5 ms·

Time machine is neat metaphor. Thanks for sharing. -- Net Zero is not enough. We must do Net Negative, a much bigger project than Net Zero. The goal is CO2 3

Time machine is neat metaphor. Thanks for sharing. -- Net Zero is not enough. We must do Net Negative, a much bigger project than Net Zero. The goal is CO2 350ppm, or lower. Today is 417ppm. It will be >600ppm in 2050, our current global Net Zero deadline. There is no either-or. We need all the solutions. To stop and then reverse emissions: solar, wind, geothermal, nukes (old and much more new), storage, transmission, carbon direct capture, solar reflection, etc, etc. Renewables and electrification buy us a little bit of time. Meanwhile, we need to over invest in CDR. Birth of Flight type thinking. Moonshot type efforts. Dump money onto every semi-plausible idea. Any viable CDR solutions will take decades to scale up. So we must start today. -- PS- Ditto methane and other GHGs. Ditto fusion and solar reflection (mirrors). And maybe even, god forbid, geoengineering.

slashdev 3y ago
I think we have to get used to the idea that we’re not going to be less than 600 ppm, even with CO2 capture. I would be surprised if we manage to scale that enough to make a larger difference. But that’s still much better than we’d get at without attempting to remove CO2, so it’s an important goal. The one thing that might change that is very ambitious geo engineering. Which actually is the solution that makes most sense to me. But the very people who are most concerned about climate change don’t seem to support that.
- specialist 3y ago
  Yup. We'll need additional cooling strategies. Dr Tao's MEER project is so audacious and crazy, it just might work. https://www.meer.org https://www.meer.org "Volts podcast: Dr. Ye Tao on a grand scheme to cool the Earth" [2022/06/08] https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-dr-ye-tao-on-a-grand https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-dr-ye-tao-on-a-grand "MEER | Mirrors For earth’s Energy Rebalancing with Dr Ye Tao at Harvard University" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZAIIe4X2MU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZAIIe4X2MU TLDR: We need to shade a lot of agriculture. So make those shades mirrors too. Practical and scalable with today's tech and supply chain. Adding mirror shades to 15% of arable land cools enough to stay under 1.5C warming. > ...very people who are most concerned about climate change don’t seem to support [geoengineering]. Ya. Boomers. Whaddya gonna do? Fortunately, or hopefully, the cohort of anti-development environmentalists are finally being displaced. Meanwhile, at least someone is finally doing the prerequisite basic science on the problem: "How to think about solar radiation management" [2023/02/24] https://www.volts.wtf/p/how-to-think-about-solar-radiation https://www.volts.wtf/p/how-to-think-about-solar-radiation -- Please share any other climate crisis mitigation ideas you may stumble upon. My inner geek appreciates these kinds of hacks.
  - HPsquared 3y ago
    I'm always amazed at how little attention and resources are given to these types of strategies. Solar radiation management and geoengineering. Clearly we have a problem of too much CO2, and are having massive trouble even reducing the rate of increase. We need to think of actual countermeasures and mitigations. It's like if a patient has dangerously high blood pressure. It's all well and good to tell them about diet and exercise but if the situation is really bad you need to give them medicine too.
  - slashdev 3y ago
    I don’t know where the link is at the moment, but I’ve heard it said that it would take about one mountain worth of lime, ground up and spread in the ocean to completely balance out the climate change up to now. I don’t know how much I trust that. The other one that seemed quite viable is using reflective aerosols like sulfur dioxide over the Antarctic. It would circle around in the polar vortex and not have massive effects outside of the South Pole. But cooling Antarctica would add more ice, slow sea level rise, and the ice itself would reflect heat away from the planet. Could be problematic for Argentina/Chile, but probably not so much anywhere else. The potential benefits seem huge.
Retric 3y ago
The earth naturally sequesters carbon on its own, we are simply vastly outpacing that process. So no we don’t need artificial carbon sequestration to hit even preindustrial levels again. Carbon sequestration is unfortunately more of a scam than a practical process. Without actual discouraging the burning of fossil fuels people aren’t going to simply stop on their own and if we can’t even get that far nobody is willing to pay for any kind of meaningful rather than token carbon sequestration.
- adrianN 3y ago
  Natural sequestration is a very slow process. If we want to avoid tipping points we shouldn’t rely on it alone.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Slow is debatable, it’s something like 3 orders of magnitude faster than all the current artificial carbon sequestration systems in operation right now combined.
    - adrianN 3y ago
      A sizeable fraction of the atmospheric carbon only gets sequestered by geological processes that take thousands of years. Comparing it to the basically nonexistent artificial sequestration is not very helpful.
      - Retric 3y ago
        Seems like a reasonable benchmark to say if we spend X00 billion per year we can double the rate of long term sequestration or whatever. It places things in a fairly clear cost vs benefit calculation.
- specialist 3y ago
  > more of a scam than a practical process Elites and grifters always co-opt and subvert any and all reform, revolution, rebellion. That hardly absolves us of our collective moral obligation. We must protect and provide for (present and) future humans. Despite the obstacles. > people aren’t going to simply stop on their own On the other hand, CDR determines the floor price of removing that pollution. Less arm-wavy than current proposals for determining carbon taxes amounts. Anywho, I'd rather try than not try. YMMV.

slashdev 3y ago

I think we have to get used to the idea that we’re not going to be less than 600 ppm, even with CO2 capture. I would be surprised if we manage to scale that enough to make a larger difference. But that’s still much better than we’d get at without attempting to remove CO2, so it’s an important goal. The one thing that might change that is very ambitious geo engineering. Which actually is the solution that makes most sense to me. But the very people who are most concerned about climate change don’t seem to support that.

specialist 3y ago
Yup. We'll need additional cooling strategies. Dr Tao's MEER project is so audacious and crazy, it just might work. https://www.meer.org https://www.meer.org "Volts podcast: Dr. Ye Tao on a grand scheme to cool the Earth" [2022/06/08] https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-dr-ye-tao-on-a-grand https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-dr-ye-tao-on-a-grand "MEER | Mirrors For earth’s Energy Rebalancing with Dr Ye Tao at Harvard University" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZAIIe4X2MU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZAIIe4X2MU TLDR: We need to shade a lot of agriculture. So make those shades mirrors too. Practical and scalable with today's tech and supply chain. Adding mirror shades to 15% of arable land cools enough to stay under 1.5C warming. > ...very people who are most concerned about climate change don’t seem to support [geoengineering]. Ya. Boomers. Whaddya gonna do? Fortunately, or hopefully, the cohort of anti-development environmentalists are finally being displaced. Meanwhile, at least someone is finally doing the prerequisite basic science on the problem: "How to think about solar radiation management" [2023/02/24] https://www.volts.wtf/p/how-to-think-about-solar-radiation https://www.volts.wtf/p/how-to-think-about-solar-radiation -- Please share any other climate crisis mitigation ideas you may stumble upon. My inner geek appreciates these kinds of hacks.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  I'm always amazed at how little attention and resources are given to these types of strategies. Solar radiation management and geoengineering. Clearly we have a problem of too much CO2, and are having massive trouble even reducing the rate of increase. We need to think of actual countermeasures and mitigations. It's like if a patient has dangerously high blood pressure. It's all well and good to tell them about diet and exercise but if the situation is really bad you need to give them medicine too.
- slashdev 3y ago
  I don’t know where the link is at the moment, but I’ve heard it said that it would take about one mountain worth of lime, ground up and spread in the ocean to completely balance out the climate change up to now. I don’t know how much I trust that. The other one that seemed quite viable is using reflective aerosols like sulfur dioxide over the Antarctic. It would circle around in the polar vortex and not have massive effects outside of the South Pole. But cooling Antarctica would add more ice, slow sea level rise, and the ice itself would reflect heat away from the planet. Could be problematic for Argentina/Chile, but probably not so much anywhere else. The potential benefits seem huge.

Retric 3y ago

The earth naturally sequesters carbon on its own, we are simply vastly outpacing that process. So no we don’t need artificial carbon sequestration to hit even preindustrial levels again. Carbon sequestration is unfortunately more of a scam than a practical process. Without actual discouraging the burning of fossil fuels people aren’t going to simply stop on their own and if we can’t even get that far nobody is willing to pay for any kind of meaningful rather than token carbon sequestration.

adrianN 3y ago
Natural sequestration is a very slow process. If we want to avoid tipping points we shouldn’t rely on it alone.
- Retric 3y ago
  Slow is debatable, it’s something like 3 orders of magnitude faster than all the current artificial carbon sequestration systems in operation right now combined.
  - adrianN 3y ago
    A sizeable fraction of the atmospheric carbon only gets sequestered by geological processes that take thousands of years. Comparing it to the basically nonexistent artificial sequestration is not very helpful.
    - Retric 3y ago
      Seems like a reasonable benchmark to say if we spend X00 billion per year we can double the rate of long term sequestration or whatever. It places things in a fairly clear cost vs benefit calculation.
specialist 3y ago
> more of a scam than a practical process Elites and grifters always co-opt and subvert any and all reform, revolution, rebellion. That hardly absolves us of our collective moral obligation. We must protect and provide for (present and) future humans. Despite the obstacles. > people aren’t going to simply stop on their own On the other hand, CDR determines the floor price of removing that pollution. Less arm-wavy than current proposals for determining carbon taxes amounts. Anywho, I'd rather try than not try. YMMV.