3 ms·

The conspiracy-minded part of me really wants to link this year to the sulfur reductions in ship emissions kicking in this year. The fact that there's basically

• myshpa 3y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/30/radical-ways-to-fix-the-earth-are-they-magic-bullets-or-just-band-aids https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/30/radical-... Dismissing SRM technology, Prof Joeri Rogelj of Imperial College, London, called it “irresponsible, dangerous and a threat to the manageability” of our survival, saying: “It is not a solution but an extremely dangerous band-aid that covers up the global warming problem without healing it, creating a false and unwarranted sense of climate safety while the core of the problem continues to fester.” https://phys.org/news/2023-08-viewpoint-guardrails-geoengineering-gamble-potentially.html https://phys.org/news/2023-08-viewpoint-guardrails-geoengine... While theoretically capable of cooling the planet, solar radiation management could have drastic side effects by shifting patterns of global atmospheric circulation that can lead to more extreme weather events. It also does nothing to reduce harms of excess greenhouse gases, including ocean acidification.
  • mistrial9 3y ago
    the ordinary human ego has adopted itself to larger-than-large for survival. I claim that ordinary humans will use their ordinary ego to invent ways to "manage" the changes that are occurring.. and that will happen repeatedly, despite all reason or science. It is important not to start direct confrontation when someone is showing signs of listening at all.. simple minded responses are ordinary. That is exactly why nation-level Science is being applied, right?. It should not be shocking that ordinary people reply with simplistic responses. The situation is too extreme for the pleasures of ordinary quarralling -- disciplined discourse is called for, even if most people are not willing or able.
• BurningFrog 3y ago
  Not sure what the "conspiracy" would be, but yeah, the sulfur reductions in ship emissions is definitely a factor. Someone needs to figure out large scale injection of SO2 to the stratosphere. Don't wait for permission, just do it!
  • SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
    > Someone needs to figure out large scale injection of SO2 to the stratosphere. Don't wait for permission, just do it! I wonder if a hundred years ago someone said "Someone needs to introduce the cane toad to Australia to reduce the beetle population! Don't wait for permission, just do it!". Not the exact same thing, sure, but we are terrible at predicting side effects.
    • BurningFrog 3y ago
      The effects of SO2 to the stratosphere are well known and understood, because volcanoes occasionally do just that. Without asking for permission.
      • SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
        In the same volumes and in the same way as we would be doing it?
        • consp 3y ago
          According to wikipedia (and it's source) vulcanoes are at about 1/10th compared to humans (as in, we dump it into the atmosphere 10 times as much) and wildfires about 1/25th compared to humans. Note: data from before 1995.
          • BurningFrog 3y ago
            What's interesting here is SO₂ in the stratosphere, not the general atmosphere.
        • 3y ago
• ilyt 3y ago
  "Just do that simple thing, it will fix the problem" rarely works all that well for the complex system unless "this thing" is "stop doing something that makes it worse". Like that one time China decided sparrows are a problem then discovered what they exactly eat aside from grain...
  • rtpg 3y ago
    I know these kinds of stories, and people like to say them. But they don’t distinguish from “spray water into the air to fix global warming” and “put iodine into table salt to fix an entire populations iodine deficiency”. Sometimes the simple solution works! The reality is that even simple solutions involve a lot of work at a large scale.
    • ilyt 3y ago
      Sometimes they work, sure but for systems that complex it's far too easy to do much worse than better.