The Left’s Solution to Melting Arctic Ice? Refreeze It
One of the dumber solutions scientists (and by extension, politicians) have proposed to solving climate change is refreezing the arctic.
Yes. You read that correctly.
According to researchers at Arizona State University, they could add 1 meter to arctic ice thickness by placing wind-powered turbines that pump water from below the ice sheet and spray it one top.
Lead researcher Steven Desch explained that “[t]hicker ice would mean longer-lasting ice[.]”
This is not a joke.
These annual “refreezes” would help stave off the impending doom of arctic ice melting every summer.
The arctic ice would reflect more sunlight away from the earth and reduce overall radiation heat absorbed by the atmosphere, therefore cooling the earth. Simple enough, right?
Wrong.
This “Solution” To Climate Change Would Cost $500 Billion
No good climate change solution would be complete without an egregiously costly solution.
This one is no different. The plan would require 10 million of these machines to the tune of $500 billion. As explained by the researchers:
“[I]t would require a wind turbine with blades on order 6 metres in diameter [19 feet], with weight on the order of 4,000 kg of steel [8,818 pounds]. To keep this afloat would require the buoy contain a roughly equal weight of steel. As a round number, we estimate about 10,000 kg of steel [22,046 pounds] would be required per device.”
The cost of steel adds up quickly.
This, no doubt, forgets to take into account the emission costs of manufacturing steel and associated mining, which is often deliberately excluded in green energy cost proposals to hide how ultimately fruitless these projects are.
Put it this way: wind turbines and solar panels don’t power mining equipment and manufacturing plants.
Steel requires fossil fuels.
This video by Prager U explains this concept in their discussion on electric cars. Watch:
Much like the electric car, this plan for arctic refreezes would not likely be a net positive for the climate change agenda anyways. Even if it was, there are questions to whether it would work anyways.
The Plan Won’t Work, Just Like The Others
CNN reported that Julienne Stroeve, a senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, does not believe this will work.
“Global warming in response to rising CO2 concentrations would continue despite efforts to grow ice in the Arctic, [t]hus, the excess heat at lower latitudes would still be transported towards the Arctic via atmospheric and oceanic circulation and this would counter efforts to grow ice in the Arctic.”
Plans like this are nothing new either. Other silly solutions proposed by climate researchers included spraying aerosol particles to repel solar radiation.
Now, this is stupid for a number of reasons, but my favorite is the irony.
Allegedly, climate change is caused by pumping gas into the atmosphere that had unforeseen effects. The solution – to pump gas into the atmosphere that will have unforeseen effects.
A discussion for another time. Note that I myself am skeptical of any solution that requires inordinate sums of money, require global cooperation to achieve, and are based on catastrophic projections that have a history of not coming true.
So, in total, we have a plan that costs $500 billion that some scientists don’t even think will work.
