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It's generally agreed to be highly cost effective. Via Wikipedia: > The annual cost of delivering 5 million tons of an albedo enhancing aerosol (sufficient to
by alexose 5y ago
It's generally agreed to be highly cost effective. Via Wikipedia:
> The annual cost of delivering 5 million tons of an albedo enhancing aerosol (sufficient to offset the expected warming over the next century) to an altitude of 20 to 30 km is estimated at US$2 billion to 8 billion. In comparison, the annual cost estimates for climate damage or emission mitigation range from US$200 billion to 2 trillion.
- pjc50 5y ago> delivering 5 million tons of an albedo enhancing aerosol (sufficient to offset the expected warming over the next century) to an altitude of 20 to 30 km ... How much CO2 is that going to emit? Is that achieved by aircraft or rockets?
- mc32 5y agoRail cannons?
- pjc50 5y agoAnother experimental technology! How many MJ/tonne does that take? How many sites do you need? How many more nuclear plants does it take running continuously to manufacture and launch all this? Who pays for this? How do you persuade them? How do you protect it from getting cut by the denialism faction as soon as they get elected?
- hnthrowaway9721 5y agoWhat exactly is your point? Things are difficult, let’s not bother doing anything at all? Just let the world burn?
- wongarsu 5y agoIf you deliver it by aircraft, that's about 40000 flights per year (assuming you use Boeing 747-400 or comparable). That sounds like a lot, but right now there are 10000 aircraft in the air, adding 40k flights a year isn't going to throw the numbers off. The bigger issue is that aerosol delays the "warming" issue, but doesn't stop ocean acidification (in addition to the issue of what happens if we ever stop for whatever reason)
- cryptoz 5y agoThe cost is not the issue most people have a problem with; it's the general idea of geoengineering without (much) regard for unknown side effects. Also, geoengineering without fixing the root cause is backwards and risky. Reducing emissions is the best thing we can do and this process is actively sabotaged by the right-wing politicians and media. If reducing emissions is such a hard sell, geoengineering will be even more difficult to do. Increase taxes on the wealthy, use the money to improve inequality and pass legislation that heavily taxes or bans pollutants at the corporate level. Guarantee long jail time for leaders caught cheating the system. None of the climate change problems that exist are technologically hard to solve. We have solved much harder IMO. The problems are all political and denial-based. Removing the denial would go much further than any particular technological solution will.
- klipt 5y ago> Reducing emissions is the best thing we can do Too little too late. The system is already moving out of its old equilibrium. Simply stopping emissions won't fix it now.
- dylan604 5y agoNo, but if you never stop emitting, you'll never have a chance.
- jacquesm 5y agoYou'll need to do better than just stopping emitting, you will have to undo some of the damage to have a chance to get back to equilibrium, all else is just a - relatively short - stay of execution. The last 200 years has seen humanity reverse a climate trend that held for many millions of years and yet there are still people that believe - strongly - that this is all just coincidence.
- dylan604 5y agoI'm re-reading my comment, and trying to see how could you construe I'm advocating for only stopping. To make it clear, I'm simply stating that if you only work on something to "reverse" or "clean" you will not be successful UNTIL WE STOP EMITTING. (emphasis, not yelling). So until we stop emitting, it's spinning wheels with no forward progress.
- jacquesm 5y agoPreparing for and dealing with something like COVID would have been highly cost effective as well. And yet, here we are. Climate change is a lot harder on the scale of problems to deal with.