Department of Biological Sciences

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Browsing Department of Biological Sciences by Subject ""Hail Mary" technologies"

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    Co-evolving with the Present Biosphere
    Cairns, John Jr. (Asian Journal of Experimental Sciences, 2010)
    Lovelock (2009) hopes that few million Homo sapiens will survive the climate changes and will find some "ecological lifeboats" to preserve civilization: "As part of Gaia, our presence begins to make the planet sentient. We should be proud that we could be part of this huge step, one that may help Gaia survive as as the sun continues its slow but ineluctable increase of heat output, making the solar system an increasingly hostile future environment." Lovelock (2009) is clearly aware of the difficulties of developing a mutualistic relationship between humans and Gaia: "There is no set of rules or prescription for living with Gaia, there are only consequences." Gaia is a unifying concept in a sea of highly specialized information. Specialized information is essential, but is most effectively integrated withn a particular context.
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    "Hail Mary" Technologies to Engineer Earth's Climate
    Cairns, John Jr. (EcoRes Forum, 2009)
    Scientists and inventors have proposed a variety of technologies to avoid further increases in the Earth s temperature by greenhouse gases. The two most popular technological approaches are: reflecting solar energy back into space and sequestering and storing carbon to prevent it from reentering the atmosphere. These last ditch efforts are now being referred to as _Hail Mary technologies, or efforts made in desperation with only a small chance of success. However, humankind due to the severity of the situation, has given these _Hail Mary technologies a serious consideration, even though these approaches have not be adequately researched to address one component of a much larger problem.