From: lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu (Cosma R. Shalizi)
Newsgroups: alt.destroy.the.earth
Subject: Re: Atmospheric Destruction (was: Re: WHY?)RE:Atmospheric Dest.3
Date: 17 Oct 1992 00:01:45 GMT
Organization: Vampire Research Group at Berkeley :)
NNTP-Posting-Host: whirlwind.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Oct16.053432.1@acad.drake.edu> jsq002@acad.drake.edu writes:
>In article <1bkti7INNj19@agate.berkeley.edu>, lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu (Cosma R. Shalizi) writes:
>> In article <1992Oct14.134041.19380@abo.fi> MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka Ktf92) writes:
> Ok, more stuff here...i THINK that the total mass of the Oort Cloud isn't much
> more than that of the asteroid belt - i.e. just about enough to make up an 
> Earth-sized planet.  In the area of composition, think about what most comets
> are composed of - water ice, miscellaneous rocks, and a carbonaceous sludge
> similar in consistency and composition to crude oil...to sum up there isn't
> too much mass there and it is composed somewhat of hydrogen, but not enough to
> make any sort of difference in what the Sun's energy output is...also, getting
> ANYTHING to the center of the Sun would be extraordinarily
>difficult - nearly anything that you get near the Sun would be vapourised in an
> instant and expelled back out into space by the solar wind...to increase the
> gravitational pressure of the Sun and thus its rate of fusion would require
> more mass than is contained in the solar system outside of the Sun...
	Curses! I should have thought of the solar wind aspect. Well... how
about this?
a) We build a Dyson sphere - or Dyson spherelets, more likely - cover them
   with solar cells and use them to drive gamma-ray lasers aimed at the sun. (I
   seem to recall hearing a similar scheme, but don't know where. If anyone
   can recall, I'd be grateful.)
b) We redirect Nemesis (if it exists) or some other convenient brown/red
   dwarf so it will go into the Sun (or vice versa). Horrific disruption of
   planetary orbits and plenty of chances to test code for the n-body problem
   are side benefits.
c) There is no option c.
d) Could we induce solar flares - _big_ solar flares - like Niven does in
   _The Ringworld Engineers_? Could we rotate them about a degree a day
   across the sun? How large would they have to be to seriously affect climate,
   and do such flares exist? (I'm not an astrophysicist, so this is a bit
   outside my field...)

> On the subject of the comment on clouding engendering a cooling effect,
>remember that the 'Dinosaur Killer,' as you put it, threw DUST up into the 
>atmosphere, which DOES have a cooling effect on the Earth.  However, clouds
>when at low levels tend to have a heat retaining effect, whereas higher-level
>clouds tend to have the cooling effect Ms. Shalizi fears in her missive above.
                                        ^^                   ^^^
	"Mr" and "his," but owing to one of my parent's more inspired
decisions, the mistake is quite natural. So it appears the clouds could work,
were it not for the fact that they'd just rain out. Pity. I guess this forces
us back to breeding cattle for greenhouse gases. :)
{Lucid comments on why evaporating the oceans is too difficult/impossible,
 even for us, deleted.}
>	Jason S. Quick			JSQ002@acad.drake.edu
	Cosma Rohilla Shalizi
	In Real Life: lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu
	larval physicist
-- 
"Apart from hydrogen, the most common thing in the universe is stupidity."
-Harlan Ellison, _An Edge in My Voice_