"Fear No More the Heat of the Sun"

As Shakespeare so aptly put it:

Fear no more the heat of the sun,

Nor the furious winter’s rages;

It’s a simple lesson, easy to understand, dating to Elizabethan England.

And yet, some very serious people, generally very young ones, are terrified of the sun. They believe that climate change is going to destroy the planet and that they must do something about it immediately. 

So, they have gone to war against the weather. They fly into an apocalyptic rage when we have a spell of hot weather, but do precisely the same when we have a rough winter. You see, they are true believers, and do not allow pesky facts to get in the way of their convictions.

Anyway, the latest in what certainly appears to be a crackpot idea, experimenters want to fill the atmosphere with chalk in order to block the sun and to cool the planet. A first shot at it is being financed by everyone’s favorite crackpot billionaire, Bill Gates.

The Biden administration has insisted that it is not supporting the project, but if you still think that they tell the truth you win an award for gullibility. 

In fact, the Swedes, of all people, are subjecting their nation to an experimental blacking out of the sun. Funded by Mr. Gates.

The Daily Mail reports:

The first test of a project backed to spray millions of tonnes of chalk into the stratosphere, in an attempt to 'dim the sun' and cool the Earth, could happen in June.

Harvard University experts will test the system by sending a large balloon 12 miles above the Swedish town of Kiruna and have it drop 2kg of chalk dust into the stratosphere.

The aim of the estimated $3 million mission, backed by billionaire Bill Gates, is to have the chalk deflect a portion of the sun's radiation, stop it from hitting the surface, and cool the planet.

Of course, no one has a clue about what will happen when the sky starts raining chalk. There’s an old adage that says: Don’t mess with Mother Nature, and this case seems ready-made to show what happens when you do.

Naturally, serious scientists are terrified about the unforeseen and unintended consequences of this experiment.

The Daily Mail continues:

The idea has been heavily criticised since its inception, with project director Frank Keutsch even calling the need for this scale of geo-engineering 'terrifying'.

And experts have warned that the unusual technique could be disastrous for weather systems in ways nobody can predict.

University of Edinburgh professor, Stuart Haszeldine, told the Times that blocking the sun would do nothing to remove the main cause of global warming.

'It would cool the planet by reflecting solar radiation but once you're on to that, it's like taking heroin — you've got to carry on doing the drug to keep on having the effect,' he said. 

He explained that without tackling pollution first we would have to keep lifting more and more dust into the stratosphere, which would change the daytime sky to white and if it ever stopped there would be a rise in global temperatures again. 

Sir David King from the University of Cambridge, told The Times there should be a moratorium on rolling the technique out.

He said it could be disastrous for weather systems in ways nobody can predict, so data should be gathered through modelling and other techniques. 

So, the real problem is pollution. Or perhaps, the real problem is self-important scientists who have abandoned reason in order to foment apocalyptic hysteria about the end of the world.

Besides, someone might point out that sunlight has a definite value when it comes to agriculture. And one might add that exposure to sunlight has been a notably effective treatment for depression.

Besides, didn’t Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis say that: “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

Of course, we all imagine that the phrase refers to the need for free and open political discussion. And yet, sunlight does counteract the microbes that cause disease.

And a Happy July Fourth to one and all.