Not content with merely screwing up US intelligence efforts, the NYT now advocates messing with the entire planet:

The Energy Challenge | Exotic Visions

HOW TO COOL A PLANET (MAYBE)

In the past few decades, a handful of scientists have come up with big, futuristic ways to fight global warming: Build sunshades in orbit to cool the planet. Tinker with clouds to make them reflect more sunlight back into space. Trick oceans into soaking up more heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

Their proposals were relegated to the fringes of climate science. Few journals would publish them. Few government agencies would pay for feasibility studies. Environmentalists and mainstream scientists said the focus should be on reducing greenhouse gases and preventing global warming in the first place.

But now, in a major reversal, some of the world's most prominent scientists say the proposals deserve a serious look because of growing concerns about global warming.

The plans and proposed studies are part of a controversial field known as geoengineering, which means rearranging the earth's environment on a large scale to suit human needs and promote habitability. Dr. Cicerone, an atmospheric chemist, will detail his arguments in favor of geoengineering studies in the August issue of the journal Climatic Change.

Practicing what he preaches, Dr. Cicerone is also encouraging leading scientists to join the geoengineering fray. In April, at his invitation, Roger P. Angel, a noted astronomer at the University of Arizona, spoke at the academy's annual meeting. Dr. Angel outlined a plan to put into orbit small lenses that would bend sunlight away from earth — trillions of lenses, he now calculates, each about two feet wide, extraordinarily thin and weighing little more than a butterfly.

Let me just interject here before my head explodes. CLIMATE CHANGE IS NATURAL! AND WE DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT HOW THE PLANET WORKS TO BE DELIBERATELY FOOLING AROUND WITH IT ON A LARGE SCALE!

Martin A. Apple, president of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, said of geoengineering at a recent meeting in Washington, "Let's talk about research funding with enough zeroes on it so we can make a dent."

Ah, the REAL reason for all this!

Dr. Crutzen, the Nobel laureate from the Max Planck Institute, has also drawn fire for his paper about injecting sulfur into the stratosphere. "There was a passionate outcry by several prominent scientists claiming that it is irresponsible," recalled Mark G. Lawrence, an American scientist who is also at the institute.

It is.

The stratospheric plan called for fighting one kind of pollution (excess greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide) with another (sulfur dioxide), though it appeared that any increase in sulfur at the earth's surface would be small compared with the tons already being emitted from the smokestacks of coal-fueled plants.

Dr. Cicerone of the science academy helped broker a compromise: Dr. Crutzen's paper would be published, but with several commentaries, including his own. They will appear in the August issue of Climatic Change. The other authors are Dr. Lawrence of the German chemistry institute, Dr. MacCracken of the Climate Institute, Jeffrey T. Kiehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and Lennart Bengtsson of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany.

In a draft of his paper, Dr. Crutzen estimates the annual cost of his sulfur proposal at up to $50 billion, or about 5 percent of the world's annual military spending.

The obligatory dig at the military.

"Climatic engineering, such as presented here, is the only option available to rapidly reduce temperature rises" if international efforts fail to curb greenhouse gases, Dr. Crutzen wrote.

"So far," he added, "there is little reason to be optimistic."

Lets take a deep breath and remember a few facts:

1. Greenhouse gases are NOT the only agents of climate change.

2. The earth's climate goes through cycles of warm and cool periods. We DON'T KNOW WHY. Some of the factors that control this are insolation, orbital eccentricity, orbital precession, plate tectonics, ocean circulations, volcanic activity, surface albedo, clouds, and other things I just can't bring to mind at the moment. Anybody who claims to completely understand the climate system is lying.

3. "Global warming" should have different effects on different regions of the world. Presumably global cooling would, too. For whose benefit are we going to make these efforts to stop the process? The regions around the Sahara in a warmer world are projected to be wetter that they are now, surely a beneficial change for the starving people of the Sudan. Do we really want to stop that?

4. Personally, I feel much more threatened by radical Islam than climate change. So let's take the annual $50 billion that Dr. Crutzen wants for his project, buy the entire Middle East, and evict all the terrorists, preferably into another dimension. Sure, it's futuristic and expensive, but "international efforts have failed to curb" the problem and "there is little reason to be optimistic". And we know it would be good for the WHOLE planet, not just some of it.

And on the jihadi front:

Hamas operative killed in Gaza blast

A Hamas operative was killed when his car exploded Tuesday evening in northern Gaza, and at least two passersby wounded, officials said.

The blast scattered debris and body parts up to 200 meters. Security officials identified the dead man as Hamza Muhrab, a 21-year-old member of Hamas' military wing.

IDF officials denied any involvement in the blast, raising the suspicion that the explosion may have been caused by a bomb detonating prematurely, or the result of rivalry between Hamas and Fatah.

The car was traveling on a road between Abbas' residence and the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

Maybe they need to put up more safety posters in their workplace. Here's a suggestion (pardon my poor photoshop skills):