4 ms·

Dear God, please no! Why can't we just draw down our unsustainable industries and ramp up biological carbon sequestration? Space bubbles, atmospheric flak, or

by rexpop 4y ago

Dear God, please no! Why can't we just draw down our unsustainable industries and ramp up biological carbon sequestration? Space bubbles, atmospheric flak, or other irreversible, completely untestable and entirely unprecedented interventions terrify the shit out of me.

Mildlypolite 4y ago
Yes the techno fixes are untested and, therefore, with completely unpredictable consequences. Especially when we are trying to modify something complex as our climate.
- feet 4y ago
  We already modified it, we have been for decades, centuries even Its about time we analyzed our actions and changed the way we modify for the better
SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
I'm not sure that space bubbles at the L1 point are "irreversible" - simply move them out of that point, or cease the active stabilisation and they will cease to function (and will be out of our way, as they would be a few times further away than the moon: (1) ) Other than that, I agree, it would be way to easy to rely on this kind of measure. I'd like it to be a measure to give time to "draw down our unsustainable industries". But I don't think that human nature works like that. It would be taken as a mandate to continue. In fact we might have the opposite problem: too easily reversible. What if we become dependant on it being there, and then it fails, as stuff in space easily does? What happens "when the levee breaks" ? 1) https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/L1_the_first_Lagrangian_Point https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/L1_the... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point#L1_point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point#L1_point
DennisP 4y ago
> Why can't we just Every time I see someone say why don't we "just" do X to fix climate change, the thing they suggest we just do is either drastically inadequate, really hard, or too slow. We're way behind at this point. Climate scientists used to say 400 ppm was the highest level that might be safe, but we're at 420ppm and still adding 36 billion tons of CO2 every year, plus a lot of methane. We're at serious risk of positive feedback effects taking things out of our hands entirely. Higher temperatures bring things like melting ice caps and methane release from permafrost melt, which heat up the planet more. Solar radiation management is a chance to head those things off, and buy time for the changes you're talking about. And none of the proposed SRM solutions are irreversible. Some of them reverse automatically, shortly after you stop maintaining them.
- bismuthcrystal 4y ago
  How long until the negative feedback kicks in?
  - DennisP 4y ago
    Based on the geological record, negative feedbacks are extremely long-term. What we see several times is a small initial temperature boost caused by orbital variations, followed by massive carbon release, then eventual drawdown after millions of years due to things like rock erosion. Some people have tried to make a big deal out of higher CO2 making plants grow faster, but plant growth is limited by lots of other things like nutrient availability, disease, and drought. A lot of forests are not doing well these days.
    - bismuthcrystal 4y ago
      Interesting. Thanks. Another question. Seawater heating up and releasing CO2 is positive feedback. Is it some kind of doomsday feedback loop?
      - DennisP 4y ago
        I haven't seen it described in such severe terms but yeah that's another issue. I'm not sure how much it's from actually releasing CO2, or just not absorbing as much of our emissions as it used to.
  - SAShithole 4y ago
    2 more weeks
karaterobot 4y ago
> Why can't we just draw down our unsustainable industries and ramp up biological carbon sequestration? Evidently not, or we would have done it already. Starting today, even if we adopted those strategies successfully, it would still be too late to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures. In fact, the only thing that would prevent such a scenario is an aggressive and distasteful technological solution (maybe this, maybe something else). That's the situation we're in, like it or not.

by rexpop 4y ago

Mildlypolite 4y ago

Yes the techno fixes are untested and, therefore, with completely unpredictable consequences. Especially when we are trying to modify something complex as our climate.

feet 4y ago
We already modified it, we have been for decades, centuries even Its about time we analyzed our actions and changed the way we modify for the better

SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago

I'm not sure that space bubbles at the L1 point are "irreversible" - simply move them out of that point, or cease the active stabilisation and they will cease to function (and will be out of our way, as they would be a few times further away than the moon: (1) ) Other than that, I agree, it would be way to easy to rely on this kind of measure. I'd like it to be a measure to give time to "draw down our unsustainable industries". But I don't think that human nature works like that. It would be taken as a mandate to continue. In fact we might have the opposite problem: too easily reversible. What if we become dependant on it being there, and then it fails, as stuff in space easily does? What happens "when the levee breaks" ? 1) https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/L1_the_first_Lagrangian_Point https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/L1_the... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point#L1_point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point#L1_point

DennisP 4y ago

> Why can't we just Every time I see someone say why don't we "just" do X to fix climate change, the thing they suggest we just do is either drastically inadequate, really hard, or too slow. We're way behind at this point. Climate scientists used to say 400 ppm was the highest level that might be safe, but we're at 420ppm and still adding 36 billion tons of CO2 every year, plus a lot of methane. We're at serious risk of positive feedback effects taking things out of our hands entirely. Higher temperatures bring things like melting ice caps and methane release from permafrost melt, which heat up the planet more. Solar radiation management is a chance to head those things off, and buy time for the changes you're talking about. And none of the proposed SRM solutions are irreversible. Some of them reverse automatically, shortly after you stop maintaining them.

bismuthcrystal 4y ago
How long until the negative feedback kicks in?
- DennisP 4y ago
  Based on the geological record, negative feedbacks are extremely long-term. What we see several times is a small initial temperature boost caused by orbital variations, followed by massive carbon release, then eventual drawdown after millions of years due to things like rock erosion. Some people have tried to make a big deal out of higher CO2 making plants grow faster, but plant growth is limited by lots of other things like nutrient availability, disease, and drought. A lot of forests are not doing well these days.
  - bismuthcrystal 4y ago
    Interesting. Thanks. Another question. Seawater heating up and releasing CO2 is positive feedback. Is it some kind of doomsday feedback loop?
    - DennisP 4y ago
      I haven't seen it described in such severe terms but yeah that's another issue. I'm not sure how much it's from actually releasing CO2, or just not absorbing as much of our emissions as it used to.
- SAShithole 4y ago
  2 more weeks

karaterobot 4y ago

> Why can't we just draw down our unsustainable industries and ramp up biological carbon sequestration? Evidently not, or we would have done it already. Starting today, even if we adopted those strategies successfully, it would still be too late to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures. In fact, the only thing that would prevent such a scenario is an aggressive and distasteful technological solution (maybe this, maybe something else). That's the situation we're in, like it or not.