6 ms·

Open letter regarding research on reflecting sunlight to reduce climate change

20 points by paulkrush 4y ago

paulkrush 4y ago
Full title is: An open letter regarding research on reflecting sunlight to reduce the risks of climate change
splittingTimes 4y ago
Decreasing the total energy exposure of the complete biosphere to reduce temperature rise sounds risky to me. Yes, it might not become as warm, but especially plants need sunlight for photosynthesis / oxygen production. If we deny the plants that energy the ripple effect throughout the biosphere will be huge.
- JPLeRouzic 4y ago
  and farewell amateur astronomy.
  - nickff 4y ago
    How and why? Could you please elaborate? Satellites are negatively impacting astrophotography, but I don't understand how reducing insolation will destroy amateur astronomy.
    - etrautmann 4y ago
      There’s really no way it could under any plausible configuration
- meany 4y ago
  Is that the purpose of the proposed research to understand the risks and potential benefits?
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  It might also be the case that we have no choice but to do this. I'd rather the research get done now, before that (potentially) happens. I think the fact that the scientific community is writing these letters should also be interpreted as a data-point indicating that this point is close, perhaps even behind us.
  - nickff 4y ago
    But it isn't "[the scientific community [...] writing these letters", it's a few scientists. There are a wide spectrum of beliefs within the scientific community, each holding a set of beliefs about where we are, and a separate set of beliefs about what should be done.
    - Turing_Machine 4y ago
      Yes. The standard strategy when there's a "wide spectrum of beliefs" is to do research. And?
leemelone 4y ago
SRM is a really REALLY bad idea. The End.
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  Is it worse than climate change on the current trajectory? How do you know, if we do not study it?
hyperhello 4y ago
If the world did this, I believe the fossil fuel companies would compensate by increasing their pollution in a deliberate show of status and power.
- paulkrush 4y ago
  I argee, in the Termination Shock book the oil companies flipped to die hard believers in climate change, and became supporters in high atmosphere SO2 injection.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  Ok maybe it wouldn't be quite so ridiculous of a cackling smoky room headed by the Rothschild conspiracy, but to the comment's point, why do this if it simply provides an excuse to hold off policy and behavioral changes that actually control emissions? Carbon sequestration/extraction needs to be tied to heavy taxes on carbon emissions. What really annoys me about carbon taxes is that people want to do the offsets of the gas that burns now. Um, what about the untaxed previous century of emissions, which got us to that point? A true carbon tax addresses offset for the emission AND eats into the existing backlog. Which is .... huge .... amounts of carbon. If the US is spending more money on the military than addressing global climate change, you know that the power elite simply don't get it. I won't hold my breath on that.
- lapinot 4y ago
  Yes! All these co2 extraction, sunlight reflection and other surrealistic terraforming methods are mainly a way to continue doing what we know is the actual source of this whole shit: running factories.
Ancalagon 4y ago
I agree with this research proposal but I'd be lying if I didn't say using this as a strategy moving forward to mitigate climate change didn't absolutely terrify me. The best and only way I agree with this is some sort of maneuverable lagrange-point satellite mirror. That way if we find we are totally fucking the environment we can reverse it immediately.
- xracy 4y ago
  Yeah, Lagrange point satellite definitely feels like the only removable option that would be safe... And even that seems like it would be contentious. (How do you decide when to reduce sunlight for what countries) Also agree with all of the comments, that this is really just a way for us to continue our current trajectory. Anything short of this in the "upper atmosphere" feels like an absolute non-starter, and this even feels like a non-starter as it is...
myshpa 4y ago
That's not a solution, that's madness. Alternative solution. Stop worshiping economic growth. Fade out fossil fuels in energy (atomic), industry and transport (trains). Stop animal agriculture (30% of all habitable land), and reforest the grazing lands (double the forest area). Enable rewilding of nature (anthropocene) and repopulation of the oceans (90% of sharks now already gone). But that would require a will to really do something. It's easier to spray some poisons into the atmosphere, I suppose.
- martopix 4y ago
  I don't see any substantiated arguments on why this is 'madness' and in what sense these are 'poisons'. And on how to implement your 'solution'.
  - myshpa 4y ago
    Have you read the letter? It's not a call for implementing SRM, but for studying its effects (so call for funding the research). Even they admit that: > While we fully support research into SRM approaches, this does not mean we support the use of SRM. > SRM does not address the cause of climate change, nor all of the effects of increased greenhouse gas concentrations, it likely will never be an appropriate candidate for an open market system of credits and independent actors Madness is focusing on methods of mitigation of one particular aspect of the "climate change". I put this in the same bucket like the shading of the sun from the space (few weeks/moths ago?). Climate change is in fact a wrong term. We should focus on all aspects of anthropocene, especially on biodiversity and restoration of ecosystems. With functioning ecosystems and with us not flooding the earth and atmosphere with poisons (stuff that does not belong in such big quantities, like co2, methane, pfoas, plastics, pesticides/herbidices, fertilizers, etc. etc.) the nature will return to the optimum state. Let's diminish ourselves and let the nature repair itself. Hoping that some miraculous, non-existent technology will solve our problems while ignoring obvious and easy solutions (stop doing the bad stuff) exist is madness. Promoting such efforts makes the population complacement (no need to do anything personally, it's being worked on, let's consume more). Propaganda and greed. Same old, same old.

20 points by paulkrush 4y ago

Full title is: An open letter regarding research on reflecting sunlight to reduce the risks of climate change

Decreasing the total energy exposure of the complete biosphere to reduce temperature rise sounds risky to me. Yes, it might not become as warm, but especially plants need sunlight for photosynthesis / oxygen production. If we deny the plants that energy the ripple effect throughout the biosphere will be huge.

JPLeRouzic 4y ago
and farewell amateur astronomy.
- nickff 4y ago
  How and why? Could you please elaborate? Satellites are negatively impacting astrophotography, but I don't understand how reducing insolation will destroy amateur astronomy.
  - etrautmann 4y ago
    There’s really no way it could under any plausible configuration
meany 4y ago
Is that the purpose of the proposed research to understand the risks and potential benefits?
matthewdgreen 4y ago
It might also be the case that we have no choice but to do this. I'd rather the research get done now, before that (potentially) happens. I think the fact that the scientific community is writing these letters should also be interpreted as a data-point indicating that this point is close, perhaps even behind us.
- nickff 4y ago
  But it isn't "[the scientific community [...] writing these letters", it's a few scientists. There are a wide spectrum of beliefs within the scientific community, each holding a set of beliefs about where we are, and a separate set of beliefs about what should be done.
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    Yes. The standard strategy when there's a "wide spectrum of beliefs" is to do research. And?

leemelone 4y ago

SRM is a really REALLY bad idea. The End.

Robotbeat 4y ago
Is it worse than climate change on the current trajectory? How do you know, if we do not study it?

hyperhello 4y ago

If the world did this, I believe the fossil fuel companies would compensate by increasing their pollution in a deliberate show of status and power.

paulkrush 4y ago
I argee, in the Termination Shock book the oil companies flipped to die hard believers in climate change, and became supporters in high atmosphere SO2 injection.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Ok maybe it wouldn't be quite so ridiculous of a cackling smoky room headed by the Rothschild conspiracy, but to the comment's point, why do this if it simply provides an excuse to hold off policy and behavioral changes that actually control emissions? Carbon sequestration/extraction needs to be tied to heavy taxes on carbon emissions. What really annoys me about carbon taxes is that people want to do the offsets of the gas that burns now. Um, what about the untaxed previous century of emissions, which got us to that point? A true carbon tax addresses offset for the emission AND eats into the existing backlog. Which is .... huge .... amounts of carbon. If the US is spending more money on the military than addressing global climate change, you know that the power elite simply don't get it. I won't hold my breath on that.
lapinot 4y ago
Yes! All these co2 extraction, sunlight reflection and other surrealistic terraforming methods are mainly a way to continue doing what we know is the actual source of this whole shit: running factories.

Ancalagon 4y ago

I agree with this research proposal but I'd be lying if I didn't say using this as a strategy moving forward to mitigate climate change didn't absolutely terrify me. The best and only way I agree with this is some sort of maneuverable lagrange-point satellite mirror. That way if we find we are totally fucking the environment we can reverse it immediately.

xracy 4y ago
Yeah, Lagrange point satellite definitely feels like the only removable option that would be safe... And even that seems like it would be contentious. (How do you decide when to reduce sunlight for what countries) Also agree with all of the comments, that this is really just a way for us to continue our current trajectory. Anything short of this in the "upper atmosphere" feels like an absolute non-starter, and this even feels like a non-starter as it is...

myshpa 4y ago

That's not a solution, that's madness. Alternative solution. Stop worshiping economic growth. Fade out fossil fuels in energy (atomic), industry and transport (trains). Stop animal agriculture (30% of all habitable land), and reforest the grazing lands (double the forest area). Enable rewilding of nature (anthropocene) and repopulation of the oceans (90% of sharks now already gone). But that would require a will to really do something. It's easier to spray some poisons into the atmosphere, I suppose.

martopix 4y ago
I don't see any substantiated arguments on why this is 'madness' and in what sense these are 'poisons'. And on how to implement your 'solution'.
- myshpa 4y ago
  Have you read the letter? It's not a call for implementing SRM, but for studying its effects (so call for funding the research). Even they admit that: > While we fully support research into SRM approaches, this does not mean we support the use of SRM. > SRM does not address the cause of climate change, nor all of the effects of increased greenhouse gas concentrations, it likely will never be an appropriate candidate for an open market system of credits and independent actors Madness is focusing on methods of mitigation of one particular aspect of the "climate change". I put this in the same bucket like the shading of the sun from the space (few weeks/moths ago?). Climate change is in fact a wrong term. We should focus on all aspects of anthropocene, especially on biodiversity and restoration of ecosystems. With functioning ecosystems and with us not flooding the earth and atmosphere with poisons (stuff that does not belong in such big quantities, like co2, methane, pfoas, plastics, pesticides/herbidices, fertilizers, etc. etc.) the nature will return to the optimum state. Let's diminish ourselves and let the nature repair itself. Hoping that some miraculous, non-existent technology will solve our problems while ignoring obvious and easy solutions (stop doing the bad stuff) exist is madness. Promoting such efforts makes the population complacement (no need to do anything personally, it's being worked on, let's consume more). Propaganda and greed. Same old, same old.