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White House is pushing ahead research to cool Earth by reflecting back sunlight
- paulkrush 4y agoOMG, I did not see this coming so quickly. This is Neal Stephenson: Termination Shock happening in real life. I love the fact that he wrote a book, but setup the sequel in the name of the book. What is the math? 100 grams of sulfur removes the effects of 100 tons of CO2?
- GrifMD 4y agoThe Ministry of the Future also addressed the same type of heat reduction technology, albeit as a much smaller part of the book. I'd highly recommend it, though the opening is very hard to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future
- paulkrush 4y agoI bought it as you were typing! Boy that's funny.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- paulkrush 4y agoDid the oil industry global warming flippening just happen?: When the oil companies 100% side with environmentalists, completely accept global warming, and endorse geoengineering to fix it.
- userbinator 4y agoBecause one of the solutions seems to be "burn more sulfur-containing fuels"?
- eloff 4y agoThey love active solutions that distract from the fact that the only permanent solution means there can be no more oil, gas, or coal companies.
- ggm 4y agoI'm going to make an out there prediction. It works, but its expensive and demands a lot of technology which people like santos, bechtel, schlumberger are absolute EXPERTS at supplying in a cost+ government project with no penalty clauses. I'm going to make a second prediction. It wont work as well as moving out of the industrial processes into newer ones which don't exacerbate the problem, it's just that the money flows won't help the people who have the ear of the WH on this. And a third one. it will have serious downsides. things which we didn't think of which are exceptionally hard to remediate at scale once we've put the material up there in volume. This isn't really predictive. Its actually not that far removed from what the other commentors say Neal Stephenson said anyway.
- smeagull 4y agoI don't think this needs to be tremendously expensive, and there are side benefits to this. More reflective footpath and road surfaces (think paler in colour rather than mirror like) are cooler - urban heat will be a problem that also needs solving and that solves both. Solar panels are also somewhat reflective. I think it's a mistake to think 'large mirror' than to think about what we can change about the massive surfaces that we are already covering with man-made structures.
- zardo 4y agoThose aren't the rapid climate interventions this seems to be about. This about injecting massive amounts of material into the atmosphere and/or ocean.
- paulkrush 4y agoSolar panels heat the earth: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/giant-desert-solar-farms-might-have-unintended-climate-consequences https://www.greenbiz.com/article/giant-desert-solar-farms-mi...
- pshc 4y agoMore or less than fossil fuels?
- h2odragon 4y agoLaunch giant rolls of toilet paper. Spread them out in low orbit. They will reflect light; ablate incoming space junk, and sequester carbon as well as stimulating the forestry industry. If we want to we could subsidize newspapers by having them print ads on them before launch. Of course they won't last long, even low orbits are harsh. This will be an ongoing opportunity for several industries capable of making important campaign donations.
- nomel 4y agoWhat's the math for this? How much CO2 per gram into low orbit, these days? My naive assumption is that the amount of CO2 released to put them into orbit would be a net negative, since they'll eventually fall away, revealing the the now increased CO2 to the sun.
- zdragnar 4y agoStrangely, I think I would be more okay with this than a longer lasting chemical- TP is predominantly lignin, of which the atmosphere already has the constituent elements. Only worry is stray chlorine, lead and other heavy metal contaminants absorbed into the source material from trees as they grew- but presumably the TP would offset whatever shenanigans those get up to. Since it would break down and burn up upon reentry (or maybe just float down?) there might not be that much interaction anyway. Compare that with the unknowns of longer-lasting particulates of sulfur and other nasties, the back-of-the-napkin math really doesn't sound that bad.
- paulkrush 4y agoThe deadline was last month to submit a paper to the white house on this: https://mailchi.mp/ff8ed2a3ed98/save-the-date-usgcrp-international-workshop-6-7-december-6109224 https://mailchi.mp/ff8ed2a3ed98/save-the-date-usgcrp-interna...
- TheRealPomax 4y agoGlad to see the white house pulling a classic "too little, way too late". How about we pour that money into actual solutions. Crazy idea, I know. We already have them, the US just needs to actually grow a spine and commit to them.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- userbinator 4y agoThis reminds me that it was mentioned how the decrease in global shipping during the pandemic and the fact that the bulk of those ships burn high-sulfur fuels may have had an observable effect on warming.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- denkmoon 4y agoReally is the sun not the root cause of our warming problem? We should simply blow it up.
- PM_me_your_math 4y agoI agree. We need to get the sun before it gets us.
- tkanarsky 4y agoWe should just fly over there at night and put a blanket over it
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- swayvil 4y agoSince the beginning of time man has yearned to destroy the sun.
- kkielhofner 4y agoBLOCK IT OUT! For those that don’t get the reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Shot_Mr._Burns%3F https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Shot_Mr._Burns%3F
- wavefunction 4y agoHackerNews tries to discourage the sort of pop culture references that are so prevalent across the Internet in the hopes of fostering real substantial communication and dialog. I don't speak on their behalf but as a member of their audience and this has been the culture of this site for a long while, which is why I downvoted your post, the post you replied to, and the other posts that reference this same Simpsons quote which I hope will illustrate that references like this are not very creative either.
- LarsAlereon 4y agoTelling someone that you downvoted their comment is extremely toxic. Either downvote without replying, or reply without mentioning downvoting.
- benhoyt 4y ago> Telling someone that you downvoted their comment is extremely toxic. Why so? "Extremely toxic" seems at the least an exaggeration, but I don't see why it's "toxic" at all. Rather than just merely downvoting, the replier is also indicating why they thought the comment was inappropriate, which to my mind sounds constructive.
- kkielhofner 4y agoAs the subject of the parent, it’s not the downvote or comment regarding it that bothers me. The lecture about what this community is or isn’t through some imagined position of authority through seniority bothers me. That is extremely toxic. Bonus points they didn’t bother to check my profile to discover I “got here first” - which only goes to show how ridiculous this position is in the first place.
- vgeek 4y agoI wonder what Montgomery Burns is charging for his consultation.
- warning26 4y ago"Since the dawn of civilization mankind has yearned to destroy the sun!"
- babblingfish 4y agoI feel like stratospheric aerosol injection would have some crazy unintended side effects. The size and complexity of the atmosphere is mind blowing. A mistake here could literally ruin the atmosphere for the entire globe. Reduction of Carbon Emissions is and always will be the best strategy to slow down global warming. These moon shot initiatives are necessary but should not be taken too seriously given their low probability of success.
- thomascgalvin 4y ago> I feel like stratospheric aerosol injection would have some crazy unintended side effects. Yeah, but the alternative is lower profits for entrenched corporate powers, so ... In all seriousness, though, I'm glad someone is considering all options, because the political reality of this planet is that the common-sense approach may very well be off the table, meaning a moonshot is all we'll have left.
- faangiq 4y ago> Yeah, but the alternative is lower profits for entrenched corporate powers, so ... Can’t we just pay these people enough to go away?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- arealaccount 4y agoNot really possible since the share holders will always want an ROI
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- wnolens 4y agoAnd then the solution to global warming is close to just being literally money https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Cure_for_AIDS https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Cure_for_AIDS
- chatterhead 4y agoHow about a way to reflect HID headlights on 3'6" high front end trucks?
- eloff 4y agoI think there are some ideas here that are low risk and low cost. I only know a little about the topic, but it seems doable and much better than the alternative of doing nothing and just taking our medicine. A very interesting discussion on freezing the poles using aerosols (e.g. sulfur compounds): https://youtu.be/DQbwSI_MI7I https://youtu.be/DQbwSI_MI7I That is far cheaper than dealing with just the effects of rising sea levels, nevermind everything else. It's relatively low risk because the effects don't last long, and they stay trapped by the polar vortex, and nobody lives there. If it doesn't work, or has sufficient undesirable effects, you cancel the experiment.
- krapp 4y agoOh god the chemtrail people are gonna go nuts.
- whycombinetor 4y agoWe've had cloudseeding deployed in the wild for a long while.
- chemtrailz2 4y agoWhy? They are going to be the least surprised, although perhaps a bit miffed no one listened. Their main points were all the patents, whitepapers, and testing which indicated the government had a secret program to inject the stratosphere with various substances to partially block the sun. They literally used the terminology "stratospheric aersolized injections", because that's what all the documents called it as well. Why do you think they would go nuts? Because the government is now openly admitting they are going to do the literal exact thing they accused them of doing the past 15+ years? I would think the people completely oblivious to the entire concept and body of research would go more nuts.
- lettergram 4y ago1. We are currently in an ice age (defined as both poles covered in ice) 2. A few degrees the wrong direction and the whole globe turns to ice. 3. A warmer earth with more carbon increases crop yields and actually has positive effects. The downside might be people need to move inland. 4. Much more concerning is the chemicals we are releasing into the atmosphere — I’d be seriously concerned here.
- zopa 4y ago> The downside might be people need to move inland. There's a lot of human suffering underneath that anodyne phrase. Deadly storms and refugee camps and all the rest. The trouble isn't the final temperature, it's the speed of the change. Given tens of thousands of years ecosystems can adapt. Change the climate in a few decades, though, and many species will just die. We aren't going to know all the consequences of that biodiversity loss until it's too late to fix. You're absolutely right however that there's a narrow band of temperatures consistent with a habitable Earth. Which is why research into tools we might need to stay in that range is a good thing.
- fritztastic 4y agoIt's not just about temp change and ocean levels- it's the shifts in climate affecting ecosystems (for example, speeding up desertification in some places and bringing extreme weather to others). Sure, people can move inland, but moving inland isn't going to help the ecosystems. Humans are very adaptable, we have technology and skills to handle rapidly changing parameters- other organisms can't. Changes of salinity in water, drier soil, excessive rain, first/last frost, etc. are happening too fast and causing widespread destruction to and collapse of ecosystems worldwide- the affected flora/fauna aren't like us- they simply won't survive.
- inkblotuniverse 4y agoGood; natural ecosystems re a moral hazard, anyway- a giant, self-perpetuating torture dungeon. If somebody created predator species, or botflies, or ringworms, you'd have them executed for crimes against nervous systems. I vote, then, to execute natural selection. It's our duty to save all living things capable of pain from their fates.
- thinkling 4y agoPeople have proposed approaches to increasing the earth's albedo (and thus reflecting more sunlight) without launching material into the atmosphere. Best known is probably the idea of painting roads and rooftops white. Another interesting approach: setting up very light-weight (thin plastic?) mirrors in large quantities in farmer's fields. Farmers have incentive to do this in areas that are getting hotter and where crops may already grow better with some partial shade than in full sun. Spacing mirrors on posts in fields can provide this. This is being proposed by Ye Tao, an MIT Chemistry PhD who has pivoted to this project. Discussed on Dave Robert's Volts podcast [0]. [0] https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-dr-ye-tao-on-a-grand#details https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-dr-ye-tao-on-a-grand#d...
- PM_me_your_math 4y agoWhite roads sounds like a recipe for glare-induced accidents, especially in sunny locations.
- loonster 4y agoCement roads?
- stubish 4y agoIf only we had some sort of glare reducing technology that can be strapped to our faces.
- jabl 4y agoI think this came up at a recent panel discussion https://www.climateresolve.org/reflecting-sunlight/ https://www.climateresolve.org/reflecting-sunlight/ tl;dr: Not an issue. We're not talking about painting roads bright white, it's more like a change from dark asphalt to light gray asphalt (similar to cement sidewalks).
- midoridensha 4y ago>We're not talking about painting roads bright white, it's more like a change from dark asphalt to light gray asphalt (similar to cement sidewalks). In this case, perhaps people should stop proposing "painting roads white" and secretly meaning "light gray" and thinking everyone can read their minds, and instead they should propose "painting roads light gray".
- chemtrailz2 4y ago
- triyambakam 4y agoThis is exactly what I thought. I'd really like to hear the reasoning behind whoever downvoted this comment.
- chemtrailz2 4y agoInstantly as well - barely enough time to read the comment. You'll never get a rational one, because it simply doesn't exist. This is horrific, the level of hubris it takes to not only do this kind of tinkering, but to come out and say it proudly like it's a reasonable inevitable solution is honestly unfathomably evil. Frankly I am legitimately scared at what comes next -- it was so clearly being done in secret but on a relatively large scale before if you followed the ScIeNcE via whitepapers, patents, etc... How bad is it going to be now? And what weird doomsday doctrine are those in charge following behind the scenes to come to the conclusion this is reasonable, and to be ready to come out of the shadows like this? Dark days ahead.
- webshit2 4y agoFirst they were "likely" doing it. Now they've "clearly" been doing it. But lo and behold, after fooling stupid normies for decades they're ready to announce their doomsday device to the public because......? Were the coherent ones who could look up patents ready to drop some truth bombs on the public?
- chemtrailz2 4y agoWell up until today I thought it was 'likely', but today given the preponderance of evidence that pointed there the last 15+ years, I now feel OK saying 'clearly'. You can nitpick and get pedantic on that point if you want - that doesn't change the fact that the 'conspiracy theorists' in this situation were literally pointing out all of the research on "stratospheric aersolozied injections" that indicated the government wanted to do a global experiment to block out the sun, and today they are openly admitting it using the exact same language. I personally find it incredibly unlikely that they have done 0 research and testing on this prior to this announcement, so I find it reasonable to believe they have clearly done it in some capacity in the past which led to this wider decision. You may not agree, which is fine. That however does not change the fact that the conspiracy theorists were at least right about the method and mode the government was planning to use to block out the sun -- the only thing you can nitpick about is whether or not it has been done in secret on some scale prior to this announcement.
- FpUser 4y agoSomething tells me it may not be welcomed by other countries and playing with climate can have lots of unintended and disastrous consequences. On the other hand we may reach a point where we would not have much choice.
- zopa 4y agoKeep in mind that what's being done here is research, not a US-only geoengineering campaign starting tomorrow. The interventions themselves wouldn't happen without some pretty serious diplomacy first. And of course we're already playing with the climate, with disastrous unintended consequences. Leaving the climate alone is no longer one of the options.
- kelseyfrog 4y agoIt's easier to geo-engineer the atmosphere than to stop polluting it? I'm not sure I understand what's going on in the world anymore.
- BurningFrog 4y agoOne organization, the US government, could do this alone. Stopping a billion separate entities polluting the atmosphere is organizationally infinitely harder.
- birdyrooster 4y agoSo we just keep reflecting more and more light and heat while we made the planet more and more smoggy and barren. What are the second and third order effects?
- ericd 4y agoNo, because the people of the US absolutely do not want to decrease their living standards to the extent it would require. The government would most likely be promptly fired if it went the austerity route.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- partiallypro 4y agoThe world is bigger than the US, and cutting living standards for people in Africa, China, etc that JUST came out of poverty is not ideal or moral.
- dont__panic 4y agoThis assumes that current US and EU living standards are inherently better than other ways of living. But what if you could live sustainably and maintain a higher quality of living? Why not use tech like solar panels, geothermal heating/cooling, and more to help those countries "skip over" the dirty, coal-burning period of industrialization and invent something better (and more sustainable)? We tend to assume that living in the US, driving around a polluting car, buying up polluting gadgets, throwing away tons of plastic per person, burning propane and natural gas and oil for heating, watering your lawn in the desert, etc. are all... the best way to live. But you could supply small towns in Africa with solar panels and let them figure out a better way, no? And they have certain advantages -- like distributed small farms, walkable towns, no "technical debt" of inefficient gadgets and gizmos in their houses -- that put them in a much better position than countries like the USA. Take the massive US military budget and spend it on this instead.
- ianai 4y agoMy preferred method of this is a filter/shade between the earth and sun. That’s second to actually pulling carbon out of the air/ocean.
- imapeopleperson 4y agoAgree. And I’d first float it permanently over the Atlantic where hurricanes seem to grow over warm water.
- ianai 4y agoSure if that somehow improves the drought conditions in the US southwest. (And it might considering the rain the southwest experienced this year.) Seems odd to prioritize hurricanes that don’t really seem to affect the South that much while the southwest has millions of people experiencing wildfires and in danger of running out of water. Run out of water and literal society fails. Too many more wildfires and we might start losing whole forests. NM looked to have come close this year.
- riffic 4y agothey know we're boned, and the only fix is geoengineering.
- greggeter 4y ago
- travisporter 4y agoDOE chief under Obama Steven chu proposed painting roofs and roads white to improve earths albedo
- mercy_dude 4y ago
- donw 4y agoI originally read the headline as starting with "Waffle House", and thought to myself, "That's a bit out of your lane, isn't it?"
- andrewstuart 4y agoThe downside of "crazy schemes" is they take focus away from what really needs to be done, which is stop producing greenhouses gasses.
- partiallypro 4y agoWe're already doing that. The human race would have to literally go extinct to reverse global warming by only cutting carbon emissions.
- User23 4y ago"This computer model says the Earth might get 1 degree warmer over the next 100 years, let's blot out the sun!" It's probably an unpopular opinion here, but these people sound like reckless lunatics to me. The fact is we don't have anywhere near enough of a mature climate science to allow any kind of responsible engineering. It's a good goal, and I applaud research in that direction. But I deplore the possibility of some idiot billionaires getting the numbers wrong by a few percent, creating a positive feedback loop, and causing a glaciation event. Lest we forget, we are still in the Quaternary Ice Age! This is just an interglacial period. All of the major geological factors to make a snowball Earth possible still obtain! And I guarantee you that humanity will better adapt to a hothouse than a snowball. I know it's taboo to mention votes, but please, please, if you're thinking about downvoting me because I'm wrong, please at least offer the consolation of explaining why glaciation is nothing to worry about.
- ravenstine 4y agoWe already have the solutions. Use nuclear, use renewables, use carbon from the atmosphere and not the earth's crust. Really not that hard to figure out, but you'll notice no end to the supply of "wait but." They'll eat up science-y rubbish like reflecting sunlight because it sounds really clever, but then find any reason to ignore reality which, guess what, will always be more or less dirty. It's the siren song of the free lunch. Catch any one here on the street and ask them on the spot what they know about the carbon cycle and chances are they couldn't tell you anything about it, but they'll readily supply you an opinion on carbon emissions.
- fsociety999 4y agoI think it is quite possible that humans attempting to “fix” nature is what will ultimately lead to the extinction of the human race. It is pretty fitting too since we are the ones who helped accelerate the mess we are in. The article points out some of the problems here: > There are significant and well-known risks to some of these techniques — sulfur dioxide aerosol injection, in particular. > First, spraying sulfur into the atmosphere will “mess with the ozone chemistry in a way that might delay the recovery of the ozone layer,” Parson told CNBC. > The Montreal Protocol adopted in 1987 regulates and phases out the use of ozone depleting substances, such as hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) which were commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioners, but that healing process is still going on. > Also, sulfates injected into the atmosphere eventually come down as acid rain, which affects soil, water reservoirs, and local ecosystems. > Third, the sulfur in the atmosphere forms very fine particulates that can cause respiratory illness. Who gets to make the call that these risks are okay and are not as bad as the negative impact(s) we may face from climate change? Who decides that it is an acceptable trade-off to wipe out entire species and ecosystems and potentially some percent of the human population? The problem is when it comes to climate change impact, it is all hypothetical based on models we have limited understanding of whereas with this stuff there are concrete risks and side-effects now.
- aliqot 4y agoI really did miss hearing about acid rain in the 90s
- ncmncm 4y agoIt would be disastrous if this went ahead. Failing to draw down atmospheric CO2 ensures increasing ocean acidification, threatening the basis of the whole ocean ecosystem.
- DennisP 4y agoDoing solar radiation management as a substitute for drawing down CO2 would be disastrous. But we're starting to see various positive feedbacks kick in, where rising temperatures cause the planet to release CO2 and methane of its own. We see evidence of this in geologic history too, where a modest temperature increase due to an orbital variation causes greenhouse releases that tip the planet into a warming cycle. If we cross that tipping point, reducing our emissions to zero won't keep the CO2 from increasing further. We might need SRM to keep that from happening. The tipping point could be as low as +1.5C, we're already over +1C, and we've made essentially zero reductions to our emissions so far.
- rgrieselhuber 4y agoWasn’t this the plot of Highlander 2?
- thepasswordis 4y agoThis administration is so far off the rails at this point that I wish they'd just say screw it, print another trillion dollars EACH for everybody who wants to build nuclear reactors in the Nevada desert, and just call it a day. We're heading for a massive depression anyway, might as well get some nuclear reactors out of it. Absolutely f off with this absurd nonsense. Look at what this idiotic climate engineering crap did by introducing asian carp. The answer is in front of you. Nuclear power. FFS.
- shadowgovt 4y agoWhat's the answer?
- thepasswordis 4y agoWell the first step would be to tell the NRC to stop blocking companies like OKLO from building their demonstration reactor.
- m463 4y agoI'm having a hard time believing this could work too. I remember the federal government tried to stimulate internet growth, or help jumpstart solar companies or similar - they became giant cash grabs with little to show in the end. I'd like to know ways the government could help stimulate really good solutions without giving money away or picking (unproven) winners.
- icelancer 4y agoCash for Clunkers comes to mind as always. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System
- itishappy 4y agoI think we all have a hard time believing this could work. These aren't new ideas, they're long shots and everyone knows it, but we're concerned enough that we're researching it. Dumping a few cargo jets of sulfur and chalk isn't going to fuck anything up more than we have already, and learning anything new about how the atmosphere works is a win in my book (even if it's: hey, don't do that). That being said, I hope we never consider deploying this at scale. Personally, I think the answer is more of what we're doing right now: financial incentives for provable results. Taxes or fines for pollution, credits and subsidies for green energy. Subsidize the energy, not the equipment and you'll discourage bad actors.
- saul_goodman 4y agoWhen narratives collide. I hope someone does the math on how much this will degrade solar panels.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ParksNet 4y agoWe need to strip CO2 out of the atmosphere too. CO2 is a known cognitive retardant [1], ocean acidifier[2], and plant nutrition degrader[2]. Iron fertilization seems like a good option: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization [1]: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200421090556.htm#:~:text=Put%20simply%2C%20when%20we%20breathe,anxiety%2C%20and%20impair%20cognitive%20function https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200421090556.h.... [2]: https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/ocean-coasts/ocean-acidification https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/ocean-co... [3]:https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(19)30108-1/fulltext#:~:text=Second%2C%20increased%20concentrations%20of%20carbon,by%20up%20to%20a%2030%25 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5....
- flavius29663 4y agoThis is a hilarious take. You're saying that plant food (CO2) is bad for plant based nutrition because they grow too fast and therefore plants have less minerals? How about we just improve nutrition for people that rely on cheap calories likes rice, corn and wheat...we should do that regardless. Those plants don't provide a proper nutrition anyway.
- whycombinetor 4y agoI'm sure poor countries would love to turn their rice fields into soccer fields and feed themselves with more nutritious food, but they need to farm cheap calories to feed themselves with the amount of money they have.
- flavius29663 4y agoand how does more CO2 make this worse? Say a country like Sri Lanka has 1 million tons of rice per year - that contain 100 tons of minerals. After the CO2 enrichment they get 1.2million tons of rice, but with they contain still 100 tons of minerals. Things Sri Lanka can do: 1. eat more rice, all 1.2 mil tons of it, for the same amount of minerals (this would lead to obesity). 2. plant and eat 1 million tons of rice per year, leaving empty 1/6 of the previous fields free for other use. In those 1/6 of the fields, they can now grow carrots and mushrooms and lentils and other highly nutritious stuff. It might even leave them with extra land for football fields. How is this an issue? I swear: sometimes people want to find a negative even in the most positive outcomes.
- gault8121 4y agoThe article fails to mention a really important idea - Sulfur Dioxide is not the only aerosol that can be injected, and there are other options that seem much more promising. For example, using Calcium Carbonate may actually help restore the Ozone layer while also reducing the temperature. > Source: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/09/harvard-groups-research-planet-cooling-aerosols/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/09/harvard-group... > "The chemists think the solution could be calcium carbonate — the stuff of chalk, limestone, marble, and seashells. It may be less harmful to the ozone, and it’s not a big health concern. The team is studying how the substance affects chlorine and nitrogen oxides, which also exist in the stratosphere — largely due to man-made emissions — and speed ozone destruction. The researchers think the calcium carbonate might help to lower levels of these gases."
- kortex 4y agoI love this idea. I would wager that calcium carbonate dust has a higher ballistic coefficient than SOx (ratio of mass to cross section, a measure of ability to stay aloft), meaning if we overdo it (unlikely but the most common concern), the decay rate would be faster. Plus would also mitigate acid rain somewhat, and isn't noxious the way SOx is.
- gault8121 4y agoYes, exactly - it's an interesting idea worth researching. Thanks for adding this idea!
- mountaintimefrm 4y agoToo much calcium carbonate is really detrimental to a wide variety of plants, it causes a condition called iron chlorosis. Basically plants will readily absorb calcium instead of iron (they need iron to do their chemistry for photosynthesis), the result of which is yellowing leaves, poor production, plant death, etc. Spraying massive amounts of calcium carbonate in the atmosphere, if it makes it down to the plants on the ground, sounds like a great way to cause massive forest die offs. Much like sulfur creates acid rain, calcium in the atmosphere would create "basic rain" which is just as much of a problem if you're a plant that requires a fairly narrow range of soil pH.
- Andrex 4y ago“So the leaders conceived of their most desperate strategy yet, a final solution - the destruction of the sky. Thus would man try to cut the Machines off from the sun, their main energy source. May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins.” - The Second Renaissance, Part 2
- JetAlone 4y agoYou know what, we don't have the machines from the Matrix yet, maybe it's a blessing in disguise and we're just taking the initiative on this one.
- Andrex 4y agoAgreed. Well, it's probably not far off. It's not 2090 yet. Appreciate your choice of handle, by the way.
- JetAlone 4y agoMaybe, maybe. It's not like solar power becomes utterly useless if you cut out a single digit percent of the input light, whereas that percentage probably would reduce planetary temperature a great degree. NERV did JetAlone dirty. Robro just wanted to help.
- rainbringer2000 4y agoI'm all here for the roll out of a more positive outlook towards the impending climate hell as we try to fix it before the storm is too big.
- gatane 4y agoThis sounds like something straight from The Simpsons.
- Euphorbium 4y agoSeems like something fossil fuel industry would concoct against the solar panels. > Morpheus : We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky. I was hoping to read they are pushing for reflection from space, from the lagrange point directly between earth and sun. That one at least possible to turn off, if something went wrong.
- fritztastic 4y agoBleak, but also hilarious the lengths the fossil fuel industry will be defended and coddled- almost as astounding as the people who refuse to understand how the greenhouse effect works despite encountering it on a regular basis. Scientists have been warning about the potential climate impacts since more than a century ago: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a14416134/popular-mechanics-on-climate-change/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a144161...
- ejb999 4y ago>>Scientists have been warning about the potential climate impacts since more than a century ago: Cry wolf enough times and people stop listening altogether. The history of 'scientists' making outlandish claims about what will or won't happen - and then being provably wrong - is a big part of the problem.
- feoren 4y agoWhat a tremendously ignorant take. Do you get your science only from pop-sci articles 4 degrees removed from actual scientists? Can you point to any actual examples of this happening?
- ejb999 4y agoDo your own research - start with all the predictions from scientists in the 70's that were claiming that we were entering the next ice age. Like this one: >>>> “The world has been chilling sharply for about 20 years,” ecologist Kenneth Watt said in 1970. “If present trends continue, the world will be about 4 degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990 but 11 degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” He was hardly alone. In 1975, C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said that “(t)he cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed.” Scientist Nigel Calder wrote that “(t)he threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” Scientific consensus eventually moved away the global cooling alarums and instead began warning against global warming in the 1980s. Columbia University scientist James Hansen’s 1988 congressional testimony was one of the watershed moments in putting the global warming agenda before the American people in a major way. These days, Hansen is suing the government on behalf of children and future generations because he thinks they’re not doing enough to stop global warming. << The media and (some) scientists have cried wolf so many times, they now get ignored by the masses - and now they have to make ever more outrageous claims in order to get noticed.
- karaterobot 4y agoThese threads always have people saying "hmm, I don't know about this, seems like there might be negative unintended consequences". I always want to say this, so I'll say it here: Without some drastic step, global temperatures will rise by more than 2 degrees, causing widespread death, countless displaced people, extinct species, collapsed biomes, and so on. Second-order consequences like starvation, viral outbreaks, and wars are are harder to predict, but seem very likely. The solution to this, if there is one, will not be to reduce, reuse, and recycle. It will not be driving cars less, or eating less meat, or getting more power from renewable resources. Those are not drastic solutions, those are sensible solutions we could have taken a hundred years ago, but didn't. The thing to realize is that the damage has already been done, and we are just waiting for the effects to propagate. We're now in a situation where, distasteful and dangerous as they may be, technological solutions like this are the only possible solutions. Not necessarily this, but things like this, and as crazy (or crazier) than this sounds. Yes, unintended side effects. Yes, expensive. Yes, not guaranteed to work. That's what's on the table. From what I've seen, anything short of a novel technological solution at this point amounts to just waiting.
- kelnos 4y agoNot sure that's really the case. Carbon capture and sequestration is a thing, and is something we know that we can do with current technology. This atmosphere modification plan is still entirely theoretical, and any scientist who believes they can actually model all potential consequences is a quack, at best. Certainly carbon capture won't be enough; we do need to reduce emissions. We have the technology to do that, but often not the political will. I don't know how to fix that. Fortunately the move toward renewable sources of electricity does continue to march on, just a lot slower than it needs to be. > Yes, unintended side effects. What if the unintended side effects are worse than the effects of climate change?
- paganel 4y ago> extinct species, We've had extinct species for the last 200 years of Industrial Revolution, not sure a forced terraforming will change anything about that.
- robbrown451 4y agoI say cover all land and ocean surfaces with self-replicating robots with solar panels. Instead of the energy going into heat, it generates electricity, which powers the robots, which make more of themselves as well as do other valuable things like wash our dishes and fold our laundry. I'm sure there is a problem with this idea but I'm not sure what it is.
- socialismisok 4y agoAnything to keep ignoring the problems fossil fuels bring us. Unbelievable that anyone is considering such an obviously goofy approach when there's an obvious and easy one.
- jonstewart 4y agoThe only geoengineering approach I see discussed in the media is this sulfur dioxide aerosol method. Does anyone know why seeding iron filings in the Southern Ocean doesn't get more consideration? That's always seemed a more straightforward route to me, and one that could be pursued more cautiously. For those that don't know, coccolithophores are single-celled phytoplankton that grow a calcium carbonate shell, of sorts. When they die, their shells sink to the ocean floor. It's posited that their population growth in the Southern Ocean is inhibited by the availability of iron in the water — the theory is that if you dumped some iron filings in the ocean, you'd get a coccolithophore bloom, sucking out carbon for their shells, and then sinking it permanently.
- elihu 4y agoAn interesting bit from the article: > Ironically, as the world reduces coal burning to curb the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming, we’ll also be eliminating the sulfur dioxide emissions that mask some of that warming. > > “Sulfur pollution that’s coming out of smokestacks right now is masking between a third and a half of the heating signal from the greenhouse gases humans have already emitted into the atmosphere,” Parson said. That's not great.
- zaroth 4y agoThis is so dumb. The reflection of sunlight to reduce TSI should happen at the L1 Lagrange point using moon dust, not by further polluting our own atmosphere. The benefit of L1 is that it’s not perfectly stable. Anything you throw up into that orbit will only stay there without course correction for about a decade.
- planede 4y agoSounds like a cool sci-fi idea, but you would probably need to put a significant amount of material 1,500,000km away to put a shade over the Sun. Probably comparable to the mass of our atmosphere. And then repeat every decade.
- zaroth 4y agoIt would surely cost a few trillion to deploy the moon base and railguns capable of deploying that much material on target, but doesn’t require any physics-bending materials or processes. It would be an ongoing process of refinement and launch, there are some papers that have done the napkin math on the launch rate and energy requirements and it’s all perfectly feasible in the context of preventing an earth-shattering calamity. The only problem with having a human-controllable thermostat over the entire Earth is that no one will agree on how to set it.
- siliconc0w 4y agoI think this is pretty hard to stop and not necessarily a bad idea depending on your perception of how screwed we already are. It'd be hard because many proposals are within the range of many nations or just billionaires and it's going to be really hard to stop a nation being hit hard by climate change from acting to protect themselves. So the sensible thing to do is to try to do it in the most understood and least harmful way because otherwise there are going to be less discerning and more desperate people doing it their own way.
- fallingfrog 4y agoWorth at least looking into. I would be profoundly surprised if this worked.
- jlbbellefeuille 4y ago“ Well, the Simpsons really called this one first. In Season 6, Episode 25, "Who Shot Mr. Burns," the evil Mr. Burns decides that he's going to block out the sun to cool Springfield so people have to rely on his energy company to heat their homes and power their lights.” Read More: Simpsons Called It First: Bill Gates Wants To Block Out The Sun To Cool Earth | https://97x.com/simpsons-called-it-first-bill-gates-wants-to-block-out-the-sun-to-cool-earth/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral https://97x.com/simpsons-called-it-first-bill-gates-wants-to...
- tomcam 4y agoBjorn Lomborg has pointed out that simply painting roofs white could have a significant impact.
- djmips 4y agoInteresting thought that going 100% solar energy might cause global warming, not as bad as fossil fuels but certainly changing your roof to a black solar panel is exactly opposite to this advice of reflecting it back.
- waskip 4y agoThis reminds me of Neo encounter with Morpheus in the Matrix Morpheus : We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar power. It was believed they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun.
- pabs3 4y agoI hope this doesn't end up like the plot of Snow Piercer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Piercer#Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Piercer#Plot
- leshenka 4y agoNot gonna lie, the first thing I did when came to this webpage is ctrl+F "snow piercer"
- rongopo 4y agoAs we know too little about how this will affect climate dynamics, be sure that suspicion, loaded infodemics and extreme events will trigger more than one climate-based conflict.
- CM30 4y agoHonestly, at this point tech is probably the only way climate change will be fixed. You won't get people to agree to make their life worse for the sake of the environment, no matter how much activists keep trying to push that. And so if drastic measures like this are what's needed, then those are what's needed. We can either argue about responsibilities and sustainability for years with little effect, or accept that technological methods are probably going to be the solution here. Plus it's not like this would have to go on forever. Once all sources of energy are 'green' and carbon capture has removed enough of the CO2 from the atmosphere, then any means of reflecting back sunlight or reducing the amount that reaches Earth can be gradually scaled back.
- rjzzleep 4y agoI think it might get a bit more buy-in if there was some acknowledgement of the biggest producers of these problems. At this point a certain part of society gets to profit from these policies and it's worse for everyone else. It's always easy to get OTHERS to make sacrifices for you.
- blitzar 4y agoYes, but I have this circular from Big Polluter Inc. that makes it clear that they are not to blame and it is just the centerists/alt right/leftists/green/blm/nra/anti-gun/foreigners/locals/state/deep state/vested interests/think tanks/academics/regulators/lobbyists/dea/cartels that are behind it all. So excuse me it I dont buy into the lies because I know the truth.
- erpellan 4y agoThe driving cost for solar pv is the structure and the land, the panels are now so cheap (and getting cheaper) that the economic recommendation is to install 3x the generation capacity of the inverter. Sizing for hitting capacity on the darkest days basically. Living in a draft proof, highly insulated home with mechanical air filtration and heat recovery, driving an EV that’s powered by the roof of your house doesn’t sound like any kind of worse life to me. Abundant, locally generated electricity is a game changer. You can even extract drinking water from the air inside your house in all but the driest of locations.
- karlkloss 4y agoA white house already reflects sunlight, so they're way ahead.
- pyuser583 4y agoThis made me laugh out loud!
- unglaublich 4y agoAs usual, when humans try to solve a subtle ecological issue, they will fix one thing and create 20 new problems... because we just don't understand everything. Just stop digging up tons of CO2 per day from underground reserves, and start capturing the CO2 that we released and put it back where we got it from.
- feoren 4y ago> Just
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- stereolambda 4y agoIt's interesting to me how much people are trained to reflex against this possibility. As mentioned in the article, dust in the atmosphere is literally a natural occurrence also. Sure, the exact impact should be researched and understood, but people are already jumping to the fashionable conclusion that human technology bad, gods and wood spirits will punish us for trying to escape from the primordial toil. Myself, I think that both this type of things and emission controls should be going on to get the situation under control. Simply because we cannot know exactly how much any of this will accomplish and the needs are big. The climate question's credibility is hurt by limiting solutions to an ideologically approved list and treating it as a vehicle for one's favorite causes. People can suspect that if the activists are so choosy about the methods, this cannot be that serious and this is not how truly desperate people act.
- seydor 4y agowe are quite primed to believe anything anthropogenic is bad, anthropogenic heating is bad, so antrhopogenic cooling is bad
- DharmaPolice 4y agoI think people are understandably cautious about large scale interventions in complex systems. It's not like we've got a test Earth ready to do a dummy run on. We're making changes directly to production here. (I do think we'll ultimately need to do something like this simply because the cost of not doing it is too high but I understand why people are scared by it, and it's not just down to belief in wood spirits).
- beowulfey 4y agoYes, definitely this is part of it for me. The other reason I’m concerned (although, agree it’s probably necessary) is that I’m wary of any solution that we can’t undo if it goes awry.
- schnitzelstoat 4y agoAlso it means we won't actually solve the core problem that is greenhouse gas emissions. Instead we'll just continually pump up some aerosols to ensure the heating doesn't get too bad. And if we ever fail to do so then we'll face incredible heating.
- NHQ 4y agoThe lack os skepticism in these comments makes me want to go back in time to assassinate William of Okham.
- schnitzelstoat 4y agoSo nuclear energy is too dangerous but apparently this is okay? The biggest danger I see here is that we won't reduce emissions, we'll just carry on business as usual and pump up aerosols to compensate. And then if one day we can't pump up enough aerosols and they begin to dissipate there will be intense warming. It's a band-aid. Nuclear power is the best solution we have for a sustainable and prosperous society.
- cgeier 4y agoWe still will need to take care of CO2, as it -- among other things -- acidifies the oceans (which totally fucks up that eco system).
- coffeeblack 4y agoOr if one day we discover that those aerosols have side effects we didn’t think of. A better way would be to build a large mirror at a Lagrange point between earth and sun. With the huge reduction in launch cost by Starship this would become possible. And it’d be “easily” reversible. But nothing of this will get done, because there are way simpler solutions.
- pfdietz 4y agoThis solution, for all its problems, has the advantage that it can be imposed on unwilling countries. Short of coercion tantamount to war, you can't make the unwilling stop burning fossil fuels and use non-fossil alternatives instead. Nuclear also isn't the best solution in any case, for multiple reasons that have been explained here over and over.
- extheat 4y agoThere is no singular best answer. Nuclear fission for the foreseeable future will remain one of the solutions. There is the caveat that it’s not technically “sustainable” or “renewable”, but practically no source of energy is fully.
- ChrisRR 4y agoI'll never understand how 1. People think a non-renewable resource is somehow a permanent solution 2. There is only ever one solution and not a combination of multiple solutions all working towards a common goal
- coffeeblack 4y agoIsaac Arthur has a few videos about the viability of this on his YouTube channel. Very much worth a watch if you are into the science part of science fiction.
- londons_explore 4y agoApproach #2... Send a 747 flying across the desert loaded with white paint, and literally paint the land white.
- carbonwhales 4y agoWhy do exotic and dangerous solution like dimming the sunlight, get attention and funding, but natural, safe and evolutionary tested carbon sequestring biological systems are ignored? For example, we have been trying to find funding to get our project off the ground and no one is interested (including Y Combinator). Meanwhile we just lost 477 pilot whales (amazing biological carbon sequestering systems) in mass stranding in NZ because there are no resources and technology to save them.
- concordDance 4y agoEh? Plenty of funding gets thrown at carbon capture... In fact, things like dimming and sunshades get very very little funding. Problem is most forms of biological carbon capture aren't sustainable (e.g. don't dump that carbon back in the ground, you need to instead continuously sustain that forrest or those pilot whales). The ideal form of carbon capture is probably growing forests then chopping them down and putting them in landfill, but you get soil depletion like that...
- carbonwhales 4y agoWhat do you mean, not sustainable? Cetacean populations are still well below pre-whaling numbers and are very sustainable. Not only they capture and store vast quantities of carbon in their bodies (and when they die and sink, they take all this stored carbon with them), but they are the only source of important nutrients that are required for the phytoplankton to thrive. Phytoplankton is a super potent and effective carbon capturing system as well.So not only cetaceans help carbon sequestering directly, they also help indirectly by helping phytoplankton to grow. This is a perfect system, it is safe and it is effective, unlike dimming the sunlight and changing the atmosphere.
- concordDance 4y agoI mean that unless you're increasing the amount of plankton in the ocean by hundreds of gigatons you're not making a dent compared to the amount currently in the air, let alone what's still being made. How much CO2 do you think your method can capture?
- sudden_dystopia 4y agoI heard the White House is also planning research on how Nuclear Armageddon will actually be green in the long run. /s
- coffeeblack 4y agoWhy don’t we all just leave the fridge door open for a day or two? That should cool the planet.
- orthecreedence 4y agoAnother great argument for nuclear power: it keeps on humming even when you block out the sun.
- jl6 4y agoThe weight of a decision is often determined by the ability to back out of the decision should it turn out to be the wrong one. This seems like a solution that would be very hard to back out if we discover unintended side-effects. A giant mirror in space would be harder to achieve but much easier to turn off.
- icare_1er 4y agoI don't see why research is a bad idea. Research is a great idea and should be encouraged. Of course it sounds scary to modify the atmosphere of the whole planet, but please, at least allow some scientists to take that money, go away and run checks for a few years and present back what they think.
- dudeinjapan 4y agoThe goal should be to have a thermostat on our planet. Alien civilizations are looking at us like we're living in a house without A/C. They out here building dyson spheres and sh*t.
- AndyForSRM 4y agoI have not seen a mention of the most efficient and controllable method of reflecting solar energy away from the earth: - Ground mounted mirrors, which can be glass or plastic film. They provide a cooler living space underneath and global cooling potential. See MEER.org
- Stephen-E 4y agoThis will sound very familiar to anyone who read Neal Stephenson's Termination Shock. The picture of Pinatubo was too much.
- reader_x 4y agoWhile post leads with “the White House is pushing…” in fact the report was requested by Congress: “In the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy […] was directed by Congress to develop a five-year – “scientific assessment of solar and other rapid climate interventions in the context of near-term climate risks and hazards.” /1 1/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/legal/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/legal/ I point this out so those with concerns can direct letters to all relevant actors.
- nashashmi 4y agoI am not sold CO2 is causing the warming anymore. CO2 is heavy and so falls to the ground if cool. Adding more trees and vegetation on the ground near cool areas should do the trick. Methane is probably more of a contributor. And blocking the sun is not a real solution. It has the potential for catastrophic changes like less vegetation. Plus there are studies on global dimming. More pollution leads to global dimming which leads to less evaporation which leads to less clouds cover. As a matter of fact, global dimming is better studied and should be a topic before conducting this research
- nomdep 4y agoIsn’t dropping a giant ice cube in the ocean enough? (<~ Futurama reference) Both are creative attempts of a solution without having to mess with the source of the problem
- meltyness 4y agoHere's hoping the mirror they construct has infinite focal length.
- deworms 4y ago>spraying an aerosol like sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere What happened to it being a toxic gas? And is this why they were pushing so hard to completely discredit the notion of "chemtrails" so that all criticism of this idea can be killed easily?
- raydiatian 4y agoFive years, isn’t that like, all of them that are left?
- incomingpain 4y agoIf this plan would only impact the sun received by the USA. Fine feel free to do whatever you want to yourself. In reality this plan is intended to impact all countries. So this war mongering country is unilaterally deciding how much sun my country receives? No, that's not allowed. All this to fix a problem that you caused? Clear incitement of war; which is exactly the USA's goal. The USA doesn't know what it's like not to be at war.
- rizoma_dev 4y agoI hope we manage to reduce emissions before we're forced to enact these desperate measures. Be prepared to strike if your industry isn't planning to reduce consumption to safe levels
- hn10000000 4y agonice, this could create a new business model a new SaaS, Sun as a Service
- sumosudo 4y agoYou, nor your car, or your plastic straw, or the waste you create comes even a 'nith close to volcanoes and the Military Industrial Complex.
- pmlnr 4y agoArtemis Fowl much?
- jongjong 4y agoWhat worries me the most is that some day, a mad billionaire will decide to implement such measures without anyone's approval. That's why we need to reform the system such that it is impossible for anyone to be a billionaire. Nobody should have the resources or power to unilaterally transform the earth without majority consensus. The problem must be solved at the individual level. We need an efficient economic system which gives individuals enough financial surplus such that they can afford to start worrying about such issues as climate change. Most people are too busy trying to survive the next day to even think about such long term issues as climate change. It became the elites' problem because nobody else has the surplus resources necessary to do anything about it... Even though the problem would be far easier to solve on an individual basis if each individual was responsible for negating or offsetting their own environmental impact.
- chrismartin 4y agoWhat do people do when they have more money? You think they'll be eager to spend it on insulation retrofits and ground-source heat pumps? In our fossil fuel-powered economy, I think they'll buy more stuff and travel more, and most of those activities will increase GHG emissions. I'm not arguing against measures to decrease wealth inequality. But is the sum of (potentially richer) individuals' actions likely to address climate change in a better way than a hypothetical billionaire's geoengineering project? I'm not convinced in either direction.
- joenot443 4y agoA lot of people feel the same way about nation states in which one actor can make decisions which unilaterally transform the earth without majority consensus. The world actually has a long history of political leaders making short-sighted decisions which affected generations to come, can you think of times an individual billionaire has done the same? I'm personally much more concerned with the concentrated individual power of the likes of Putin or Xi than I am of Buffet or Gates.
- jongjong 4y agoI would definitely prefer governments to be made up of small autonomous city states with a simple NATO-like 'An attack against one is an attack against all' clause to maintain peace.
- rubyist5eva 4y agoWhat could go possibly go wrong?
- p0pcult 4y agoPinatubo already did this. The side effects have already been observed. We survived. This is not a permanent solution, so much as a hotfix (heh) while we develop more sustainable solutions. If I were a wealthy truck-stop billionaire, I'd probably do this without asking anybody. If I were the head of a global NGO, I'd be advocating for this.
- noveltyaccount 4y agoCame here looking for Termination Shock references, was not disappointed :)
- p0pcult 4y agoI liked Termination Shock a lot, but I actually preferred "The Ministry For The Future" (the NGO callout), which is more a political thriller and addresses notions of dealing with climate change from many angles, not just geoengineering. (The need to clamp down on financial flows who are still betting on fossil fuels, for example, or the people who will short initiatives to mitigate or reverse climate change.)
- dont__panic 4y agoI recently read both books back-to-back. Interestingly, there was only one approach that actually seemed like a viable long-term solution: climate terrorism, in Ministry mostly executed by the Children of Kali. While I certainly don't condone downing planes and sinking ships, I do feel like well-aimed acts of sabotage -- grounding planes, stranding ships at docks, etc. over a prolonged period of time could actually deter folks from using those methods of transportation. Once the average human being no longer takes unsustainable flights, go crazy disincentivizing the private jet flyers. In both books, reducing insolation is just a short-term band-aid. I think Ministry does a good job of explaining just how many angles you'd have to play (some legal, some illegal; some pie-in-the-sky, some highly practical) to make society more sustainable. The whole thing does tend to make you feel helpless, though -- without broad systemic changes, there's so little anyone can do.
- aurelien 4y agoWe could also ask the God of Sun to reduce his level by some sacrifice.
- LinuxBender 4y agoWhat percentage drop in solar conversion will PV panels have after the change? If I have 40x400 watt monocrystalline panels rated at 22% efficiency what will my power reduction be, approximately? Or in other words, how many panels will I need to add to maintain 16kw? Not delivered yet queued up with a vendor, may change order
- smoovb 4y agoAlso in the news "Solar Power Harnessed From Space Could Be Wirelessly Transmitted to Earth" https://www.newsweek.com/wireless-electricity-space-solar-panels-renewable-energy-emrod-new-zealand-1751884 https://www.newsweek.com/wireless-electricity-space-solar-pa... Maybe get these teams together?
- coryfklein 4y agoShoot, I was looking for my personal favorite [0] but it isn't in the list: send a few hundred rockets loaded with thin sheets of aluminum foil to the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, and unroll them in space as a sun shield. It is crazy enough to be exciting yet practical enough to potentially be within reach given recent technological developments and – perhaps best of all – very easily reversible! [0]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094576522000777 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00945...
- ruffrey 4y agoIt will help, we need these big efforts. But it won’t reduce ocean acidification via too much CO2.
- liseman 4y agoI am actively working on SAI. If you'd like to help, please reach out.
- k0k0r0 4y agoAs someone else once pointed out here on hacker news: "Mankind will rather fight the sun than capitalism."
- marshray 4y agoNobody's stopping you from returning to subsistence farming. Probably still plenty of feudal Lords out there willing to accept some new serfs to work the land.
- pastacacioepepe 4y agoOh please, like the only two options are world-suicidal capitalism or medieval serfdom. You sound worse than a religious fanatic.
- marshray 4y agoSo what's your solution?
- badtension 4y agoHow about let's move from SUVs and heavy individual transport in favor of public transportation, ebikes, having walkable and more compact cities that do not require 100 km commute each day. There are literally hundreds of easy first-steps to be made and I'd argue the biggest pain imposed would be a slight paradigm shift in our heads.
- pastacacioepepe 4y agoIf I had a ready one I wouldnt be talking with you. In any case, blind fanatism for the current economical system is what is killing us, it's obvious that more fanatism is only going to make things worse. It's like having a cancer and pretending the only acceptable solution is to improve the conditions of the patient without treating the cancer itself.
- credit_guy 4y agoNow imagine this: if we could do this, we could just as well put a shade in front of Venus. We could cool Venus as much as we want, in particular we could cool it to below the freezing temperature of CO2. All the CO2 in the atmosphere would fall to the surface. The pressure would decrease from the current 93 bar to very nearly 1 bar (the pressure on Earth). A factor of 3.5 comes from the lowering of the temperature (from about 700K to 200K) and another factor of 30 from the disappearance of the CO2, which currently represents 96.5% of the Venusian atmosphere How long would it take for this to happen? Most likely just a few years. But how do you make Venus habitable? If you let more light come through, the temperature goes up, but so does the CO2. You need to first sequester the CO2. We would need to plant trees on Venus. Initially, we'll put them in some greenhouses. Besides CO2, trees need water and oxygen, but not a lot of oxygen, because once they get started, they create oxygen from CO2. As for water, there's very little of it on Venus, but there's plenty of clouds of sulfuric acid, from which we could make water. After that trees would need nitrogen, and Venus has plenty. Also potassium and phosphorus. I'm not sure if they'd be easy to source.
- AddingValue 4y agoThis is a very tricky topic. If NASA (or whoever) sprays too much UV blockers it might lead to crop failure.
- mrtri 4y ago