WHAT if the sky was white instead of blue? How would that affect us? Could this possibly happen? A branch of engineering called geoengineering is experimenting with such ideas, in response to some of the major environmental problems we are facing today like global warming. Geoengineering is a rapidly developing industry, driven by scientists who want to change the global climate and control the weather. In the process of achieving what might be considered an overall good for mankind, such experiments can change the chemical composition of soil and water. So we do not know whether geoengineering programs, in application, will do harm or good. It is a serious risk not to be taken up lightly. Geoengineering simply means re-engineering geography. Some people think that such programs are merely theoretically explored, but others insist that they have been applied since the 1990s with a devastating effect on human life and health. For example, we all know that our food is being sprayed with toxic substances, and the branch of genetic engineering which alters food is a well-known geoengineering program. One of the latest geoengineering programs focuses on how to deflect the sun's rays from the Earth in order to counter the effect of global warming and cool the planet. However, the project would make the sky whiter and the white haze that sometimes hangs over many major cities would become a familiar sight everywhere, if we decided to use geoengineering to create a cooler planet. We might learn to live with a white sky and question it no more than we do the white trails that stretch to the horizon behind jet aircraft. The whole process of solving a problem with something else that may create another problem or that is a problem in itself reminds me of the time when my father was on his death bed in a hospital. He went into the hospital walking and talking and came out dead. When he was in hospital he was on 18 different medications. Why? Because he would be given something to help with a problem, but the medication he was given created another problem, so another medication was administered to ease the first one, and a third to ease the second, and so on. The way geoengineering can be used to deflect the heat of the sun is by shooting tiny elements into the atmosphere. However, some of these tiny elements could turn the sky from blue to white. This is what happened when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991. The volcano spewed tons of sulfate particles into the atmosphere, which temporarily turned the sky white. What do you think the impact of a white sky would be on human beings and on our environment? Should we plunge into such new scientific adventures or should we hold our horses for a while and think about them?
