4 ms·

You do realize that even if it might work, and even if there weren't any other side effects like acid rain, this would essentially make every piece of sky on ev

You do realize that even if it might work, and even if there weren't any other side effects like acid rain, this would essentially make every piece of sky on every day hazy. We'd essentially trade the very concept of "blue sky" for a livable temperature. Kinda hard to put a price on that for me. Maybe I'd prefer living with genuinely less comfort but blue skies.

idlewords 3y ago
You can get a lot of darkening without perceptible effect on the sky, and as a bonus you get amazing sunsets. This happens naturally every time there's a major volcanic eruption; this would just be hurrying the process along a bit.
deanCommie 3y ago
> Kinda hard to put a price on that for me. Maybe I'd prefer living with genuinely less comfort but blue skies. If all you have to trade off is comfort, maybe you can't. If you were one of the literal HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of people who are living in parts of the world that could become unsurvivable in the next few decades, or get flooded by rising sea levels, you'd have a different perspective. For what it's worth, I agree with you that reckless geoengineering could easily cause more harm than good. But aesthetically desiring a blue sky is a bit silly when up to a billion human lives are on the line (and that's a low estimate)
- data_maan 3y ago
  I think there's also a balance here to make where we don't even know the effects on non-blue skies on animals, who perhaps depend on the sky being as it is for things like orientation? Would a billion+ animals deserve to die (that did not contribute to climate change), to save millions of other animals, called human (who actually contributed to this situation)? It's an impossible question, but still needs to be posed. Thr fact of the matter remains - we humans seem to try to be doing anything (geo-engineering, clever carbon offsetting schemes, etc) than the only reasonable thing: cutting down on consumption, de-growth. Somehow the human mind seems completely incapable of accepting this fact (let alone acting on it) that for once we need to be humble and self-limit ourselves. Seems to go against the grain of the credo of most societies on earth (in particular the western one). Let's see how many people prove me right by downvoting ...

idlewords 3y ago

You can get a lot of darkening without perceptible effect on the sky, and as a bonus you get amazing sunsets. This happens naturally every time there's a major volcanic eruption; this would just be hurrying the process along a bit.

deanCommie 3y ago

> Kinda hard to put a price on that for me. Maybe I'd prefer living with genuinely less comfort but blue skies. If all you have to trade off is comfort, maybe you can't. If you were one of the literal HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of people who are living in parts of the world that could become unsurvivable in the next few decades, or get flooded by rising sea levels, you'd have a different perspective. For what it's worth, I agree with you that reckless geoengineering could easily cause more harm than good. But aesthetically desiring a blue sky is a bit silly when up to a billion human lives are on the line (and that's a low estimate)

data_maan 3y ago
I think there's also a balance here to make where we don't even know the effects on non-blue skies on animals, who perhaps depend on the sky being as it is for things like orientation? Would a billion+ animals deserve to die (that did not contribute to climate change), to save millions of other animals, called human (who actually contributed to this situation)? It's an impossible question, but still needs to be posed. Thr fact of the matter remains - we humans seem to try to be doing anything (geo-engineering, clever carbon offsetting schemes, etc) than the only reasonable thing: cutting down on consumption, de-growth. Somehow the human mind seems completely incapable of accepting this fact (let alone acting on it) that for once we need to be humble and self-limit ourselves. Seems to go against the grain of the credo of most societies on earth (in particular the western one). Let's see how many people prove me right by downvoting ...