Solution to Reducing Climate Change is Purple

Thank you to readers from 70 countries (see 8 posts down at bottom of "Arctic Methane Debate Rages On").  The problem is greenhouse gases are invisible, and solution is to require by international law fossil fuel emissions in all countries be immediately colored purple the same way rotten egg scent is added to natural gas to alert homeowners to danger of leaks.  This way people can see what humans are doing in local real time to build social, political, economic, and legal will necessary to reduce emissions and preserve a livable planet.  The truth would no longer be silenced in some areas, with building catastrophic events in others, because it would be in everyone's face every second of every day.

The less purple the sky gets, the closer humans will be to preserving a livable planet for all species. To increase albedo, make it a nearly white purple.

I understand many readers will see this as an April Fools Day joke, but it is not. My idea is far less radical than sulfate spraying considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), or simply allowing billions of humans and nonhumans to die prematurely from heat and hunger because, as a Shell CEO told Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research), "The climate problem is real but it is completely intractable. You can not solve it. So, let's get rich quick before the world ends, huh?'" See my August 29, 2018 post Schellnhuber: "Rising Seas Could Affect 1.4 Billion People by 2060."

Most readers likely know winter in northern hemisphere is summer in southern where temperatures have been "near" 122 F (50 C)  in Australia as fish have been dying in rivers, and bats and birds falling from trees and dying. Similarly, as I noted before, Chile and Argentina are also having extreme heat-problems. Three days ago cbsnews.com reported "Alaska temperatures expected to soar 40 degrees above normal this weekend" complementing a phys.org report noting "Persistent heat records have assaulted the fragile Arctic for each of the past five years—a record-long warming streak, said the 2018 Arctic Report Card, released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)."

What will happen to future U. S. summers?

My idea, while expensive, is not insane. What is insane is doing nothing significant to reduce emissions. Let's see if we can get 70 or more countries to visit this post. Merely click links below to forward.

Regarding my background, in 2015 I proposed a 1.5 C limit to pre-industrial global temperature rise, and binding resolutions, when I served as a member of SanDiego.350's Coordinating Committee for the Road Through Paris Action.  I was told that was politically impractical, but the 1.5 C limit, in course of negotiations, became a "pursue[d] effort . . ."  When I served on the UCSD Faculty Climate Change Curriculum Workshop and Networking Group in 2016, I said the next step was to make a "Climate Change Museum" to promote social and political momentum for reducing carbon emissions.  I greatly respected leaders and professors involved, but was told my idea was impractical.  Now, New York has The Climate Museum and on August 30, 2018, The New York Times published an article about it. One quote from the museum’s director, Miranda Massie, is "It’s becoming axiomatic and clear that we need cultural transformation on climate in order to move forward." There is probably no better way to do this than to require by international law fossil fuel emissions in all countries be immediately colored purple. 

Where's the Love?

Today I said to Suz, "Why don't you fish with me in the morn so we can take home 4 steelhead instead of 2?"

She said "Try 'I love spending time with you, Honey, so why don't you join me in the morning?'"

"You must think I'm Italian, or something," I said.

It reminded me of Pat McManus asking his wife "Row a bit faster along here, will you, Bun? I don't want my lure to get snagged in the weeds."

Two Literary Quotes That Fit Reducing Climate Disruption

"Somehow -- in spite of all the madness, all the stupidity -- somehow the thing could be done." -- Tim O'Brien, Going After Cacciato

“There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it.” -- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

"Can we hack climate change to save us all?" | Foreign Correspondent, ABC News (Australia) 2/26/19

March 11, 2019 Update from The Guardian: "Robock said one of his studies contains a list of 27 reasons why Earth-cooling aerosols might be a bad idea. And he added that the technology could cost hundreds of billions of dollars a year and would pose complicated ethical questions, such as whether people have a right to see a blue sky."

Watch Jason Box, and others, discuss geoengineering.

The video reminds me of Clive Hamilton's March 10, 2015 Scientific American article which notes "Yet every [National Research Council] scientist, including the council authors, is convinced that if albedo modification is implemented and not followed by a program of global emission reductions, then we are almost certainly finished. Sulfate spraying without a change in the political system would make the situation worse."

A Feb. 23, 2019 Dahr Jamail Interview with Chris Hedges in On Contact