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Regarding terraforming, I suggest a quick win may be to trigger a volcanic super-eruption. The cooling effect is known to reduce global temperatures to refreshi
by goodmachine 10y ago
Regarding terraforming, I suggest a quick win may be to trigger a volcanic super-eruption. The cooling effect is known to reduce global temperatures to refreshing and/or bracing levels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
I was leaning towards using nuclear weapons to kick things off, but the potential side effects of such an event will probably be tricky enough, without the giant dust clouds soon to enshroud the Earth also being radioactive.
There may of course be other unforeseen consequences, but given the alternatives (which we see all too clearly) I ask: who's in?
- CalRobert 10y agoWell, the nuclear weapons could remove most of the carbon emitters, but that's morally challenging.
- legulere 10y agoIt would also trigger a famine and lead to extremely bad air quality.
- pyrale 10y agoVolcanic dusts are naturally more radioactive than sedimentary dust, though. So I'm not sure the long term effects of a volcanic super-explosion would be much better without the nukes... :)
- chr1 10y agoAlice: Looks like there is a wasp nest under the roof, we need to do something about it Bob: Let's blow it up with dynamite! When thinking about terraforming people tend to think of megaprojects that would "fix" everything at once, but that doesn't work. There are much more predictable and safer ways to do terraforming, e.g. desalinating water, building canals, planting forests, ferilizing ocean in the worst case.