From: jsq002@acad.drake.edu
Subject: Re: Atmospheric Destruction (was: Re: WHY?)RE:Atmospheric Dest 2
Reply-To: jsq0022acad.drake.edu
Organization: Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 10:59:03 GMT

In article <1992Oct14.134041.19380@abo.fi>, MANDTBACKA@finabo.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka Ktf92) writes:
> In <1b5bciINN89v@agate.berkeley.edu> lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu writes:
> 
>>     But why? Think about this. Why do we - well, They, anyhow - want ozone?
>>  To keep out ultraviolet and the like. Destroying ozone is all well and good,
>>  but we could simply try overwhelming the ozone layer. Heat up the sun. Not
>>  only do we start getting skin cancer, but we actually do get global warming,
>>  and there'd be nothing the eco-hobbits could do about it.
>>     There are <modest cough> technical difficulties, but I'm sure something
>>  could be arranged (drop Neptune or Uranus into the sun? Maybe Jupiter? Seed
> 
>       Heat up the *sun* ?!? You don't go for second best, do you...
> Dropping planets into the darng thing: Sorry, unless I misremember
> Jupiter's only about a one-thousandth the size (and mass) of the sun -
> or was that a ten-thousandth? Enough zeroes to make the scheme
> pointless, though.
> 
>       Global warming: I don't *think* the ozone layer contributes very
> much to that, but I'll go along with it being a good idea. The best
> greenhouse gas by orders of magnitude is water (well, steam then) - how
> about nuking the Pacific Ocean? Details, anyone?

 I MUST interject here...on the subject of energy expenditure here, the idea 
 stated above is patently silly...it won't work with current technology. As
 you likely already know, the Pacific Ocean is rather large - VERY LARGE, in
 fact, and the water contained therein is of a very large quantity as well.
 Also, you neglect to recall that the Pacific is NOT a single ocean - the way
 that our continental landmasses are laid out has caused all of our oceans here
 on Earth to be effectively a single body of water, so when vapourising the      
 Pacific is being discussed, one must also think about the Atlantic, Indian,
 Arctic and Antarctic oceans as well...in consideration of vapourising the 
 latter two oceans listed above, the consideration of water temperature also 
 becomes germane to the discussion, as much of the Earth's water is locked up
 in the polar icecaps, which in Antarctica get to be several KILOMETERS thick,
 so melting a LOT of ice would be in order too...the energy it would take to do
this kind of thing isn't produced by the world in a year, and for the best
possible effect, all of the Earth's water would need to be vapourised into the
atmosphere, as much, if not most of it, would come back to Earth in the form of
precipitation, since the ambient atmospheric temperature is too low for it to
stay in the air in any form in that quantity for long...to keep it in the air
long enough to do any damage would require a global temperature much much
higher than current numbers, so we'd better keep working with carbon dioxide
and other atmospheric warming agents for the next 100 years or so, at which the
ambient temperature and technology would be available to make the vapourisation
of the Earth's oceans more feasible...I just thought I should straighten things
out a bit on this subject...

	Jason S. Quick			JSQ002@acad.drake.edu
					Des Moines, Iowa USA
Newsgroups: alt.destroy.the.earth