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I 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 s

I 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 ago
I really did miss hearing about acid rain in the 90s
ncmncm 4y ago
It 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 ago
  Doing 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.
gault8121 4y ago
The article failed 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."
- woliveirajr 4y ago
  And we might end up reducing atmosphere humidity and having torrential rain.
  - gault8121 4y ago
    Yes, and so that's why we need to study these things now. These aerosols dissipate - you need to continually add them to the atmosphere every few months. The point here is that this a temporary measure to bring down the temperature to prevent additional deaths caused from global warming. If it ended up causing more harm than the co2 alone, this could be stopped. However, when faced with the impossible situation all of humanity is in now, applying a tourniquet to stop the bleeding buys time for decarbonization to happen.
    - upsidesinclude 4y ago
      >prevent additional deaths caused from global warming How would one even begin to make such an assessment? Natural disaster is less likely than ever to cause death with a higher than ever population. Damage dollar cost increases from weather have increased as a result of development, not increasingly severe events. >the impossible situation all of humanity is in now Compared to the current resurgence in desire for nuclear war, war and diminishing diplomacy? We are not in an impossible situation because of weather. This is alarmist and completely predicated on climate models being accurate, despite that they have always proven to be inaccurate. "Whelp, no issue there, those were the old models. We've got new, accurate models now!!"
Ensorceled 4y ago
> I 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. I think what will kill the human race is the "climate engineering" humans fighting with the "no nuclear, no engineering" humans while the "fuck you, I got mine" humans deliberately egg them on. Nothing gets done and the bulk of humanity dies from runaway temperatures that make significant parts of the world unlivable, drought, and rising sea levels ravaging coastal cities.
- prottog 4y ago
  I think the "fuck you, I already live in a part of the world that was developed on the back of cheap energy and it's really too bad that you will never be allowed to develop like I did" humans will kill more humans than the status quo ever will.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    The “fuck you, you developed on the back of cheap energy, and want us to keep living in huts” humans will do plenty to move the needle. There’s 1.5 billion Indians, Bangladeshis, and Pakistanis with sub-1.0 tons of CO2 annual footprints who want to live like Texans. (My cousin just moved to Arlington, TX and she loves it. “Look at all this elbow room!”)
    - prottog 4y ago
      I have mixed feelings about Texans ;-) but I'm glad that your cousin is living a better life and expending an order of a magnitude more energy than she presumably used to.
  - Ensorceled 4y ago
    We are talking about the same people.
bmitc 4y ago
I have come to the conclusion that most or at least a significant amount of human engineering is to solve problems caused by other human engineering.
nwiswell 4y ago
> I think it is quite possible that humans attempting to “fix” nature is what will ultimately lead to the extinction of the human race. Do you feel similarly about freezing CO2 out of the air in the interior of Antarctica and burying it as dry ice? The natural temperatures are within spitting distance of the freezing point already (supposedly there have been occasional natural CO2 snows, although this is dubious because of the low partial pressure). Seems like it would be much less intrusive overall, although it would undoubtedly cost trillions to accomplish at scale. Related papers: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217183858.pdf https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217183858.pdf https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-12-0110.1 https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-12-0110.1
- kelnos 4y ago
  Not the person you're replying to, but I think these two things are very different. I expect that the results of injecting substances into our upper atmosphere in large quantities are essentially impossible to model with high degrees of accuracy, and the consequences if things go wrong could be catastrophic. This freezing CO2 in Antarctica thing presumably does have some failure modes, but I imagine none of them are as comprehensibly terrible as if we were to screw up the atmosphere.
regnull 4y ago
There is a long way from “we don’t fully understand the side effects” to the “extinction of human race”.
- tillinghast 4y ago
  Sure depends upon the side effect we didn't understand, doesn't it?
chaostheory 4y ago
This reminds of factory farming and how it encourages the growth of bacteria that make both animals and humans sick. To solve this problem, instead drastically changing the way we grow livestock we just opted to abuse antibiotics to both enlarge the livestock and keep them from getting ill resulting in antibiotic resistant superbugs
KrishnaShripad 4y ago
> 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? Well you have your answer already: the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. If anything, it was a grand scale experiment to see how well human beings can listen to and obey Orders. How well human beings can adhere to lockdowns and mask mandates and how well they will work. How well the Government and so called "Experts" will handle the grave situation. To weigh pros and cons of dying due to the virus vs dying due to starvation and poverty. The result is that everyone fucked up. Big time. We are extremely lucky that the virus had a low fatality rate and was not like the black plague which wiped out 60% of Europe's population. None of these "Executive Orders" were through Consensus or Vote. We were forced to "trust" the Government and the "Experts" to do the right thing. And how many of us know anything about viruses or developing vaccines to make any sort of reasonable judgement anyways? A tiny percentage of the entire populace. We had no choice really. Irrespective of how bad they fucked up — from flip-flopping on mask mandates to imposing extremely harsh lockdowns that caused economic distress and induced the recession we are in now — not to discount the crazy Wars going on in the World especially after a devastating pandemic. We have proven ourselves to be the most inept "superficially intelligent" species which is due for another genetic evolution — the last one being the Neanderthal extinction some 40,000 years ago [1]. We let the elites and experts take decisions on our behalf and we saw how it fucked everything up. This is going to be no different. When push comes to shove, some old buffoons, holding desperately on to power, in their 70s, 80s or 90s, with little to no cognitive abilities, will be deciding the fate of approximately 8 billion people. To support these buffoons will be those greedy good-for-nothing companies that will be looking at how best to profit from the situation... all while being on the verge of extinction. We are royally screwed. There is no denying that. If some highly evolved super-intelligent species of the future writes a history on Homo Sapiens, it would definitely be that we were the only species to have "fought amongst each other, stuttering and stammering our way to extinction, taking with us a perfectly habitable planet". [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction
- kelnos 4y ago
ohiovr 4y ago
The US is a democracy. So after the planet is doomed we can vote in someone else to doom it even more.
- klyrs 4y ago
  The US is a democracy, sure, but the atmosphere is much bigger than the US
  - yazzku 4y ago
    Wouldn't be so sure.
    - klyrs 4y ago
      Regarding the democracy bit, I'd grant
kelnos 4y ago
> Who gets to make the call An excellent question. I'd be just as skeptical as you are about all this. And this seems to be a US effort, not a multi-national one? I would hope the US government wouldn't unilaterally decide to do something like this without getting buy-in from... well... literally the entire world. But presumably that would be impossible to do, so it would never get done if they chose a consensus-building approach. Which... might not be a bad thing.
- cmelbye 4y ago
  That ship has sailed. Spraying chemicals into the atmosphere to modify the weather happens around the world already, including in the US.
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
  Weather modification in the US has been underway for a long time. Haven't asked yet
sazz 4y ago
Absolutely agree. In fact, I think it is deeply ingrained colonialist thinking that nature would need guidance from humans. Rather, it's the other way around: as long as we don't see ourselves as part of the ecosystem and take our assigned role instead of constantly trying to patronize everyone else in the ecosystem - we would actually have a chance of survival. The best strategy is to adapt. We are part of something bigger - but just a part and not the CEO of it.
- inkblotuniverse 4y ago
  Our natural place in the ecosystem involves being parasitized by a dozen kinds of horrific worms and predated on by lions. No, thank you.

aliqot 4y ago

I really did miss hearing about acid rain in the 90s

ncmncm 4y ago

It 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 ago
Doing 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.

gault8121 4y ago

The article failed 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."

woliveirajr 4y ago
And we might end up reducing atmosphere humidity and having torrential rain.
- gault8121 4y ago
  Yes, and so that's why we need to study these things now. These aerosols dissipate - you need to continually add them to the atmosphere every few months. The point here is that this a temporary measure to bring down the temperature to prevent additional deaths caused from global warming. If it ended up causing more harm than the co2 alone, this could be stopped. However, when faced with the impossible situation all of humanity is in now, applying a tourniquet to stop the bleeding buys time for decarbonization to happen.
  - upsidesinclude 4y ago
    >prevent additional deaths caused from global warming How would one even begin to make such an assessment? Natural disaster is less likely than ever to cause death with a higher than ever population. Damage dollar cost increases from weather have increased as a result of development, not increasingly severe events. >the impossible situation all of humanity is in now Compared to the current resurgence in desire for nuclear war, war and diminishing diplomacy? We are not in an impossible situation because of weather. This is alarmist and completely predicated on climate models being accurate, despite that they have always proven to be inaccurate. "Whelp, no issue there, those were the old models. We've got new, accurate models now!!"

Ensorceled 4y ago

> I 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. I think what will kill the human race is the "climate engineering" humans fighting with the "no nuclear, no engineering" humans while the "fuck you, I got mine" humans deliberately egg them on. Nothing gets done and the bulk of humanity dies from runaway temperatures that make significant parts of the world unlivable, drought, and rising sea levels ravaging coastal cities.

prottog 4y ago
I think the "fuck you, I already live in a part of the world that was developed on the back of cheap energy and it's really too bad that you will never be allowed to develop like I did" humans will kill more humans than the status quo ever will.
- rayiner 4y ago
  The “fuck you, you developed on the back of cheap energy, and want us to keep living in huts” humans will do plenty to move the needle. There’s 1.5 billion Indians, Bangladeshis, and Pakistanis with sub-1.0 tons of CO2 annual footprints who want to live like Texans. (My cousin just moved to Arlington, TX and she loves it. “Look at all this elbow room!”)
  - prottog 4y ago
    I have mixed feelings about Texans ;-) but I'm glad that your cousin is living a better life and expending an order of a magnitude more energy than she presumably used to.
- Ensorceled 4y ago
  We are talking about the same people.

bmitc 4y ago

I have come to the conclusion that most or at least a significant amount of human engineering is to solve problems caused by other human engineering.

nwiswell 4y ago

> I think it is quite possible that humans attempting to “fix” nature is what will ultimately lead to the extinction of the human race. Do you feel similarly about freezing CO2 out of the air in the interior of Antarctica and burying it as dry ice? The natural temperatures are within spitting distance of the freezing point already (supposedly there have been occasional natural CO2 snows, although this is dubious because of the low partial pressure). Seems like it would be much less intrusive overall, although it would undoubtedly cost trillions to accomplish at scale. Related papers: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217183858.pdf https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217183858.pdf https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-12-0110.1 https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-12-0110.1

kelnos 4y ago
Not the person you're replying to, but I think these two things are very different. I expect that the results of injecting substances into our upper atmosphere in large quantities are essentially impossible to model with high degrees of accuracy, and the consequences if things go wrong could be catastrophic. This freezing CO2 in Antarctica thing presumably does have some failure modes, but I imagine none of them are as comprehensibly terrible as if we were to screw up the atmosphere.

regnull 4y ago

There is a long way from “we don’t fully understand the side effects” to the “extinction of human race”.

tillinghast 4y ago
Sure depends upon the side effect we didn't understand, doesn't it?

chaostheory 4y ago

This reminds of factory farming and how it encourages the growth of bacteria that make both animals and humans sick. To solve this problem, instead drastically changing the way we grow livestock we just opted to abuse antibiotics to both enlarge the livestock and keep them from getting ill resulting in antibiotic resistant superbugs

KrishnaShripad 4y ago

> 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? Well you have your answer already: the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. If anything, it was a grand scale experiment to see how well human beings can listen to and obey Orders. How well human beings can adhere to lockdowns and mask mandates and how well they will work. How well the Government and so called "Experts" will handle the grave situation. To weigh pros and cons of dying due to the virus vs dying due to starvation and poverty. The result is that everyone fucked up. Big time. We are extremely lucky that the virus had a low fatality rate and was not like the black plague which wiped out 60% of Europe's population. None of these "Executive Orders" were through Consensus or Vote. We were forced to "trust" the Government and the "Experts" to do the right thing. And how many of us know anything about viruses or developing vaccines to make any sort of reasonable judgement anyways? A tiny percentage of the entire populace. We had no choice really. Irrespective of how bad they fucked up — from flip-flopping on mask mandates to imposing extremely harsh lockdowns that caused economic distress and induced the recession we are in now — not to discount the crazy Wars going on in the World especially after a devastating pandemic. We have proven ourselves to be the most inept "superficially intelligent" species which is due for another genetic evolution — the last one being the Neanderthal extinction some 40,000 years ago [1]. We let the elites and experts take decisions on our behalf and we saw how it fucked everything up. This is going to be no different. When push comes to shove, some old buffoons, holding desperately on to power, in their 70s, 80s or 90s, with little to no cognitive abilities, will be deciding the fate of approximately 8 billion people. To support these buffoons will be those greedy good-for-nothing companies that will be looking at how best to profit from the situation... all while being on the verge of extinction. We are royally screwed. There is no denying that. If some highly evolved super-intelligent species of the future writes a history on Homo Sapiens, it would definitely be that we were the only species to have "fought amongst each other, stuttering and stammering our way to extinction, taking with us a perfectly habitable planet". [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction

kelnos 4y ago

ohiovr 4y ago

The US is a democracy. So after the planet is doomed we can vote in someone else to doom it even more.

klyrs 4y ago
The US is a democracy, sure, but the atmosphere is much bigger than the US
- yazzku 4y ago
  Wouldn't be so sure.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    Regarding the democracy bit, I'd grant

kelnos 4y ago

> Who gets to make the call An excellent question. I'd be just as skeptical as you are about all this. And this seems to be a US effort, not a multi-national one? I would hope the US government wouldn't unilaterally decide to do something like this without getting buy-in from... well... literally the entire world. But presumably that would be impossible to do, so it would never get done if they chose a consensus-building approach. Which... might not be a bad thing.

cmelbye 4y ago
That ship has sailed. Spraying chemicals into the atmosphere to modify the weather happens around the world already, including in the US.
upsidesinclude 4y ago
Weather modification in the US has been underway for a long time. Haven't asked yet

sazz 4y ago

Absolutely agree. In fact, I think it is deeply ingrained colonialist thinking that nature would need guidance from humans. Rather, it's the other way around: as long as we don't see ourselves as part of the ecosystem and take our assigned role instead of constantly trying to patronize everyone else in the ecosystem - we would actually have a chance of survival. The best strategy is to adapt. We are part of something bigger - but just a part and not the CEO of it.

inkblotuniverse 4y ago
Our natural place in the ecosystem involves being parasitized by a dozen kinds of horrific worms and predated on by lions. No, thank you.