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Years and years ago (around Gore v Bush) we hit a few "point of no returns" and I started to look up what can we actually do if we are past a point of no return

Years and years ago (around Gore v Bush) we hit a few "point of no returns" and I started to look up what can we actually do if we are past a point of no return. I found some relief in the idea that we could pump chemicals into our atmosphere to balance out the "bad" chemicals. I have a pretty naïve understanding of this and I was aware at the time that this was a bit of a nuclear option because its unsure if this would work and once we do it there isnt really any going back. But this is an option right? At some point some country that has been impacted by climate change enough will start to dump something into the air to counteract climate change. I havnt thought about this in years but someone asked me recently and I brought this up and they questioned it a bit and I realized I didnt actually know how it would potentially work.

notabee 5y ago
This is an entertaining video on that topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSu5sXmsur4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSu5sXmsur4
- Maursault 5y ago
  Horrifying. Chemistry has and continues to do enough damage. I hope instead for a different, non-chemical kind of solution, like massive but skinny heatsinks stretched from the poles into space, in tandem with a new carbon-negative economy bent on natural habitat restoration, along with negative birth rates. An easy fix for the planet is to eliminate humankind... but the solution really it doesn't need to be this extreme. Eliminating just the men will have the same effect. And, in fact, we can be even more surgical and merely eliminate or sterilize the extraordinarily small percentage of men that cause 99% of the problem. It's probably like only 200 guys. We should find them and stop them.
westcort 5y ago
A firehouse flow worth of limestone slurry sprayed into the atmosphere from a plane could offset global warming, by some estimates. I wonder why this isn’t being done yet.
- mistrial9 5y ago
  .. because some real decision makers can detect idiotic nonsense?
  - westcort 5y ago
    Here is the research paper suggesting this unconventional approach: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/52/14910 https://www.pnas.org/content/113/52/14910
    - mistrial9 5y ago
      > Solar Radiation Management (SRM) from Harvard College I rest my case !
      - westcort 5y ago
        Not arguing for this approach, mind you, just that it is a low-cost approach, so I am surprised nobody has attempted it yet. I would be curious what you know about it or the researchers that leads you to be doubtful of the approach.
        mistrial9 5y ago
        pre-modern Earth was in fact full of poisonous dust and gas in the atmosphere, for many millenia. Conditions hostile to life itself were present far longer than the recent conditions of a few hundred thousand years. of course you can block the sun with gas and dust.. isn't that famously the cause of extinctions?
snarf21 5y ago
We are only at a point of no returns in terms of continuing as-is. We won't need to dump anything into the atmosphere, the Earth will clean itself given time and opportunity. I think the mostly like outcome is that in the next 100 years we will start to see massive and more severe droughts and flood. Water will become the most valuable resource and that will affect the ability to provide food. There will be massive famine because the rich countries will hoard while the poor ones starve (exponentially more so than today). I think that in 100 years the population of the Earth will be less than 2 billion and trending down. Eventually the Earth will recover just fine, it will just take 5,000 years. Any talk of going to Mars is just silly click bait. If we had to, we have the technology to support several million people completely underground, growing food via hydroponics. The Earth isn't going to 0 population outside of an asteroid or nuclear event of major proportions.

notabee 5y ago

This is an entertaining video on that topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSu5sXmsur4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSu5sXmsur4

Maursault 5y ago
Horrifying. Chemistry has and continues to do enough damage. I hope instead for a different, non-chemical kind of solution, like massive but skinny heatsinks stretched from the poles into space, in tandem with a new carbon-negative economy bent on natural habitat restoration, along with negative birth rates. An easy fix for the planet is to eliminate humankind... but the solution really it doesn't need to be this extreme. Eliminating just the men will have the same effect. And, in fact, we can be even more surgical and merely eliminate or sterilize the extraordinarily small percentage of men that cause 99% of the problem. It's probably like only 200 guys. We should find them and stop them.

westcort 5y ago

A firehouse flow worth of limestone slurry sprayed into the atmosphere from a plane could offset global warming, by some estimates. I wonder why this isn’t being done yet.

mistrial9 5y ago
.. because some real decision makers can detect idiotic nonsense?
- westcort 5y ago
  Here is the research paper suggesting this unconventional approach: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/52/14910 https://www.pnas.org/content/113/52/14910
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    > Solar Radiation Management (SRM) from Harvard College I rest my case !
    - westcort 5y ago
      Not arguing for this approach, mind you, just that it is a low-cost approach, so I am surprised nobody has attempted it yet. I would be curious what you know about it or the researchers that leads you to be doubtful of the approach.
      - mistrial9 5y ago
        pre-modern Earth was in fact full of poisonous dust and gas in the atmosphere, for many millenia. Conditions hostile to life itself were present far longer than the recent conditions of a few hundred thousand years. of course you can block the sun with gas and dust.. isn't that famously the cause of extinctions?

snarf21 5y ago

We are only at a point of no returns in terms of continuing as-is. We won't need to dump anything into the atmosphere, the Earth will clean itself given time and opportunity. I think the mostly like outcome is that in the next 100 years we will start to see massive and more severe droughts and flood. Water will become the most valuable resource and that will affect the ability to provide food. There will be massive famine because the rich countries will hoard while the poor ones starve (exponentially more so than today). I think that in 100 years the population of the Earth will be less than 2 billion and trending down. Eventually the Earth will recover just fine, it will just take 5,000 years. Any talk of going to Mars is just silly click bait. If we had to, we have the technology to support several million people completely underground, growing food via hydroponics. The Earth isn't going to 0 population outside of an asteroid or nuclear event of major proportions.