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"Expected" - is the keyword here. No one should (and I belive will) agree for any kind of "geo-climate-engineering experiments" unless our science is actually c
by Roark66 4y ago
"Expected" - is the keyword here. No one should (and I belive will) agree for any kind of "geo-climate-engineering experiments" unless our science is actually capable of predicting/simulating exactly what's going to happen. Said understanding of the climate and ability can be proven by let's say consistently successful weather forecasts for 14 days in advance. Then we can talk.
Until then, even seriously considering it is stupidity of the worst kind exemplified by results of smaller attempts to "engineer" things we don't understand fully such as destruction of the Aral Sea and its ecosystem and many others.
"But, but, we _already_ "engineer" our climate by releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases!" say proponents of such ideas. To which I say, those things cannot be compared. During the earth's history there were many significant releases of co2 and methane we can study (from mega volcanoes, to asteroid impacts caused planet wide forest fires). There were times when the earth's atmosphere had 10 times the co2 it has now and it didn't cause a Venus-like runaway greenhouse effect some people are so keen on presenting as an almost certain scenario. The planet managed to reabsorb it.
We can mitigate many effects of climate change that manifests itself as few degrees of warming (including all the more intense weather events) much better than let's say a significant drop in temperature for a decade.
In 50 years we will think about such climate-engineering ideas the same we now think about ideas from 1950s to use nuclear explosions for building canals, and other "soil moving" ideas. Insanity.
- counters 4y ago> Said understanding of the climate and ability can be proven by let's say consistently successful weather forecasts for 14 days in advance. Then we can talk. Weather prediction and understanding the impacts of SAI are two very completely different problems. This is an arbitrary and not particularly relevant benchmark for gating geo-engineering work. That being said there are many, many ethical, political and other technical reasons why geo-engineering is a very bad idea and should be avoided at all costs. Undoubtedly, mitigating as much as climate change from occurring by quickly reducing global GHG emissions should be one of the main laser-focused areas of everyone involved in stopping climate change.