A stairway to heaven?

The Economist

May 31st 2007 | ACAPULCO

MOST solutions to the problem of global warming are tediously, almost oppressively, quotidian. Switch the lights off. Stop using fossil fuels to make electricity. Run an efficient car. Don't fly. A few grandiose projects have also been suggested, such as giant parasols in space or adding iron to the ocean to encourage planktonic algae to grow and soak up carbon dioxide. On the whole, though, those big ideas are either mad or could have dangerously unpredictable consequences.

That does not mean that lateral thinking about the problem has no place. And the idea proposed by Alfred Wong of the University of California, Los Angeles, at last week's meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in Acapulco, is about as lateral as they come. Dr Wong reckons the problem is not so much that CO2 is being thrown away, but that it is not being thrown far enough. According to his calculations, a little helping hand would turn the Earth's magnetic field into a conveyor belt that would vent the gas into outer space, whence it would never return.

The site of the conveyor Dr Wong is proposing to build is the Arctic. More specifically, he is suggesting it be over one of his workplaces, the High Power Auroral Stimulation facility near Fairbanks in Alaska that he set up 20 years ago to stimulate and study artificial auroras.

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