Two of Britain's best known scientists proposed Wednesday to curb global warming by sowing the world's oceans with thousands, perhaps millions, of giant vertical pipes 100-to-200 meters deep.
"We need a fundamental cure for the pathology of global heating," wrote James Lovelock and Chris Rapley in a letter to the British journal Nature. "Emergency treatment could come from stimulating the Earth's capacity to cure itself."
As the planet's atmosphere heats up, they explained, certain cyclical processes that normally regulate climate are beginning to amplify the process of warming rather than holding it in check.
When Arctic sea ice recedes further each year, for example, sunlight falls on heat-absorbing blue water rather than white snow and ice which reflects heat back into space, accelerating the warming process.