family once saying to me that when man has to survive that he will always come up with a way of doing it. I was young then, and fully believed that we were invincible. However, as I have become older, and I hope wiser, doubts start to creep in — especially with the current climate problems and global warming. This changed for the better yesterday after I read an interesting piece of news that made me think I was that young boy again.
A scientist at the University of Edinburgh has devised a new weapon in the fight against global warming: a fleet of 1,500 unmanned sailing ships that help whiten clouds to reflect the heat of the Sun better. The idea is that these unmanned ships could patrol areas of the ocean, spraying tiny droplets of seawater into existing clouds. These droplets will increase the surface area, making the cloud whiter, which then will reflect more of the sun’s heat back into space. According to Stephen Salter, this technology can be used locally, say to help the Arctic, or affect the whole world, including cooling us back to ice age temperatures. Now they only need to raise £20 million to get the technology working for real, and after they get initial funding, each ship is estimated to cost £1 million-£2 million. Man can do good!