9 ms·

Geo-engineering projects could not come too soon. Because of how grand they are in scale, they don't seem to get much attention from the mainstream scientific

by lend000 10y ago

Geo-engineering projects could not come too soon. Because of how grand they are in scale, they don't seem to get much attention from the mainstream scientific community, but it seems feasible technologically (albeit expensive) to put forth major projects to reflect sunlight over deserts and capture significant amounts of carbon from power plants and oceans, amongst numerous other creative approaches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering#Proposed_strategies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering#Proposed_s... There was an article on HN recently about a new material that is excellent for cooling due to radiating energy primarily in the long-wavelength infrared spectrum. Just another option, just a matter of mass production and adoption.

oddity 10y ago
The common objection I've heard to geo-engineering projects is that they are incredibly difficult to reverse should the need present itself due to detrimental effects discovered part-way along. Does this objection still apply to the current popular proposals?
- rootusrootus 10y ago
  I recall a proposal to put sulfate particles (I think!) in the upper atmosphere, sort of like what happens with a big volcano, to try cooling things off. The downside is you have to do it constantly, the upside is that if you don't, it fades relatively quickly. So we could try it out on a pretty large scale and stop if we don't like where things are going. But that's from memory, and I could be recalling the details wrong.
  - imbeau 10y ago
    A lot of that technology relies of aerosols which would exacerbate the ocean acidification process. Get engineering is really hard to get right
    - mirimir 10y ago
      Yes, you need to get the SOX into the stratosphere, so it doesn't rain out so fast.
  - Itsdijital 10y ago
    This is probably what we will end up doing because it is the only one that is really viable without insane energy/time requirements. Everything else proposed would require an engineering project many many orders of magnitude greater than anything humans have done before.
DanTheManPR 10y ago
The conversation about climate change is going to morph into a conversation about directed geo-engineering over the next 70 years or so. Earth is a semi-closed system of energy and matter flows, and it's not useful to think about it as this static environment that we inhabit. Rather, it's clear that the activities that humans want to perform result in fairly heavy modification of a lot of the geo and biophysical cycles that result in conditions favorable to human civilization. Unbounded inputs (such as our carbon inputs) are inevitably going to lead to unacceptable equilibrium conditions, and so we need to take more direct control of these various geophysical processes. To me, this seems like a natural extension of our hydrological management projects, and of our reshaping of the biosphere to our liking. Take the continental US as an example - we have totally transformed the ecosystem from primeval forests and plains into this totally human-managed ecosystem of crop lands and domesticated animals. The next step is to think about the entire planetary biosphere, and apply large-scale engineering projects to directly modifying and managing it. Emissions control is a primitive way to do that, but it will eventually have to be more comprehensive and sophisticated. Eventually we need to sequester atmospheric carbon, but we also need to manage things like ocean acidity and the nitrogen cycle - all of these are critical factors in the set of geo/biophysical systems that create planetary conditions favorable for human civilization. The trick is to develop and deploy these methods fast enough that we can race ahead of climate conditions that become too unfavorable to support a civilization that is capable of deploying them. I think people underestimate how much can be accomplished on that front in a very short amount of time, but that still doesn't excuse the complacency about it. In particular, I'm frustrated by the lack of urgency when it comes to preserving what remains of the "natural world" - at this point, I'm basically writing off a lot of the natural diversity that exists currently, and expect that the current mass extinction event will be the most severe in planetary history. Even if human civilization survives, it will exist in a mostly artificial biosphere with a tremendously streamlined set of species.
graeme 10y ago
How well would geoengineering work, considering the acididation of the oceans? I haven't seen any proposals to handle that, yet it seems like a fairly major consequence all on its own.
- nickparker 10y ago
  The oceans are really, really, unbelievably massive. A molecule of water at the bottom of the Pacific takes a few thousand years to ride the currents from one side to the other and then the coastal upwelling to the surface. We're only really acidifying the very top layer, unfortunately that's where a huge fraction of the stuff that matters is. Artificial upwelling is a somewhat promising geo-engineering tech to reduce acidification and increase primary production (and thereby carbon capture). The idea is to somehow bring deep sea water up to the surface. Early attempts used long tubes with one way valves that were lifted up and down by wave energy. New more promising techniques use wave energy to compress air, pump the air down deep and then bubble it (and the surrounding water) up from a grid of pipes.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtQxF_3BSxQ#t=567 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtQxF_3BSxQ#t=567 This is the only proposal I've seen regarding ocean acidification. In brief, we need massive amounts of lime to dump into the ocean as an artificial carbon cycle. The problem is how to get lime? If we have massive amounts of clean power, something similar to the cement process (CaCO3 -> CaO) is possible because limestone is cheap. The problem is the energy requirements are insane. One of the estimations in the talk that remediates only 10% of our yearly CO2 emissions requires 700 TWh (2.52E18 J). Unless we start building \several hundred new GW-scale nuclear[1] power plants (and started a decade ago), I doubt we will be able to do much to address ocean acidification. [1] I know solar has improved a lot recently. Unless it's possible to generate >1TW of continuous power (24x7), nuclear is probably the only option.
  - dTal 10y ago
    If we have massive amounts of clean power a lot of the problem goes away anyway. It's not worth taking any proposal that uses vast amounts of electricity seriously, since it's the generation of vast amounts of electricity that causes the problem in the first place.
Stanish 10y ago
I really am not enthusiastic about our ability to technologically address a system as complex and poorly understood as the global climate. Our answer should be what India is doing, planting hundreds of millions more trees (restoring the american chestnut with the blight resistant variety is a start), reforming agriculture based on long-term perennial/silvopasture models and soil carbon capture, reducing the travel and industrial footprints of modern life, etc. These are all things that make more sense than geoengineering both in terms of their ease of accomplishment and the likelihood of unforeseen consequences they might produce. They also happen to be really good things for health and happiness.
peteretep 10y ago
> Geo-engineering projects could not > come too soon And also, treating climate-change deniers like a cross between holocaust deniers and flat-earthers can't come soon enough.
- gydfi 10y ago
  Right, because of all that obvious evidence of stuff that hasn't happened yet but might.
  - MaysonL 10y ago
    All that evidence that hasn't nappened yet, like Arctic ice melting, drunken trees, pest and other plant and animal ranges moving poleward and upward, growing seasons starting earlier in spring, etc. Oh wait, those have happened…
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  Yep. We also need to start treating people who don't believe in anthroponegic global warming the same as regular climate change deniers. Because at the end of the day both groups fight against efforts to curtail global warming.
- refurb 10y ago
  Jesus! I'm glad people don't take that stand in other areas of science. If we did that 20 years ago we never would have found out that ulcers are caused by bacteria. "Ulcers aren't caused by stress, they are caused by bacteria!" "Heresy!! String him up!!!"
  - peteretep 10y ago
    Bacteria-ulcers weren't proven by people who really really really wanted them to be true, they were proven by a doctor, using (fairly unconventional) scientific methods. If you've got compelling historical sources for holocaust denial or compelling scientific evidence against climate change, let's see it.
2_listerine_pls 10y ago
I am sure it's possible to engineer particles as a space pollutant to shield earth from some unwanted wavelength but allow the wanted ones.
- alex_anglin 10y ago
  It's also possible to reduce the use of carbon based fuels. We know how to do that.
  - aaron695 10y ago
    Currently to do it properly it's by killing poor people.
    - hyperbovine 10y ago
      Solar, wind and nuclear kill poor people?
      - nickff 10y ago
        Telling poor people that the only power they are allowed to have is too expensive for them to afford does result in their having shorter lifespans. Energy is one of the keys to modernity; you can't power an MRI machine with UN-subsidized corn. If you provide them with solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, tidal, or possibly fusion power at costs lower than or equal to organic fuels, they will not suffer (and might benefit).
        tonyedgecombe 10y ago
        Lack of MRI scanners doesn't shorten life spans significantly, lack of clean water and good nutrition is what's significant.
        aaron695 10y ago
        Clean water and good nutrition come from cheap energy. The Saudis can go a hell of a lot cheaper for oil. Unless you're willing to kill people we are going to have a mess to clean up in the future. Which is ok, because in the future tech will be way more advanced.
whataretensors 10y ago
This is why I love HN. So much of global warming discussion is about reducing our current effects on the environment. If we can geo-engineer effectively and safely it won't matter. I fear humanity may be in a race condition between our ability to engineer solutions and the problems that come with scaling our population.
- hyperbovine 10y ago
  > If we can geo-engineer effectively and safely it won't matter. That's a big if. The global climate is an extremely chaotic and complex system; ur ability to accurately model it is still extremely nascent. (Scientifically, understanding the global climate seems at least as hard as deciphering the architecture of the human genome, say.) If you are at all skeptical of our ability to master geoengineering in time for it to matter -- I'm talking a few decades here -- then it behooves you to opt for conservation instead. Literally the only system that we know for a fact is sustainable is the one that existed before industrialization.
Gatsky 10y ago
Geo-engineering is a precarious idea. It requires global collaboration, and investment of huge resources. As the climate changes, and life becomes more difficult, the likelihood of global collaboration and large investment arguably decreases rather than the other way round. Ideally, we need a climate change solution that can be enacted in a decentralised fashion by large numbers of motivated people without much need for government intervention.
- nmeofthestate 10y ago
  >Geo-engineering is a precarious idea. It requires global collaboration, and investment of huge resources. You've more or less just described global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. If and when those efforts fail, Geo-engineering might turn out to provide a cheaper and more effective partial solution.

by lend000 10y ago

oddity 10y ago

The common objection I've heard to geo-engineering projects is that they are incredibly difficult to reverse should the need present itself due to detrimental effects discovered part-way along. Does this objection still apply to the current popular proposals?

rootusrootus 10y ago
I recall a proposal to put sulfate particles (I think!) in the upper atmosphere, sort of like what happens with a big volcano, to try cooling things off. The downside is you have to do it constantly, the upside is that if you don't, it fades relatively quickly. So we could try it out on a pretty large scale and stop if we don't like where things are going. But that's from memory, and I could be recalling the details wrong.
- imbeau 10y ago
  A lot of that technology relies of aerosols which would exacerbate the ocean acidification process. Get engineering is really hard to get right
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Yes, you need to get the SOX into the stratosphere, so it doesn't rain out so fast.
- Itsdijital 10y ago
  This is probably what we will end up doing because it is the only one that is really viable without insane energy/time requirements. Everything else proposed would require an engineering project many many orders of magnitude greater than anything humans have done before.

DanTheManPR 10y ago

The conversation about climate change is going to morph into a conversation about directed geo-engineering over the next 70 years or so. Earth is a semi-closed system of energy and matter flows, and it's not useful to think about it as this static environment that we inhabit. Rather, it's clear that the activities that humans want to perform result in fairly heavy modification of a lot of the geo and biophysical cycles that result in conditions favorable to human civilization. Unbounded inputs (such as our carbon inputs) are inevitably going to lead to unacceptable equilibrium conditions, and so we need to take more direct control of these various geophysical processes. To me, this seems like a natural extension of our hydrological management projects, and of our reshaping of the biosphere to our liking. Take the continental US as an example - we have totally transformed the ecosystem from primeval forests and plains into this totally human-managed ecosystem of crop lands and domesticated animals. The next step is to think about the entire planetary biosphere, and apply large-scale engineering projects to directly modifying and managing it. Emissions control is a primitive way to do that, but it will eventually have to be more comprehensive and sophisticated. Eventually we need to sequester atmospheric carbon, but we also need to manage things like ocean acidity and the nitrogen cycle - all of these are critical factors in the set of geo/biophysical systems that create planetary conditions favorable for human civilization. The trick is to develop and deploy these methods fast enough that we can race ahead of climate conditions that become too unfavorable to support a civilization that is capable of deploying them. I think people underestimate how much can be accomplished on that front in a very short amount of time, but that still doesn't excuse the complacency about it. In particular, I'm frustrated by the lack of urgency when it comes to preserving what remains of the "natural world" - at this point, I'm basically writing off a lot of the natural diversity that exists currently, and expect that the current mass extinction event will be the most severe in planetary history. Even if human civilization survives, it will exist in a mostly artificial biosphere with a tremendously streamlined set of species.

graeme 10y ago

How well would geoengineering work, considering the acididation of the oceans? I haven't seen any proposals to handle that, yet it seems like a fairly major consequence all on its own.

nickparker 10y ago
The oceans are really, really, unbelievably massive. A molecule of water at the bottom of the Pacific takes a few thousand years to ride the currents from one side to the other and then the coastal upwelling to the surface. We're only really acidifying the very top layer, unfortunately that's where a huge fraction of the stuff that matters is. Artificial upwelling is a somewhat promising geo-engineering tech to reduce acidification and increase primary production (and thereby carbon capture). The idea is to somehow bring deep sea water up to the surface. Early attempts used long tubes with one way valves that were lifted up and down by wave energy. New more promising techniques use wave energy to compress air, pump the air down deep and then bubble it (and the surrounding water) up from a grid of pipes.
pdkl95 10y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtQxF_3BSxQ#t=567 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtQxF_3BSxQ#t=567 This is the only proposal I've seen regarding ocean acidification. In brief, we need massive amounts of lime to dump into the ocean as an artificial carbon cycle. The problem is how to get lime? If we have massive amounts of clean power, something similar to the cement process (CaCO3 -> CaO) is possible because limestone is cheap. The problem is the energy requirements are insane. One of the estimations in the talk that remediates only 10% of our yearly CO2 emissions requires 700 TWh (2.52E18 J). Unless we start building \several hundred new GW-scale nuclear[1] power plants (and started a decade ago), I doubt we will be able to do much to address ocean acidification. [1] I know solar has improved a lot recently. Unless it's possible to generate >1TW of continuous power (24x7), nuclear is probably the only option.
- dTal 10y ago
  If we have massive amounts of clean power a lot of the problem goes away anyway. It's not worth taking any proposal that uses vast amounts of electricity seriously, since it's the generation of vast amounts of electricity that causes the problem in the first place.

Stanish 10y ago

I really am not enthusiastic about our ability to technologically address a system as complex and poorly understood as the global climate. Our answer should be what India is doing, planting hundreds of millions more trees (restoring the american chestnut with the blight resistant variety is a start), reforming agriculture based on long-term perennial/silvopasture models and soil carbon capture, reducing the travel and industrial footprints of modern life, etc. These are all things that make more sense than geoengineering both in terms of their ease of accomplishment and the likelihood of unforeseen consequences they might produce. They also happen to be really good things for health and happiness.

peteretep 10y ago

> Geo-engineering projects could not > come too soon And also, treating climate-change deniers like a cross between holocaust deniers and flat-earthers can't come soon enough.

gydfi 10y ago
Right, because of all that obvious evidence of stuff that hasn't happened yet but might.
- MaysonL 10y ago
  All that evidence that hasn't nappened yet, like Arctic ice melting, drunken trees, pest and other plant and animal ranges moving poleward and upward, growing seasons starting earlier in spring, etc. Oh wait, those have happened…
enraged_camel 10y ago
Yep. We also need to start treating people who don't believe in anthroponegic global warming the same as regular climate change deniers. Because at the end of the day both groups fight against efforts to curtail global warming.
refurb 10y ago
Jesus! I'm glad people don't take that stand in other areas of science. If we did that 20 years ago we never would have found out that ulcers are caused by bacteria. "Ulcers aren't caused by stress, they are caused by bacteria!" "Heresy!! String him up!!!"
- peteretep 10y ago
  Bacteria-ulcers weren't proven by people who really really really wanted them to be true, they were proven by a doctor, using (fairly unconventional) scientific methods. If you've got compelling historical sources for holocaust denial or compelling scientific evidence against climate change, let's see it.

2_listerine_pls 10y ago

I am sure it's possible to engineer particles as a space pollutant to shield earth from some unwanted wavelength but allow the wanted ones.

alex_anglin 10y ago
It's also possible to reduce the use of carbon based fuels. We know how to do that.
- aaron695 10y ago
  Currently to do it properly it's by killing poor people.
  - hyperbovine 10y ago
    Solar, wind and nuclear kill poor people?
    - nickff 10y ago
      Telling poor people that the only power they are allowed to have is too expensive for them to afford does result in their having shorter lifespans. Energy is one of the keys to modernity; you can't power an MRI machine with UN-subsidized corn. If you provide them with solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, tidal, or possibly fusion power at costs lower than or equal to organic fuels, they will not suffer (and might benefit).
      - tonyedgecombe 10y ago
        Lack of MRI scanners doesn't shorten life spans significantly, lack of clean water and good nutrition is what's significant.
        aaron695 10y ago
        Clean water and good nutrition come from cheap energy. The Saudis can go a hell of a lot cheaper for oil. Unless you're willing to kill people we are going to have a mess to clean up in the future. Which is ok, because in the future tech will be way more advanced.

whataretensors 10y ago

This is why I love HN. So much of global warming discussion is about reducing our current effects on the environment. If we can geo-engineer effectively and safely it won't matter. I fear humanity may be in a race condition between our ability to engineer solutions and the problems that come with scaling our population.

hyperbovine 10y ago
> If we can geo-engineer effectively and safely it won't matter. That's a big if. The global climate is an extremely chaotic and complex system; ur ability to accurately model it is still extremely nascent. (Scientifically, understanding the global climate seems at least as hard as deciphering the architecture of the human genome, say.) If you are at all skeptical of our ability to master geoengineering in time for it to matter -- I'm talking a few decades here -- then it behooves you to opt for conservation instead. Literally the only system that we know for a fact is sustainable is the one that existed before industrialization.

Gatsky 10y ago

Geo-engineering is a precarious idea. It requires global collaboration, and investment of huge resources. As the climate changes, and life becomes more difficult, the likelihood of global collaboration and large investment arguably decreases rather than the other way round. Ideally, we need a climate change solution that can be enacted in a decentralised fashion by large numbers of motivated people without much need for government intervention.

nmeofthestate 10y ago
>Geo-engineering is a precarious idea. It requires global collaboration, and investment of huge resources. You've more or less just described global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. If and when those efforts fail, Geo-engineering might turn out to provide a cheaper and more effective partial solution.