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It's not just that it's a megascale project, it's that it's a potentially unstoppable megascale project. Starting a potentially unstoppable chemical chain reac
by Teever 5y ago
It's not just that it's a megascale project, it's that it's a potentially unstoppable megascale project.
Starting a potentially unstoppable chemical chain reaction to stop another unstoppable chemical chain reaction just seems a bit... dumb to me, you know?
If we're going to be doing megascale engineering to mitigate our past mistakes with greenhouse gasses we should look towards using something like space-based lenses or mirrors to lower the amount of energy that the Earth receives. We can always turn them off if we decide that we want to.
- ncmncm 5y agoSpace-based mirrors are about the worst imaginable idea. Stratospheric sulfur is almost as bad. Neither one gets any acid out of the oceans, and instead allows their acidity to continue rising until the entire ocean ecosystem collapses. Then, billions go hungry. Meanwhile, the moment these shading projects hiccup, e.g. from mass starvation induced global thermonuclear war, temperatures skyrocket to where they would have been, but much more quickly. And then of course there is the starvation and war. What "unstoppable chemical chain reaction" are you imagining? The exact moment you stop spreading olivine powder, the chemical reaction process stops dead.
- irrational 5y agoWhy do billions go hungry? Serious question. Do billions really get the majority of their calories from seafood? I’m probably biased since I won’t eat any seafood, so I’m having a hard time imagining that many people subsisting off of it.
- sofixa 5y agoYes, in many poor coastal areas ( like in Africa and Asia, but not only; many European coastal cities also fall into this) fishing is a main source of employment and calories for the population. Even if you replace the calorie intake, you can't easily replace the employment, so they can't pay for that new food.
- ncmncm 5y agoThe critical ocean input happens to be protein. Calories are relatively easy to obtain, but do not suffice.
- mattmanser 5y agoThere's no meaningful amount of employment in Europe from fishing. European fishing is done with mega trawlers operated by tiny crews. It's just a political football generally used by nationalists to further their agenda. You could ban industrial fishing in the UK or France or Spain and it would have no effect on their economies, just personal tragedy for a few thousand. For example in the UK, out of 66,000,000 people a tiny 12,000 are professional fishers.
- pvaldes 5y agoFive false statements in a row. Congratulations.
- m0llusk 5y agoFood production already uses essentially all arable land on the globe. Changing environmental conditions are expected to significantly reduce the amount of arable land fit for agricultural use.
- KptMarchewa 5y agoFood production yes, but only transitively. It's mostly for animal feed. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/