5 ms·

The argument against is that we might fuck it up. It's a good argument.

jjaken 3y ago
We might. I’m one scientist working on making sure we don’t. There are many scientists trying to do that. Hopefully we can learn and act in time.
- somewhat_drunk 3y ago
  What's your take on the viability of geoengineering our way out of climate change?
  - jjaken 3y ago
    It’s multifaceted. Scientifically it’s too soon to say. Engineering-wise, it’s entirely doable. I’ve seen a couple talks in which they worked out how to do it with current technology and within budgets that are manageable by cooperating governments. Politically it seems like a toss-up, but I’m least qualified to comment on that. My hunch on the science side (take this with a grain of salt, I’m a computer scientist in climate informatics, not a climate scientist) is that there will surely be undesired effects. I’m working on method development for identifying all of the downstream impacts, but it’s low TRL. I think we’ll end up needing to weigh the negative with the positive impacts unless we find some miracle silver bullet. Intervening in a system as complex as our climate makes it a good bet there will be undesirable impacts. My guess is we’re ~10 years from confident estimations of what is/isn’t a good idea. Then we have to convince governments to act. That’s really slow. The marginally good news is, perhaps the right intervention can cool the earth fast enough (possibly at the cost of something like Ozone). That said, we are already intervening in the climate with greenhouse gases. The safest intervention from here is to just stop/slow that. We know what the world is like with less GHG. We only get one shot at a habitable Earth, so while it is scary to try fixing it, it’s more scary to continue breaking it in my opinion. No one wants to act hastily though, we’re working on the science to make sure we know what we’re doing.
    - somewhat_drunk 3y ago
      >That said, we are already intervening in the climate with greenhouse gases. The safest intervention from here is to just stop/slow that. We know what the world is like with less GHG. We only get one shot at a habitable Earth, so while it is scary to try fixing it, it’s more scary to continue breaking it in my opinion. No one wants to act hastily though, we’re working on the science to make sure we know what we’re doing. Agreed 100%. Gambling with the only planet we have is tremendously stupid, yet there are many (including in this very thread) who advocate doing just that. The mind boggles. Thanks for your response. I'm a former mechanical engineer turned software engineer who's currently studying data science while between jobs. I want to do something good for humanity, and your field sounds like it could be a good fit, and interesting. Are there many remote positions in climate informatics?
      - jjaken 3y ago
        Yeah it’s a dream for me and I hope funding persists. I wish I had a good answer. I’m a late-stage PhD student and I work full time at a national lab that is doing this work. I ought to start gauging the job market for when I defend my dissertation. With the current administration, there are several national labs interested in this problem. I have thought about looking at NOAA, NASA, NSIDC, etc as well. I’ve heard many of these government orgs are looking for data scientists for climate work, I suspect eventually there will be enough climate-data-scientists to hire them specifically. It’s all government I suspect; there’s not much for a private company to gain from climate research unfortunately.
7e 3y ago
It’s hard to imagine the outcome will be as bad as our current trajectory.
- scottLobster 3y ago
  If everyone acted rationally yes. A good example of how we might make things worse is mandating that every structure have solar panels on the roof. Sure that might make sense in Arizona, it makes zero sense in Maine and other areas without sufficient sunlight, never-mind the implications for the grid. Humans are prone to performative overreactions, because what works and what's emotionally satisfying to the masses are often two very different things. Case in point: the ideological drive for electric vehicles. To ameliorate the greatest amount of carbon emissions as fast as possible we should be going all-in on PHEVs, because you can essentially take the one large battery in a single electric vehicle and chop it up to equip several PHEVs. Plus the batteries are small enough to charge overnight on a standard Level 1 outlet. Given that most people don't drive beyond a decent all-electric range (say 40-50 miles) each day, with PHEVs you get rid of something like 80% of tailpipe emissions from several people, which is a lot more than 100% of emissions from 1 person. And you don't need to build-out nearly as much extra electrical infrastructure or battery manufacturing/mining. But let's not let math get in the way of all the talk about "half measures" and how PHEVs allow BIG WORSE-THAN-HITLER OIL to continue to exist, because obviously moral purity and Captain Planet cosplay is more important that the boring business of actually lowering carbon emissions.
  - somewhat_drunk 3y ago
    BEV lifecycle emissions are significantly lower than PHEV lifecycle emissions. https://theicct.org/publication/ghg-benefits-incentives-ev-mar22/ https://theicct.org/publication/ghg-benefits-incentives-ev-m...
    - fomine3 3y ago
      OP says Perfect is the enemy of good

We might. I’m one scientist working on making sure we don’t. There are many scientists trying to do that. Hopefully we can learn and act in time.

somewhat_drunk 3y ago
What's your take on the viability of geoengineering our way out of climate change?
- jjaken 3y ago
  It’s multifaceted. Scientifically it’s too soon to say. Engineering-wise, it’s entirely doable. I’ve seen a couple talks in which they worked out how to do it with current technology and within budgets that are manageable by cooperating governments. Politically it seems like a toss-up, but I’m least qualified to comment on that. My hunch on the science side (take this with a grain of salt, I’m a computer scientist in climate informatics, not a climate scientist) is that there will surely be undesired effects. I’m working on method development for identifying all of the downstream impacts, but it’s low TRL. I think we’ll end up needing to weigh the negative with the positive impacts unless we find some miracle silver bullet. Intervening in a system as complex as our climate makes it a good bet there will be undesirable impacts. My guess is we’re ~10 years from confident estimations of what is/isn’t a good idea. Then we have to convince governments to act. That’s really slow. The marginally good news is, perhaps the right intervention can cool the earth fast enough (possibly at the cost of something like Ozone). That said, we are already intervening in the climate with greenhouse gases. The safest intervention from here is to just stop/slow that. We know what the world is like with less GHG. We only get one shot at a habitable Earth, so while it is scary to try fixing it, it’s more scary to continue breaking it in my opinion. No one wants to act hastily though, we’re working on the science to make sure we know what we’re doing.
  - somewhat_drunk 3y ago
    >That said, we are already intervening in the climate with greenhouse gases. The safest intervention from here is to just stop/slow that. We know what the world is like with less GHG. We only get one shot at a habitable Earth, so while it is scary to try fixing it, it’s more scary to continue breaking it in my opinion. No one wants to act hastily though, we’re working on the science to make sure we know what we’re doing. Agreed 100%. Gambling with the only planet we have is tremendously stupid, yet there are many (including in this very thread) who advocate doing just that. The mind boggles. Thanks for your response. I'm a former mechanical engineer turned software engineer who's currently studying data science while between jobs. I want to do something good for humanity, and your field sounds like it could be a good fit, and interesting. Are there many remote positions in climate informatics?
    - jjaken 3y ago
      Yeah it’s a dream for me and I hope funding persists. I wish I had a good answer. I’m a late-stage PhD student and I work full time at a national lab that is doing this work. I ought to start gauging the job market for when I defend my dissertation. With the current administration, there are several national labs interested in this problem. I have thought about looking at NOAA, NASA, NSIDC, etc as well. I’ve heard many of these government orgs are looking for data scientists for climate work, I suspect eventually there will be enough climate-data-scientists to hire them specifically. It’s all government I suspect; there’s not much for a private company to gain from climate research unfortunately.

7e 3y ago

It’s hard to imagine the outcome will be as bad as our current trajectory.

scottLobster 3y ago
If everyone acted rationally yes. A good example of how we might make things worse is mandating that every structure have solar panels on the roof. Sure that might make sense in Arizona, it makes zero sense in Maine and other areas without sufficient sunlight, never-mind the implications for the grid. Humans are prone to performative overreactions, because what works and what's emotionally satisfying to the masses are often two very different things. Case in point: the ideological drive for electric vehicles. To ameliorate the greatest amount of carbon emissions as fast as possible we should be going all-in on PHEVs, because you can essentially take the one large battery in a single electric vehicle and chop it up to equip several PHEVs. Plus the batteries are small enough to charge overnight on a standard Level 1 outlet. Given that most people don't drive beyond a decent all-electric range (say 40-50 miles) each day, with PHEVs you get rid of something like 80% of tailpipe emissions from several people, which is a lot more than 100% of emissions from 1 person. And you don't need to build-out nearly as much extra electrical infrastructure or battery manufacturing/mining. But let's not let math get in the way of all the talk about "half measures" and how PHEVs allow BIG WORSE-THAN-HITLER OIL to continue to exist, because obviously moral purity and Captain Planet cosplay is more important that the boring business of actually lowering carbon emissions.
- somewhat_drunk 3y ago
  BEV lifecycle emissions are significantly lower than PHEV lifecycle emissions. https://theicct.org/publication/ghg-benefits-incentives-ev-mar22/ https://theicct.org/publication/ghg-benefits-incentives-ev-m...
  - fomine3 3y ago
    OP says Perfect is the enemy of good