Is this too good to be true?

Stephen Salter, emeritus professor of engineering design at the University of Edinburgh ... reports [regarding] a climate debate sponsored by the Royal Meteorological Society, "I asked for a show of hands about whether official proposals for CO2 reductions could do enough to stop global warming in time," he explained. "Not one of 300 people with professional interest in the field raised a hand."

Or, stopping global warming could require sailing a fleet of 50 globe-cooling yachts on the high seas. ... Prof. Salter's machine provides realistic hope. Low-level stratocumulus clouds blanket about one-quarter of the world's ocean surface, cooling the waters below by reflecting the sun's rays back into space. Brightening those clouds with sea salt to increase their reflectivity by a mere 3%, atmospheric scientists calculate, would provide sufficient additional cooling to counteract the warming effect caused by increased CO2 in the atmosphere. The sea salt would be delivered via fine sprays of ocean waters from Prof. Salter's yachts.

The amount of salt water required to cool the planet is surprisingly small - 50 ships, each pumping salt water at the rate of 10 kilograms per second to produce tiny droplets, could suffice. The tiny droplets evaporate to leave salt residues, which are then distributed by the winds to seed the clouds. In an attempt to waste not a droplet, the yachts - unmanned and controlled by satellite - would continually roam the oceans, positioning themselves where cloud conditions were optimal and the need for cooling was greatest.

[Salter] is known as one of Scotland's greatest inventors, and as the father of modern wave energy technology, which is now being introduced in countries throughout Europe. His digital hydraulics may revolutionize windmills and automobiles. Among his many other presciences, in 1968 he invented the touch computer screen. The wind-powered yacht with its odd rotor sails is not his, however, and is also not new. This 1920s invention, by Germany's Anton Flettner, was an unusually stable commercial ship that crossed the Atlantic, out-sailing normal schooners under moderate to heavy winds.

Prof. Salter's cool yachts do have one major design flaw: They promise to save the planet for a pittance, and without making humans pay a dear price for their profligate ways. Fifty ships a year, built at a cost of some $400-million to $500-million, would remove the increased warming now attributed to all the fossil fuel burning.