6 ms·

A Disappointing New Problem with Geo-Engineering

26 points by curtis 8y ago

burntrelish1273 8y ago
What's with all these political / negative articles from The Atlantic? Are they right for HN?
philipkglass 8y ago
What they found was sobering. In the geo-engineered world, maize yields did increase by 6.3 percent due to cooler temperatures (compared with the climate-changed world). But they decreased by 5.3 percent due to the reduction in light. When accounting for a few other side effects of geo engineering, there was essentially zero benefit. I never thought of sulfate albedo enhancement as specifically about increasing agricultural yields. I always thought of it as a band-aid measure to jam a dangerous feedback loop of thawing tundra, ice cap loss, loss of stored carbon from soils => even lower albedo, even more GHGs in the atmosphere, even higher temperatures. Meanwhile humanity pokily gets its act together about cutting emissions and deploying slower-acting CO2 countermeasures like accelerated silicate weathering. I hope. Knowing that crop yields don't get any worse with sulfate albedo enhancement is better news than I expected. (If you were expecting to lose a whole leg, hearing that the doctors just have to amputate the foot is good news. My bar for good news about climate change is set pretty low nowadays.)
- mirimir 8y ago
  That certainly makes sense to me. What's sobering is that we find ourselves in this situation.
- ddebernardy 8y ago
  I've only scanned the article but another factor that might come into play is crop nutrient content. There's some research that suggests that plants growing with more CO2 around contain less nutrient content relative to their weight - see e.g. https://www.vox.com/2018/5/24/17384110/rice-vitamin-nutrition-food-security-co2 https://www.vox.com/2018/5/24/17384110/rice-vitamin-nutritio...
- petermcneeley 8y ago
  Im more of a fan of the active space mirrors myself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_mirror_(climate_engineering) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_mirror_(climate_engineer... Complete control.
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  Meanwhile humanity pokily gets its act together about cutting emissions and deploying slower-acting CO2 countermeasures like accelerated silicate weathering. I hope. The situation is rather similar to formulating a plan to maintain the sobriety of an addicting who's still shooting up as one speaks. More tools for replacing fossil fuels appear each day even various interests make it clear that the ability to stop using oil is never going to be enough. I sort of suspect a portion of the media is trying to shout the population into awareness of this stuff. In ways worthy but it seems to be going nowhere given the many active, powerful interests not in the population but decision-making capacities.
- collective-intl 8y ago
  Agree that this isn't that bad of a result. I find that nearly every article on geo-engineering is unnecessarily negative, always stressing the downsides and trumping up the 'unknown' side-effects. Is there anyone left who can do a neutral cost-benefit analysis? From what I've read, it should be welcomed as a miracle that there happens to be a simple, cheap technique that will decrease global temperatures, which has already been tested naturally with volcanoes, has minimal effects other than reflecting sunlight, fades out on its own over time, and can be precisely regulated by the amount of particles injected. I agree we need to be careful of other effects of deflecting the sunlight, but, come on! The results so far are quite amazing. It's this human bias against modifying our world (similar to the bias against GMO's or improving IQ by tweaking genes) that has delayed geo-engineering science by decades already. It's finally turning into a real field, and the only mainstream articles are ones that report mostly negative results.
joe_the_user 8y ago
Well, maybe it would take reducing CO2 production and geo-engineering to stop run away climate change. But if Earth's various nation's can't collectively organize reduced CO2 production, and evidence so-far indicates they can't, trying to do geo-engineering by itself looks ridiculous and criminal on multiple levels (among the multiple methods of reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, of course reduced production looks cheapest among them). And humanity's future appears similar if these trends continue. Note to the rich and other decision makers - no, you won't survive if the earth itself is dying, there is no escape for anyone in this scenario.
- mirimir 8y ago
  > Note to the rich and other decision makers - no, you won't survive if the earth itself is dying, there is no escape for anyone in this scenario. Hey, I agree with the sentiment. And still, there is virtually no chance of the Earth dying from GCC. Sure, if it flips to full Venus mode. But it's my understanding that experts consider that to be unlikely. I mean, the biosphere goes down kilometers beneath the surface. Worst case, there'd be a few hundred million years of ecological simplicity.
  - ericd 8y ago
    Yep. I've always thought we should try to reframe it as "save humanity" rather than "save the Earth". The Earth doesn't give a hoot, and it appeals more directly in our self interest. "Save the Earth" makes people think we're talking about things they only sort of care about, like saving the whales.
    - mirimir 8y ago
      > like saving the whales. Some people consider whales tasty ;)
chr1 8y ago
This is not a problem with geo-engineering as a whole, but only with one of the methods. Other methods like sea fertilization, or building large number of solar updraft towers are much more promising.
ncmncm 8y ago
All the geoengineering proposals I have encountered ignore ocean acidification. A less-overheated planet with a dead ocean is hardly any better than an overheated planet with a dead ocean. That said, half of global climate disruption is from refrigerants. To prevent ultimate disaster, existing refrigeration systems must be destroyed without gas release, and replaced with systems that don't rely on (and leak) CFCs or HFCs.

26 points by curtis 8y ago

What's with all these political / negative articles from The Atlantic? Are they right for HN?

What they found was sobering. In the geo-engineered world, maize yields did increase by 6.3 percent due to cooler temperatures (compared with the climate-changed world). But they decreased by 5.3 percent due to the reduction in light. When accounting for a few other side effects of geo engineering, there was essentially zero benefit. I never thought of sulfate albedo enhancement as specifically about increasing agricultural yields. I always thought of it as a band-aid measure to jam a dangerous feedback loop of thawing tundra, ice cap loss, loss of stored carbon from soils => even lower albedo, even more GHGs in the atmosphere, even higher temperatures. Meanwhile humanity pokily gets its act together about cutting emissions and deploying slower-acting CO2 countermeasures like accelerated silicate weathering. I hope. Knowing that crop yields don't get any worse with sulfate albedo enhancement is better news than I expected. (If you were expecting to lose a whole leg, hearing that the doctors just have to amputate the foot is good news. My bar for good news about climate change is set pretty low nowadays.)

mirimir 8y ago
That certainly makes sense to me. What's sobering is that we find ourselves in this situation.
ddebernardy 8y ago
I've only scanned the article but another factor that might come into play is crop nutrient content. There's some research that suggests that plants growing with more CO2 around contain less nutrient content relative to their weight - see e.g. https://www.vox.com/2018/5/24/17384110/rice-vitamin-nutrition-food-security-co2 https://www.vox.com/2018/5/24/17384110/rice-vitamin-nutritio...
petermcneeley 8y ago
Im more of a fan of the active space mirrors myself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_mirror_(climate_engineering) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_mirror_(climate_engineer... Complete control.
joe_the_user 8y ago
Meanwhile humanity pokily gets its act together about cutting emissions and deploying slower-acting CO2 countermeasures like accelerated silicate weathering. I hope. The situation is rather similar to formulating a plan to maintain the sobriety of an addicting who's still shooting up as one speaks. More tools for replacing fossil fuels appear each day even various interests make it clear that the ability to stop using oil is never going to be enough. I sort of suspect a portion of the media is trying to shout the population into awareness of this stuff. In ways worthy but it seems to be going nowhere given the many active, powerful interests not in the population but decision-making capacities.
collective-intl 8y ago
Agree that this isn't that bad of a result. I find that nearly every article on geo-engineering is unnecessarily negative, always stressing the downsides and trumping up the 'unknown' side-effects. Is there anyone left who can do a neutral cost-benefit analysis? From what I've read, it should be welcomed as a miracle that there happens to be a simple, cheap technique that will decrease global temperatures, which has already been tested naturally with volcanoes, has minimal effects other than reflecting sunlight, fades out on its own over time, and can be precisely regulated by the amount of particles injected. I agree we need to be careful of other effects of deflecting the sunlight, but, come on! The results so far are quite amazing. It's this human bias against modifying our world (similar to the bias against GMO's or improving IQ by tweaking genes) that has delayed geo-engineering science by decades already. It's finally turning into a real field, and the only mainstream articles are ones that report mostly negative results.

joe_the_user 8y ago

Well, maybe it would take reducing CO2 production and geo-engineering to stop run away climate change. But if Earth's various nation's can't collectively organize reduced CO2 production, and evidence so-far indicates they can't, trying to do geo-engineering by itself looks ridiculous and criminal on multiple levels (among the multiple methods of reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, of course reduced production looks cheapest among them). And humanity's future appears similar if these trends continue. Note to the rich and other decision makers - no, you won't survive if the earth itself is dying, there is no escape for anyone in this scenario.

mirimir 8y ago
> Note to the rich and other decision makers - no, you won't survive if the earth itself is dying, there is no escape for anyone in this scenario. Hey, I agree with the sentiment. And still, there is virtually no chance of the Earth dying from GCC. Sure, if it flips to full Venus mode. But it's my understanding that experts consider that to be unlikely. I mean, the biosphere goes down kilometers beneath the surface. Worst case, there'd be a few hundred million years of ecological simplicity.
- ericd 8y ago
  Yep. I've always thought we should try to reframe it as "save humanity" rather than "save the Earth". The Earth doesn't give a hoot, and it appeals more directly in our self interest. "Save the Earth" makes people think we're talking about things they only sort of care about, like saving the whales.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    > like saving the whales. Some people consider whales tasty ;)

chr1 8y ago

This is not a problem with geo-engineering as a whole, but only with one of the methods. Other methods like sea fertilization, or building large number of solar updraft towers are much more promising.

ncmncm 8y ago

All the geoengineering proposals I have encountered ignore ocean acidification. A less-overheated planet with a dead ocean is hardly any better than an overheated planet with a dead ocean. That said, half of global climate disruption is from refrigerants. To prevent ultimate disaster, existing refrigeration systems must be destroyed without gas release, and replaced with systems that don't rely on (and leak) CFCs or HFCs.