5 ms·

I think its a good idea and we should do it. I regularly see areas which were snow covered and white now brown and much warmer. Unfortunately its also the plot

by rr888 4y ago

I think its a good idea and we should do it. I regularly see areas which were snow covered and white now brown and much warmer. Unfortunately its also the plot of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowpiercer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowpiercer where it overshoots.

snapcaster 4y ago
Are you serious? you don't have any concerns about the impact on animal life? plants? human quality of life? It seems completely insane to think this is a good idea
- yreg 4y ago
  How about the concerns if we don't do geo-engineering? Seems difficult to guess which concern should be higher.
  - snapcaster 4y ago
    It's not hard to guess at all, i feel like everyone responding to my comment must be trolling. DIMMING THE SUN will have so many second and third order effects you have no idea about! this is madness
    - yreg 4y ago
      I promise I’m not trolling. >have so many second and third order effects you have no idea about So has raising the Earth’s temperature, in addition to all the severe effects we know about. I don’t know how to compare those risks.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  The point is that the effects of CO2 are so dire that even a very problematic half measure could be worthwhile. OF COURSE CO2 emissions should also be addressed; these efforts are just to emphasize how serious the problem is, that one would rationally have to consider such steps.
- wolfram74 4y ago
  It is possible to be concerned about the viability of the ecosystem and still want to do geoengineering, mainly by being convinced that current trends point essentially an unviable ecosystem on incredibly short time scales. For example, the wet bulb thermometer temperature forecasted for large swathes of land near the equator essentially means it's uninhabitable for mammals several weeks of the year. Its the perceived choice between 1) Do nothing and watch everything die or 2) try something risky and if it goes wrong, watch everything die.
  - snapcaster 4y ago
    Those aren't remotely the choices! If we do nothing _everything_ will die? that is so absurd i don't even know how to respond to that. It's hard to not suspect you're trolling I can't believe someone actually for real thinks like this
    - wolfram74 4y ago
      Everything dieing is pretty far out on the bell curve. 99% of humans? That's inside the range of reasonable considerations given how little slack we've left in the system.
      - snapcaster 4y ago
        Nonsense. 99% of humans will refuse to adjust or adapt and just die? how can you actually believe this?
        wolfram74 4y ago
        It comes down to how fast things change. No amount of optimism over comes the fact that you need ~10 megajoules of food and ~3 liters of water on a daily basis. Producing those things for 8 gigapeople involves a lot of infrastructure that took a decent amount of time to build working correctly. Farmland and logistics hubs in places that no longer get rain water and have run out of aquifers to tap need to be replaced somewhere more fertile. Desalination plants to replace dried up rivers need to be built. None of these can be operated on credit because giving someone a years supply of water after a year of drinking nothing just washes the corpse. If the numbers shake out that there's a 10% shortfall, which 10% of population volunteers to starve their children? Or do fights break out? How does those fights stay constrained enough to not damage already strained infrastructure exacerbating the problem? This is not a guaranteed outcome, but if you've seen how wide spread "just in time" logistics has gotten over the last 20 years and think it's impossible, I applaud your optimism. And also don't want you anywhere near disaster planning.
- hoseja 4y ago
  It's totally doable in a limited way (low half-life blockers).
Jyaif 4y ago
Even if it works perfectly, there at least one way it may backfire. Right now the increase in temperature is unprecedentedly fast, but many organisms can still adapt because the rise is spread over decades. If at any time during the next couple of thousands of years our society is unable or unwilling to send the required payloads to cool earth, then the temperature will increase by several degrees in a few years, and fewer organisms will be able to adapt.
kmeisthax 4y ago
The thing about solar geoengineering is that, if you stop spraying, the particles settle in a matter of years and we're back to +1.5C again. I'm tempted to say that the possibility of an overshoot is nigh-impossible; but it's more the case that it's quickly reversed because we're still fighting uphill against all the heat we trapped under a blanket of carbon.
- pencilguin 4y ago
  Not just back to +1.5C, but to where you would have been by that time. Meanwhile, the whole ocean ecosystem has collapsed as acidification continued on up. The primary protein source of a billion+ people has vanished. They do not starve quietly.

by rr888 4y ago

snapcaster 4y ago

Are you serious? you don't have any concerns about the impact on animal life? plants? human quality of life? It seems completely insane to think this is a good idea

yreg 4y ago
How about the concerns if we don't do geo-engineering? Seems difficult to guess which concern should be higher.
- snapcaster 4y ago
  It's not hard to guess at all, i feel like everyone responding to my comment must be trolling. DIMMING THE SUN will have so many second and third order effects you have no idea about! this is madness
  - yreg 4y ago
    I promise I’m not trolling. >have so many second and third order effects you have no idea about So has raising the Earth’s temperature, in addition to all the severe effects we know about. I don’t know how to compare those risks.
pfdietz 4y ago
The point is that the effects of CO2 are so dire that even a very problematic half measure could be worthwhile. OF COURSE CO2 emissions should also be addressed; these efforts are just to emphasize how serious the problem is, that one would rationally have to consider such steps.
wolfram74 4y ago
It is possible to be concerned about the viability of the ecosystem and still want to do geoengineering, mainly by being convinced that current trends point essentially an unviable ecosystem on incredibly short time scales. For example, the wet bulb thermometer temperature forecasted for large swathes of land near the equator essentially means it's uninhabitable for mammals several weeks of the year. Its the perceived choice between 1) Do nothing and watch everything die or 2) try something risky and if it goes wrong, watch everything die.
- snapcaster 4y ago
  Those aren't remotely the choices! If we do nothing _everything_ will die? that is so absurd i don't even know how to respond to that. It's hard to not suspect you're trolling I can't believe someone actually for real thinks like this
  - wolfram74 4y ago
    Everything dieing is pretty far out on the bell curve. 99% of humans? That's inside the range of reasonable considerations given how little slack we've left in the system.
    - snapcaster 4y ago
      Nonsense. 99% of humans will refuse to adjust or adapt and just die? how can you actually believe this?
      - wolfram74 4y ago
        It comes down to how fast things change. No amount of optimism over comes the fact that you need ~10 megajoules of food and ~3 liters of water on a daily basis. Producing those things for 8 gigapeople involves a lot of infrastructure that took a decent amount of time to build working correctly. Farmland and logistics hubs in places that no longer get rain water and have run out of aquifers to tap need to be replaced somewhere more fertile. Desalination plants to replace dried up rivers need to be built. None of these can be operated on credit because giving someone a years supply of water after a year of drinking nothing just washes the corpse. If the numbers shake out that there's a 10% shortfall, which 10% of population volunteers to starve their children? Or do fights break out? How does those fights stay constrained enough to not damage already strained infrastructure exacerbating the problem? This is not a guaranteed outcome, but if you've seen how wide spread "just in time" logistics has gotten over the last 20 years and think it's impossible, I applaud your optimism. And also don't want you anywhere near disaster planning.
hoseja 4y ago
It's totally doable in a limited way (low half-life blockers).

Jyaif 4y ago

Even if it works perfectly, there at least one way it may backfire. Right now the increase in temperature is unprecedentedly fast, but many organisms can still adapt because the rise is spread over decades. If at any time during the next couple of thousands of years our society is unable or unwilling to send the required payloads to cool earth, then the temperature will increase by several degrees in a few years, and fewer organisms will be able to adapt.

kmeisthax 4y ago

The thing about solar geoengineering is that, if you stop spraying, the particles settle in a matter of years and we're back to +1.5C again. I'm tempted to say that the possibility of an overshoot is nigh-impossible; but it's more the case that it's quickly reversed because we're still fighting uphill against all the heat we trapped under a blanket of carbon.

pencilguin 4y ago
Not just back to +1.5C, but to where you would have been by that time. Meanwhile, the whole ocean ecosystem has collapsed as acidification continued on up. The primary protein source of a billion+ people has vanished. They do not starve quietly.