3 ms·

IDK about "tomorrow" but I think they mean something on the spectrum of non-emissions-reductions geoengineering interventions that ranges from seawater-pumping

by abeppu 3y ago

IDK about "tomorrow" but I think they mean something on the spectrum of non-emissions-reductions geoengineering interventions that ranges from seawater-pumping to create clouds for albedo increases to stratospheric sulfur to intentional algal blooms for carbon capture, etc. I don't think they're achievable _immediately_, but I think there are reasons to believe that we could make rapid progress there (in _addition_ to emission reductions) if we could agree on how to do it without just wrecking the planet in a new and creative way.

toss1 3y ago
>>how to do it without just wrecking the planet in a new and creative way YUP. That is kind of the issue. Among the geoengineering ideas, the only one that seems to be at least reasonably reversible and tunable would be solar shields orbiting or at L1. Even that, the feedback loops are long. Overshooting/undershooting could easily get into the wrecking-and-not-recovering zone. Likely the only sure thing is C02/Methane capture, at massive scale, which currently would burn insane amounts of energy
- abeppu 3y ago
  I dunno, I think intentional geo-engineering shouldn't have to hold itself to a higher standard of caution than everyone else on the planet. When this past summer, we saw record high ocean surface temps b/c container ships had cut back on their sulfur emissions and produced less artificial cloud cover, that highlighted to me that we're _already_ doing these things, but we hold ourselves to a much higher standard if doing it intentionally than if doing it on accident. Somehow a shipping companies does it on accident for decades that's not so scary, but if a group wants to do it intentionally (say, with seawater so it doesn't produce acid rain), that's irresponsible. There's a spectrum of how controllable these things are (how large a region do you impact? how long does the effect persist after you shut your operation down?), and there are things at the more local / shorter-lived end of the spectrum that I think we should be trying. Are they a "sure thing"? No, not absolutely. But billions of us are pumping carbon into the air and nitrogen runoff into rivers and plastic absolutely everywhere. We're already gambling, but we gotta start picking better things to bet on.

by abeppu 3y ago

toss1 3y ago

>>how to do it without just wrecking the planet in a new and creative way YUP. That is kind of the issue. Among the geoengineering ideas, the only one that seems to be at least reasonably reversible and tunable would be solar shields orbiting or at L1. Even that, the feedback loops are long. Overshooting/undershooting could easily get into the wrecking-and-not-recovering zone. Likely the only sure thing is C02/Methane capture, at massive scale, which currently would burn insane amounts of energy

abeppu 3y ago
I dunno, I think intentional geo-engineering shouldn't have to hold itself to a higher standard of caution than everyone else on the planet. When this past summer, we saw record high ocean surface temps b/c container ships had cut back on their sulfur emissions and produced less artificial cloud cover, that highlighted to me that we're _already_ doing these things, but we hold ourselves to a much higher standard if doing it intentionally than if doing it on accident. Somehow a shipping companies does it on accident for decades that's not so scary, but if a group wants to do it intentionally (say, with seawater so it doesn't produce acid rain), that's irresponsible. There's a spectrum of how controllable these things are (how large a region do you impact? how long does the effect persist after you shut your operation down?), and there are things at the more local / shorter-lived end of the spectrum that I think we should be trying. Are they a "sure thing"? No, not absolutely. But billions of us are pumping carbon into the air and nitrogen runoff into rivers and plastic absolutely everywhere. We're already gambling, but we gotta start picking better things to bet on.