Friday, July 18, 2008

The Carbon Wars

I like to think that I might be the first blogger in the world to suggest limited global warfare as a cure for greenhouse gases, although I am probably wrong in that assumption. The suggestion is meant to be amusing, but all the same, if temperatures did go up suddenly in the next 30 years, and China was by then clearly the biggest emitter, is it entirely outside the realms of possibility? Seems to me that there's a half baked basis for some speculative fiction there.

So, this has got me thinking: what would it take to reduce CO2 if you were going to let warfare be part of the cure? Some immediate thoughts: submarines take out coal-exporting ships; cruise missiles for coal fired power stations; electro magnetic pulse weapons to take out power infrastructure. Encourage an insurgency by those hoards of young, sexually frustrated Chinese men who can't find a wife to overthrow the government. (They'll be so crazy they'll want to turn the country back into an agrarian society that does not have access to abortion or birth control, just so there can be women again!)

Of course, the other way of dealing with this is to let a mad ex-military character with a Captain Nemo complex run a private navy of nuclear submarines to do the West's dirty work for them. Just have to leave the gates of a nuclear submarine base open, with a little sign on the front "gone to lunch, please do not steal the submarines."

Ah, I'm amusing myself too much. Must go do some work before the tax office drags me away.

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