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Overwritten and Overrated What Is Solar Geo-engineering by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Dear EarthTalk: What is solar geo-engineering and how can it stave off global warming? Jamie Renquist — Prisoners (Rated R) Prisoners (153 minutes) begins with a prayer. Perhaps if the filmmakers had appealed for some divine intervention before beginning, their film would have been better. The more I reflect on the film, the more ridiculous and unwatchable it seems. Walking out of the theater, I wasn't completely disgusted (though I was rolling my eyes). Once I began describing it to people I realized just how poorly written it was — an overly complex melodrama with shades of several of the more excessive Lifetime movies. A lot of people seem to really like it, but I am not one of them. Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) takes his son (Dylan Minnette) out to shoot Bambi. They arrive home in time for Thanksgiving dinner, which their neighbors Franklin and Nancy Birch (Terence Howard and Viola Davis) are hosting. The Dover daughter (Erin Gerasimovich) and the Birch daughter (Zoe Soul) leave the house and never return. To my disappointment, Hugh Jackman does not burst into a sad song about his lost daughter, as his role in Les Miserable led me to expect he would. The next scene shows Alex Jones (Paul Dano) acting shifty and trying to evade the police. He is taken into custody by Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) and it quickly becomes apparent that there is something not quite right about him. This is probably a good place to mention the weird acting choices Gyllenhaal makes throughout the movie. First, there is the blinking. He is blinking furiously. On purpose. All. The. Time. So you know he is an actor who is acting. Also, he constantly puts his hand up while telling people to calm down even though they yell and interrupt him, almost like a parody of what police actually do when confronted with unwarranted hostility. But honestly, the other actors don't do much better. Mrs. Dover (Maria Bello) spends most of the film a useless, sobbing, drugged-up mess. Now, I'm not saying that parents with missing kids don't have every right to process their grief in whatever manner they need to. What I am saying is to have Mrs. Dover collapse while Mr. Dover gets proactive and makes things happen is a very limiting and gender-biased way to frame parental grief. Anyway, eventually the police release Alex into the custody of his Aunt Holly (Melissa Leo). Keller hatches a plan that involves kidnapping the suspect and beating answers out of him. Because torture is a great way to get information that you need and always works. The only missing ingredient is Franklin Birch, who Keller fetches to his brand new torture dungeon to assist in the interrogation. Not that Franklin does much beyond looking conflicted while watching Alex get beat on. Eventually, Keller realizes that leaving a man tied to a sink is not as productive as locking him into a homemade sensory deprivation chamber and alternating showers of scalding and freezing water over him. I am so glad this movie is extra-long so none of the really fun torture scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. And did I mention that labyrinths and snakes are important plot points? Yes, by way of convoluted and poorly written plot twists, yet another potential kidnapper (who likes labyrinths and snakes) is thrown into the mix; Bob Taylor (David Dastmalchian). Did I mention there was also a pedophile priest (Len Cariou) and a surprise dead body? This truly is the film that keeps on giving. Overall, the film held my attention when I wasn't looking at my watch to see how much longer it would go on. Jackman and Gyllenhaal took center stage, and without a doubt every other actor was underutilized. Mostly, they stand around looking depressed and failing to take action while Jackman does interesting things. Now showing at Wynnsong 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Market Fair 15. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM From the Editors of Environmental Magazine Solar geo-engineering is a term describing any of various techniques for reducing the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth and its atmosphere. Researchers are exploring the feasibility of utilizing solar geoengineering to reflect some of the sun's heat back into space before it can reach the Earth and further contribute to the greenhouse effect that is causing our climate to warm. Some ways of doing this include pumping sulfur aerosols into the atmosphere, sending huge space mirrors or reflective balloons into Earth's orbit, enhancing the While solar geo-engineering can't do anything reflectivity of clouds by spraying about the carbon dioxide already in our atmowater into them, and even just sphere that will be causing more warming for depainting everybody's roofs cades to come or longer, it can help reduce the white. planet's carbon load moving forward, and is thus While solar geo-engineering generally viewed as part of the climate solution can't do anything about the but not the whole enchilada. carbon dioxide already in our atmosphere that will be causing more warming for decades to come or longer, it can help reduce the planet's carbon load moving forward, and is thus generally viewed as part of the climate solution but not the whole enchilada. That is, no matter what, it is still in our best interest to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible regardless of the whiz bang technologies scientists are developing to help. The most practical of the solar geo-engineering techniques involves sending a specially modified fleet of jets around the globe spraying sulfates into the atmosphere that would combine with pre-existing water vapor to form aerosols. When dispersed by the wind, these sulfates would cover the globe with a haze that could reflect an estimated one percent of solar radiation back out into space. The model for such a scenario occurred naturally in 1991 when the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines sent some 10 million metric tons of sulfur into the atmosphere and caused a reduction in global temperatures by about one degree Fahrenheit for more than a year. While employing such techniques might seem like a no-brainer, there are inherent risks. Alan Robock, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University, warns that adding sulfur to the skies, for instance, could shift rainfall patterns and hasten the thinning of the ozone layer. "We are going to put the entire fate of the only planet we know that can sustain life on this one technical intervention that may go wrong?" he asks. Another issue is the so-called "abrupt cessation" risk whereby shutting off whatever solar geo-engineering techniques are in effect could cause a sudden rise in global temperatures to previously unforeseen levels. Given reticence about applying quick technological fixes for our climate problem, proponents of solar geo-engineering are calling for the federal government and other concerned parties to fund more research. "The balance of evidence so far suggests that solar geo-engineering could reduce climate risks, but early science might be wrong," he says. "We need experiments, which might show that it does not work." But perhaps the biggest hurdle to implementation of solar geo-engineering is getting the nations of the world to agree on the need for it. "With solar geoengineering, at some level you've got just one knob," says Harvard energy and climate researcher David Keith, a big proponent of solar geo-engineering. "That demands collective global decision-making." CONTACTS: Alan Robock, www.envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock; David Keith, www.seas.harvard.edu/directory/dkeith. EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). OCTOBER 9-15, 2013 UCW 21