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> But to propose it as an alternative is not helpful in the current political context Suggesting that we should keep silent about a way of solving the problem,

by chr1 6y ago

> But to propose it as an alternative is not helpful in the current political context Suggesting that we should keep silent about a way of solving the problem, so that other people don't get "ideas", is even less helpful in any context, as you lose your credibility in the eyes of people whom you are trying to convince. > essentially be cleaning up the pollution of everyone else. Terraforming would require global agreement and adherence to a highly capital-intensive enterprise That would be true if we were talking about a toxic substance, CO2 is not a pollutant, and there are ways to use it: for instance by terraforming deserts into living ecosystems that would use the extra CO2. And this includes not only deserts like sahara, but also vast areas of ocean devoid of life because of currents not lifting nutrients from the bottom of the sea. People do not accept to pay costs for "limiting pollution" because they are not convinced that proposed solutions can work with anywhere reasonable cost. And for that we need not to simply talk everyone into accepting unviable solution out of fear, but to propose something that works and provides additional benefits. Terraforming deserts and controlling the weather is one such solution, which gets unfairly dismissed and downvoted.

ArnoVW 6y ago
It does not matter if it is toxic or not. It's a chemical byproduct that we don't want in the atmosphere. That means it's a pollutant. Sure. Terra forming works. Conceptually. If you can manage to build a rainforest in the desert, that will fix some co2. That is not the issue. The issue is: how to build a rainforest in the desert. Technically, and economically. Have you considered the amount of water you'd need? The irrigation system required for that? Where would the water come from? For reference, there is already a lot of geopolitics over water supply in the middle east. Have you considered how poor the soil is? How much work it would be to enrich that soil? We are already raising alarm bells regarding our phosphate stock. How would you keep the ecosystem in balance? If you can't you don't need an army of people to maintain it. Most importantly, it would only buy you time. It would fix some of the co2 in trees. But if we continue to burn oil, we'll keep adding co2 to the atmosphere. Every barrel of oil is 430 kilos of co2. That's a lot of tree for one barrel. And you've only fixed it temporarily. If at any time your artificial forest collapses (this being your first terra forming attempt), your trees decompose and release the co2. Again. I'm not saying that any option should be off the table. But I do not think it benefits the already complicated debates, if we present theoretical scenarios as solutions.
- chr1 6y ago
  You do not build a rainforest in a desert, you build a densely populated region with lots of agricultural land and some forests, so that people living there take care of enriching the soil and making sure that nothing collapses. To do that we need to learn how to control the weather. There are multiple possible ways, like using mirrors in space, using large number of aerostats to change reflectivity, and to guide clouds to the place we need, solar updraft towers to inject dust from lower layers of the atmosphere into higher layers to form clouds, etc. Many of these are may not work, and many won't be cheap, but they will give us more control over the environment and will enable more people to live.

by chr1 6y ago

ArnoVW 6y ago

It does not matter if it is toxic or not. It's a chemical byproduct that we don't want in the atmosphere. That means it's a pollutant. Sure. Terra forming works. Conceptually. If you can manage to build a rainforest in the desert, that will fix some co2. That is not the issue. The issue is: how to build a rainforest in the desert. Technically, and economically. Have you considered the amount of water you'd need? The irrigation system required for that? Where would the water come from? For reference, there is already a lot of geopolitics over water supply in the middle east. Have you considered how poor the soil is? How much work it would be to enrich that soil? We are already raising alarm bells regarding our phosphate stock. How would you keep the ecosystem in balance? If you can't you don't need an army of people to maintain it. Most importantly, it would only buy you time. It would fix some of the co2 in trees. But if we continue to burn oil, we'll keep adding co2 to the atmosphere. Every barrel of oil is 430 kilos of co2. That's a lot of tree for one barrel. And you've only fixed it temporarily. If at any time your artificial forest collapses (this being your first terra forming attempt), your trees decompose and release the co2. Again. I'm not saying that any option should be off the table. But I do not think it benefits the already complicated debates, if we present theoretical scenarios as solutions.

chr1 6y ago
You do not build a rainforest in a desert, you build a densely populated region with lots of agricultural land and some forests, so that people living there take care of enriching the soil and making sure that nothing collapses. To do that we need to learn how to control the weather. There are multiple possible ways, like using mirrors in space, using large number of aerostats to change reflectivity, and to guide clouds to the place we need, solar updraft towers to inject dust from lower layers of the atmosphere into higher layers to form clouds, etc. Many of these are may not work, and many won't be cheap, but they will give us more control over the environment and will enable more people to live.