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It is really irresponsible that we don't fund geoengineering research. 1. Marine cloud brightening can be accomplished with, essentially, salt water jets on th

It is really irresponsible that we don't fund geoengineering research. 1. Marine cloud brightening can be accomplished with, essentially, salt water jets on the back of container ships. 2. Selective iron fertilization has, additionally, positive ecological effects that need to be understood. 3. The lofting of sulfer dioxide into the upper atmosphere is not that expensive. On the order of 10 billion per year. We need to start experimenting to learn the dangers and adapt. We don't want to be in a place where we have to do this in an emergency. We need to more fully understand the science of it in less dramatic ways.

rektide 6y ago
Lofting things seems like a super great place to deploy some electric powered flight systems. It's a bit nebulous where power comes from- nuclear? solar? thermal convector engines? how? a boat? solar pilons? But the vision seems cool. The battery doesn't have to be big. As long as it can charge fast, and is long lived, it can keep delivering power & energy, coming back down, charging, & doing it again. Persistence.
- dr_dshiv 6y ago
  Neat idea! They can be charged on a giant hydrogen balloon platform, which can pump the SO2 to about 20km. I started making pictures of a related concept. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r6CPFJ1AX1ZULacguTf6IyCS1dyiqFz_HsjH-evYiHg/edit?usp=drivesdk https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r6CPFJ1AX1ZULacguTf6...
  - carapace 6y ago
    Just make geodesic cellular kites[1]. Above a certain surface area/mass ratio it becomes difficult not to fly. Power with Magnus effect pontoons[2]. One of the things I'd like to do eventually is make flying buildings that never land. [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alexander+bell+kites&t=ffcm&atb=v60-1&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alexander+bell+kites&t=ffcm&atb=v6... [2] https://newatlas.com/magenn-mars-floating-wind-generator/11109/ https://newatlas.com/magenn-mars-floating-wind-generator/111...
skosch 6y ago
It is being funded – at a small scale, but growing nonetheless. Just yesterday the NYT wrote about $3M from Silver Lining and $4M from NOAA. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/climate/climate-change-geoengineering.html?smid=tw-share https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/climate/climate-change-ge... [1] https://www.silverlining.ngo/safe-climate-research-initiative https://www.silverlining.ngo/safe-climate-research-initiativ... [2] https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/12/20/131449/the-us-government-will-begin-to-fund-geoengineering-research/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/12/20/131449/the-us-go...
- RIMR 6y ago
  $7M might as well be $0. That's not "small scale", it's basically non-existent.
smeeth 6y ago
I couldn’t agree with you any more than I do. For the past 20 years western liberals have entered into the collective delusion that it is possible to reduce global GHG outputs to a level where warming will stop or reverse. This should be obvious to anyone who has ever made a personal sacrifice for a cause and tried to convince others to as well. I’m vegetarian, and convincing even the most cute animal loving people to reduce consumption (forget stopping entirely) is shockingly hard to do. Convincing the entire world to replace fossil fuels was never going to happen. The tragedy here is that the only trans-national political movement seriously concerned about this problem insists on directing all investment and attention away from the only viable solutions to the problem they care so deeply about.
- porb121 6y ago
  It's impossible to nicely ask people to limit their consumption of resources to which they have unfettered access; it's very feasible to seriously limit their access to them. If meat (and other polluting products) were priced according to their emissions externalities, a lot more people would be vegetarians.
  - chr1 6y ago
    Reducing meat consumption and other similar measures will have vanishingly small effect, especially compared to the amount of CO2 that is going to be released from Siberian permafrost, which is already melting, and has more carbon stored in it than all the carbon we have added and will burn in the near future.
  - lotyrin 6y ago
    It doesn't seem politically possible to even ask people to limit their consumption, and enforcement would be suicidal to governance. We've seen what it looks like when you try: that it was not possible to ask people just to be polite and responsible regarding the epidemic -- they were practically ready to revolt instead of observe simple precautionary measures. Can you imagine if there were across-the-board actual enforcement in place for any of those measures, what it would have looked like? And that was an acute event, not something that's slowly boiling the frog.
KarimDaghari 6y ago
Also, Kurzgesagt released a cool video about it: https://youtu.be/dSu5sXmsur4 https://youtu.be/dSu5sXmsur4
titzer 6y ago
I mean, we do fund geoengineering research. We subsidize fossil fuel production which is a live Earth experiment to see what happens with runaway CO2 production. Oops, we forgot a control and there's no reset button on this one.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  That's not geoengineering, that's geo-move-fast-and-break-things. A completely thoughtless process.
carapace 6y ago
> This may be the gravest source of conflict, because there are some countries that are going to want to geoengineer a lot earlier than others, because they’re in deep trouble now. > If you’re Bangladeshi, and you’re standing up to your knees in water and starving at the same time, when you want to geoengineer is right now–“and I don’t care about your reservations, scientific or otherwise. I don’t care that it still feels okay in Canada–we want this fixed now.” > Perfectly reasonable position, I would say, but a possible source of international conflict of a very grave order. > I talked–actually, the head of the Bangladesh Institute of Strategic Studies about this (you didn’t even know that existed, did you?). Well, there is one, it’s quite serious–run by a General, bright guy. I said, “have you heard about geoengineering?” and he smiled–seraphically–and he said, “Mmm. Yes. Your question?” > And I asked the question, “Do you think that this is something the Bangladesh government might want to do a little bit, before, let’s say, the US government or the Chinese government?” > He said, “yes it has crossed our minds.”–and then he stopped talking. ~ https://spaswell.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/dr-gwynne-dyer-geopolitics-in-a-hotter-world-ubc-talk-transcribed-sept-2010/ https://spaswell.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/dr-gwynne-dyer-geo...
a_imho 6y ago
Why would it be more difficult than putting a few big sunglasses in space? Adjust as desired. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade

rektide 6y ago

Lofting things seems like a super great place to deploy some electric powered flight systems. It's a bit nebulous where power comes from- nuclear? solar? thermal convector engines? how? a boat? solar pilons? But the vision seems cool. The battery doesn't have to be big. As long as it can charge fast, and is long lived, it can keep delivering power & energy, coming back down, charging, & doing it again. Persistence.

dr_dshiv 6y ago
Neat idea! They can be charged on a giant hydrogen balloon platform, which can pump the SO2 to about 20km. I started making pictures of a related concept. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r6CPFJ1AX1ZULacguTf6IyCS1dyiqFz_HsjH-evYiHg/edit?usp=drivesdk https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r6CPFJ1AX1ZULacguTf6...
- carapace 6y ago
  Just make geodesic cellular kites[1]. Above a certain surface area/mass ratio it becomes difficult not to fly. Power with Magnus effect pontoons[2]. One of the things I'd like to do eventually is make flying buildings that never land. [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alexander+bell+kites&t=ffcm&atb=v60-1&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=alexander+bell+kites&t=ffcm&atb=v6... [2] https://newatlas.com/magenn-mars-floating-wind-generator/11109/ https://newatlas.com/magenn-mars-floating-wind-generator/111...

skosch 6y ago

It is being funded – at a small scale, but growing nonetheless. Just yesterday the NYT wrote about $3M from Silver Lining and $4M from NOAA. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/climate/climate-change-geoengineering.html?smid=tw-share https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/climate/climate-change-ge... [1] https://www.silverlining.ngo/safe-climate-research-initiative https://www.silverlining.ngo/safe-climate-research-initiativ... [2] https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/12/20/131449/the-us-government-will-begin-to-fund-geoengineering-research/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/12/20/131449/the-us-go...

RIMR 6y ago
$7M might as well be $0. That's not "small scale", it's basically non-existent.

smeeth 6y ago

I couldn’t agree with you any more than I do. For the past 20 years western liberals have entered into the collective delusion that it is possible to reduce global GHG outputs to a level where warming will stop or reverse. This should be obvious to anyone who has ever made a personal sacrifice for a cause and tried to convince others to as well. I’m vegetarian, and convincing even the most cute animal loving people to reduce consumption (forget stopping entirely) is shockingly hard to do. Convincing the entire world to replace fossil fuels was never going to happen. The tragedy here is that the only trans-national political movement seriously concerned about this problem insists on directing all investment and attention away from the only viable solutions to the problem they care so deeply about.

porb121 6y ago
It's impossible to nicely ask people to limit their consumption of resources to which they have unfettered access; it's very feasible to seriously limit their access to them. If meat (and other polluting products) were priced according to their emissions externalities, a lot more people would be vegetarians.
- chr1 6y ago
  Reducing meat consumption and other similar measures will have vanishingly small effect, especially compared to the amount of CO2 that is going to be released from Siberian permafrost, which is already melting, and has more carbon stored in it than all the carbon we have added and will burn in the near future.
- lotyrin 6y ago
  It doesn't seem politically possible to even ask people to limit their consumption, and enforcement would be suicidal to governance. We've seen what it looks like when you try: that it was not possible to ask people just to be polite and responsible regarding the epidemic -- they were practically ready to revolt instead of observe simple precautionary measures. Can you imagine if there were across-the-board actual enforcement in place for any of those measures, what it would have looked like? And that was an acute event, not something that's slowly boiling the frog.

KarimDaghari 6y ago

Also, Kurzgesagt released a cool video about it: https://youtu.be/dSu5sXmsur4 https://youtu.be/dSu5sXmsur4

titzer 6y ago

I mean, we do fund geoengineering research. We subsidize fossil fuel production which is a live Earth experiment to see what happens with runaway CO2 production. Oops, we forgot a control and there's no reset button on this one.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
That's not geoengineering, that's geo-move-fast-and-break-things. A completely thoughtless process.

carapace 6y ago

> This may be the gravest source of conflict, because there are some countries that are going to want to geoengineer a lot earlier than others, because they’re in deep trouble now. > If you’re Bangladeshi, and you’re standing up to your knees in water and starving at the same time, when you want to geoengineer is right now–“and I don’t care about your reservations, scientific or otherwise. I don’t care that it still feels okay in Canada–we want this fixed now.” > Perfectly reasonable position, I would say, but a possible source of international conflict of a very grave order. > I talked–actually, the head of the Bangladesh Institute of Strategic Studies about this (you didn’t even know that existed, did you?). Well, there is one, it’s quite serious–run by a General, bright guy. I said, “have you heard about geoengineering?” and he smiled–seraphically–and he said, “Mmm. Yes. Your question?” > And I asked the question, “Do you think that this is something the Bangladesh government might want to do a little bit, before, let’s say, the US government or the Chinese government?” > He said, “yes it has crossed our minds.”–and then he stopped talking. ~ https://spaswell.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/dr-gwynne-dyer-geopolitics-in-a-hotter-world-ubc-talk-transcribed-sept-2010/ https://spaswell.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/dr-gwynne-dyer-geo...

a_imho 6y ago

Why would it be more difficult than putting a few big sunglasses in space? Adjust as desired. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade