Global dimming and atmospheric geo engineering, has the time come?
July 21, 2023 10:54 AM Subscribe
The whitehouse cautiously supports blocking the suns rays The idea has gone from controversial to mainstream, given the scorching weather this summer in much of the northern hemisphere has global dimming's time come?
Always reminds me of a tweet I've never forgotten: lol we will fight the sun before we take on capitalism
But on the other hand, I'm ready to accept it. It's fucking something.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:00 AM on July 21, 2023 [24 favorites]
But on the other hand, I'm ready to accept it. It's fucking something.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:00 AM on July 21, 2023 [24 favorites]
Sweet christ. You know what would be cheaper and more effective? Completely stop subsidizing fossil fuels.
Almost verbatim what I was going to say.
posted by solotoro at 11:09 AM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Almost verbatim what I was going to say.
posted by solotoro at 11:09 AM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
FUCK, NO. We aren’t the only thing on this planet that’s evolved with very specific aspects of sunlight to germinate, hatch, grow, navigate.
Ditto everything seanmpuckett said, and how bout we use those resources to invest in hyper-local, small scale mixed- use farming , and affordable energy smart housing? It’s like living with an addict in the sell-the-car stage of out of choices desperation.
posted by Silvery Fish at 11:14 AM on July 21, 2023 [16 favorites]
Ditto everything seanmpuckett said, and how bout we use those resources to invest in hyper-local, small scale mixed- use farming , and affordable energy smart housing? It’s like living with an addict in the sell-the-car stage of out of choices desperation.
posted by Silvery Fish at 11:14 AM on July 21, 2023 [16 favorites]
Men will literally block out the sun instead of going to therapy pricing the costs of CO2 emissions into CO2-emitting energy sources.
posted by gauche at 11:16 AM on July 21, 2023 [18 favorites]
posted by gauche at 11:16 AM on July 21, 2023 [18 favorites]
If I remember this one it’s Maggie who shot Biden.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:17 AM on July 21, 2023 [26 favorites]
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:17 AM on July 21, 2023 [26 favorites]
It’s like living with an addict in the sell-the-car stage of out of choices desperation.
Considering transportation emissions, selling the car would actually be more productive than this.
posted by gauche at 11:17 AM on July 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
Considering transportation emissions, selling the car would actually be more productive than this.
posted by gauche at 11:17 AM on July 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
Dumb ways to di-ie-ie-ie
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:17 AM on July 21, 2023
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:17 AM on July 21, 2023
Do you want Snowpiercers? Because that's how you get Snowpiercers.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:18 AM on July 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:18 AM on July 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
SKINNER Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
LISA But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
SKINNER No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
LISA But aren't the snakes even worse?
SKINNER Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
LISA But then we're stuck with gorillas!
SKINNER No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:20 AM on July 21, 2023 [16 favorites]
LISA But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
SKINNER No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
LISA But aren't the snakes even worse?
SKINNER Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
LISA But then we're stuck with gorillas!
SKINNER No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:20 AM on July 21, 2023 [16 favorites]
Once more, the Simpsons saw (yt and ad) into the future, as Mr Burns does the same thing.
posted by njohnson23 at 11:20 AM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 11:20 AM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Sweet christ. You know what would be cheaper and more effective? Completely stop subsidizing fossil fuels.
Too true but, on the other hand, cheaper and more effective as a Republican talking point in an election year as well, that's for sure. Also, what Countess Elena said.
posted by y2karl at 11:21 AM on July 21, 2023
Too true but, on the other hand, cheaper and more effective as a Republican talking point in an election year as well, that's for sure. Also, what Countess Elena said.
posted by y2karl at 11:21 AM on July 21, 2023
"Cautiously supports" and "mainstream" is an exaggeration of the White House position. The first linked article says "measured support for the idea of studying how to block sunlight from hitting Earth’s surface as a way to limit global warming". We are a very long way from the US deploying actual solar dimming, if ever. Personally I think it's long overdue to consider it seriously. For two reasons.
The simpler practical reason to study geoengineering is it seems likely that someone's going to do it, unilaterally, in the next twenty years. My guess is either India or China. They get fed up with the climate damage to their coastal cities and start flying planes to inject sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, just like a volcano does. It's cheap to do this, on the order of $5 billion a year. And they don't need anyone's permission to make it happen. Might as well try to understand what results it will have. Note this is an active topic of DARPA research.
The more aggressive reason is we are already geoengineering the earth with all the global warming gasses we're injecting in the atmosphere. 420 PPM CO2 is a form of climate manipulation, just an out of control and very harmful one. There's enormous challenges but it seems worth considering we could engineer some counterbalance to what we're already doing. We're already effectively at 1.5°C and it seems very unlikely we'll stay below 3°C on the current trajectory. It's an absolute emergency and we should consider any path to solving it.
It's all well and good to say "lol just stop burning oil" but energy is prosperity and half the world doesn't even have enough electricity to provide lighting and clean water. We can't just turn off all energy production. Solar and wind (and nuclear!) are excellent ways to provide energy but they are coming slowly. The emergency is coming faster than that, it's already here.
The best book I've read on geoengineering is Oliver Morton's, but it dates to November 2015 so is probably a bit out of date.
posted by Nelson at 11:22 AM on July 21, 2023 [37 favorites]
The simpler practical reason to study geoengineering is it seems likely that someone's going to do it, unilaterally, in the next twenty years. My guess is either India or China. They get fed up with the climate damage to their coastal cities and start flying planes to inject sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, just like a volcano does. It's cheap to do this, on the order of $5 billion a year. And they don't need anyone's permission to make it happen. Might as well try to understand what results it will have. Note this is an active topic of DARPA research.
The more aggressive reason is we are already geoengineering the earth with all the global warming gasses we're injecting in the atmosphere. 420 PPM CO2 is a form of climate manipulation, just an out of control and very harmful one. There's enormous challenges but it seems worth considering we could engineer some counterbalance to what we're already doing. We're already effectively at 1.5°C and it seems very unlikely we'll stay below 3°C on the current trajectory. It's an absolute emergency and we should consider any path to solving it.
It's all well and good to say "lol just stop burning oil" but energy is prosperity and half the world doesn't even have enough electricity to provide lighting and clean water. We can't just turn off all energy production. Solar and wind (and nuclear!) are excellent ways to provide energy but they are coming slowly. The emergency is coming faster than that, it's already here.
The best book I've read on geoengineering is Oliver Morton's, but it dates to November 2015 so is probably a bit out of date.
posted by Nelson at 11:22 AM on July 21, 2023 [37 favorites]
As the linked article makes clear, the administration did not endorse the policy. Rather, they were required by law to issue a report, which they titled, "CONGRESSIONALLY MANDATED RESEARCH PLAN AND AN INITIAL RESEARCH GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK RELATED TO SOLAR RADIATION MODIFICATION." Many reports are Congressionally mandated, but I've never seen one with "Congressionally Mandated" in the title, which gives a sense of the administration's feelings on this one.
The law required the report to develop a "research governance framework to provide guidance on transparency, engagement, and risk management for publicly funded work in solar geoengineering research." And a goal of the analysis of the report was to "reduce the risk that research is perceived as a step towards inevitable deployment of SRM." That is bureaucratese for, "Just saying it's worth studying is NOT saying that it's a good idea."
So they wrote a legally mandated report that required them to analyze how to study geoengineering, and now everyone's mad that the report did not simply say, "Geoengineering should not be studied."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:24 AM on July 21, 2023 [14 favorites]
The law required the report to develop a "research governance framework to provide guidance on transparency, engagement, and risk management for publicly funded work in solar geoengineering research." And a goal of the analysis of the report was to "reduce the risk that research is perceived as a step towards inevitable deployment of SRM." That is bureaucratese for, "Just saying it's worth studying is NOT saying that it's a good idea."
So they wrote a legally mandated report that required them to analyze how to study geoengineering, and now everyone's mad that the report did not simply say, "Geoengineering should not be studied."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:24 AM on July 21, 2023 [14 favorites]
Seriously though, what are the odds of human beings all joining together to reduce emissions to the degree necessary? I mean, we *should* do it, but will we? I submit the odds are super low, based on our shared history to this point.
On the other hand, what are the odds of us taking some unilateral action that doesn't really require international cooperation, that also involves massive government contracts and big corporate profits, and that provides at least a temporary fix? Folks I'd say those odds are a bit better!
posted by bepe at 11:32 AM on July 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
On the other hand, what are the odds of us taking some unilateral action that doesn't really require international cooperation, that also involves massive government contracts and big corporate profits, and that provides at least a temporary fix? Folks I'd say those odds are a bit better!
posted by bepe at 11:32 AM on July 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
David Keith makes a compelling case for the need to buy the planet some time... as crazy as it sounds.
posted by specialk420 at 11:34 AM on July 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by specialk420 at 11:34 AM on July 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
The simpler practical reason to study geoengineering is it seems likely that someone's going to do it, unilaterally, in the next twenty years. My guess is either India or China.
This is exactly the plot of The Ministry of the Future.
posted by Omon Ra at 11:35 AM on July 21, 2023 [15 favorites]
This is exactly the plot of The Ministry of the Future.
posted by Omon Ra at 11:35 AM on July 21, 2023 [15 favorites]
The simpler practical reason to study geoengineering is it seems likely that someone's going to do it, unilaterally, in the next twenty years. ... The more aggressive reason is we are already geoengineering the earth with all the global warming gasses we're injecting in the atmosphere.
Agree 100%. We can keep shouting "JUST STOP BURNING CO2!", but at this point, the warming that's already baked in from past emissions is probably more than we'll easily be able to cope with, even if we went cold turkey off of coal, oil, and gas tomorrow. I don't think it's a matter of either quitting fossil fuels or trying geoengineering -- we need to do both.
And sure, it's wise to be cautious about further mucking around with the ecosystem. But there are geoengineering options that are relatively low-impact, and that could easily and quickly be stopped if they proved to be problematic.
My favorite proposal is marine cloud brightening. In a nutshell, you put about 1500 ships (or offshore platforms) in the ocean, each of which pumps seawater mist into the air. This slightly increases cloud formation... enough to reflect a little more sunlight back into space, and let the planet cool off a bit. No toxic chemicals are involved, and if you turn off the pumps, the effect dissipates immediately. It's low-tech and low-risk.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:37 AM on July 21, 2023 [18 favorites]
Agree 100%. We can keep shouting "JUST STOP BURNING CO2!", but at this point, the warming that's already baked in from past emissions is probably more than we'll easily be able to cope with, even if we went cold turkey off of coal, oil, and gas tomorrow. I don't think it's a matter of either quitting fossil fuels or trying geoengineering -- we need to do both.
And sure, it's wise to be cautious about further mucking around with the ecosystem. But there are geoengineering options that are relatively low-impact, and that could easily and quickly be stopped if they proved to be problematic.
My favorite proposal is marine cloud brightening. In a nutshell, you put about 1500 ships (or offshore platforms) in the ocean, each of which pumps seawater mist into the air. This slightly increases cloud formation... enough to reflect a little more sunlight back into space, and let the planet cool off a bit. No toxic chemicals are involved, and if you turn off the pumps, the effect dissipates immediately. It's low-tech and low-risk.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:37 AM on July 21, 2023 [18 favorites]
So they wrote a legally mandated report that required them to analyze how to study geoengineering, and now everyone's mad that the report did not simply say, "Geoengineering should not be studied."
Now wait a second, you're getting in the way of our weekly scheduled Fifteen Minutes of Biden Hate.
posted by aramaic at 11:39 AM on July 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
Now wait a second, you're getting in the way of our weekly scheduled Fifteen Minutes of Biden Hate.
posted by aramaic at 11:39 AM on July 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
there's this tipping point i've reached in the past while in situations in my individual life that were individually bad for me. it happens some new awful comes at me and i become immediately certain that there is no remaining hope and that everything i've been working on or trying for has completely fallen apart. when i hit this tipping point suddenly i feel awesome. just really good and happy and free, in that cheesy old "freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose" sense. like, once i've hit certain disaster i can set down the weight of failure i've been carrying for so long and unclench and just let myself feel genuinely blissed out about the miracle of existence as i slide my way down into abject defeat. when i think about it i realize that often i end up doing some of my best work or writing or living or whatever after i cross that line from "probably doomed" to "certainly doomed."
anyway, i'm there right now but with the entire world and instead of fear or loathing i'm like fuck yeah the anthropocene sucked the lolyolocene is great so lol yolo on the way down let's do some weird dumb stuff that won't work come on everybody get hyphy on a planetary scale let's knife our one throats let's see what color our blood is let's do it to us on purpose
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:44 AM on July 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
anyway, i'm there right now but with the entire world and instead of fear or loathing i'm like fuck yeah the anthropocene sucked the lolyolocene is great so lol yolo on the way down let's do some weird dumb stuff that won't work come on everybody get hyphy on a planetary scale let's knife our one throats let's see what color our blood is let's do it to us on purpose
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:44 AM on July 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
This article just reminds me of the time I observed a total solar eclipse. If you've ever done so yourself, you may have been struck by how quickly the temperature dropped when the sun went out.
Frankly, I found it terrifying.
posted by keep_evolving at 11:45 AM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Frankly, I found it terrifying.
posted by keep_evolving at 11:45 AM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
While I agree that this isn't the best idea, nor the most preferable, it may be necessary and it could buy us some time (which, we need!), but volcanoes have done this as long as there has been a sun, atmosphere and volcanoes (i assume). Geo-mimicry here isn't really the craziest idea. Doing this isn't another path towards snowpiercer, or a new flavor of frozen end of the world. This is a low-ish risk solution to buy time.
This is short-term, high-maintenance interventions, as in, the duration isn't long once you start doing it, and it requires regular upkeep to maintain. And, as we've seen with climate change, small degrees of change can make a big difference when leveraged correctly. It's not like you accidentally let too much loose, and end up with a froze-ass planet. That kind of scare-mongering around this type of intervention is not realistic, nor is it helpful.
posted by furnace.heart at 11:59 AM on July 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
This is short-term, high-maintenance interventions, as in, the duration isn't long once you start doing it, and it requires regular upkeep to maintain. And, as we've seen with climate change, small degrees of change can make a big difference when leveraged correctly. It's not like you accidentally let too much loose, and end up with a froze-ass planet. That kind of scare-mongering around this type of intervention is not realistic, nor is it helpful.
posted by furnace.heart at 11:59 AM on July 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
@ furnace.heart - totally agree. Imagine phoenix area in 5-10 years... thats alot of climate refugees headed in other directions.
posted by specialk420 at 12:11 PM on July 21, 2023
posted by specialk420 at 12:11 PM on July 21, 2023
Study, sure. Always nice to have ideas in the hopper.
Should global-dimming be at the top of today's option list? Um, no?
Of course, if we do want atmospheric debris, sooner, [something something Russia nukes]
posted by Artful Codger at 12:23 PM on July 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Should global-dimming be at the top of today's option list? Um, no?
Of course, if we do want atmospheric debris, sooner, [something something Russia nukes]
posted by Artful Codger at 12:23 PM on July 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm far less worries about Phoenix than I am the entire of India and southeast Asia. While the population of Phoenix isn't small, it is compared to the subcontinent, and arguably, they will have it much worse.
posted by furnace.heart at 12:36 PM on July 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by furnace.heart at 12:36 PM on July 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
I have spent my entire career in the space industry. Mostly it is just like any other job, but I have always known that if a large rock was heading toward the Earth, I would be one of the army of people involved in the attempt to deflect it. That is simultaneously cool and terrifying, but I promise I would do my best.
About ten years ago, I realized it was probably more likely that it would be some kind of space based dimming device to which all this career would be leading. So for what it is worth, I also promise not to make things worse while blocking out the sun, and you can trust me because of how carefully I avoid ending a sentence with a preposition.
posted by BeeDo at 12:56 PM on July 21, 2023 [25 favorites]
About ten years ago, I realized it was probably more likely that it would be some kind of space based dimming device to which all this career would be leading. So for what it is worth, I also promise not to make things worse while blocking out the sun, and you can trust me because of how carefully I avoid ending a sentence with a preposition.
posted by BeeDo at 12:56 PM on July 21, 2023 [25 favorites]
This is short-term, high-maintenance interventions, as in, the duration isn't long once you start doing it, and it requires regular upkeep to maintain.
It is absolutely not a short term solution. Once we ramp up sulfate geoengineering, we will have to send up regular payloads, and I mean yearly at a minimum, with no missed payloads FOR ANY REASON, for literally thousands of years. Because if we are pumping sulfate up there to counteract, say, 5 C of CO2-induced warming, and then we happen to miss a delivery, most of that CO2 will still be up there in several centuries' time. Which means Earth will warm by ~5 C in a year or two. It will be a cataclysm.
I agree that the risk is not a snowball earth scenario. The risk is that six hundred years from now, someone misses a payload and we skyrocket 5 degrees in a matter of months to years.
Now, maybe at some point people will figure out a way to actually suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in large volumes. Or maybe they won't. If we start the sulfate plan and CO2 removal doesn't pan out, we lock in a couple hundred future generations to carry out this plan faithfully, and we pray that nothing, absolutely nothing interrupts that plan.
posted by cubeb at 1:07 PM on July 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
It is absolutely not a short term solution. Once we ramp up sulfate geoengineering, we will have to send up regular payloads, and I mean yearly at a minimum, with no missed payloads FOR ANY REASON, for literally thousands of years. Because if we are pumping sulfate up there to counteract, say, 5 C of CO2-induced warming, and then we happen to miss a delivery, most of that CO2 will still be up there in several centuries' time. Which means Earth will warm by ~5 C in a year or two. It will be a cataclysm.
I agree that the risk is not a snowball earth scenario. The risk is that six hundred years from now, someone misses a payload and we skyrocket 5 degrees in a matter of months to years.
Now, maybe at some point people will figure out a way to actually suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in large volumes. Or maybe they won't. If we start the sulfate plan and CO2 removal doesn't pan out, we lock in a couple hundred future generations to carry out this plan faithfully, and we pray that nothing, absolutely nothing interrupts that plan.
posted by cubeb at 1:07 PM on July 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
I mean, the alternative is letting all that CO2 just cook the planet, so... yeah, long-term maintenance of geoengineering may be preferable.
As for effective ways to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, enhanced rock weathering is looking pretty good. Like marine cloud brightening, it's incredibly low-tech: you just grind up rocks that contain CO2-absorbing minerals (and such rocks are incredibly plentiful). Then you spread the dust around.
It works nicely on farm fields -- not only does it sequester carbon, but it also acts as a fertilizer. I anticipate we'll probably be paying farmers to do it sooner or later.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:17 PM on July 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
As for effective ways to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, enhanced rock weathering is looking pretty good. Like marine cloud brightening, it's incredibly low-tech: you just grind up rocks that contain CO2-absorbing minerals (and such rocks are incredibly plentiful). Then you spread the dust around.
It works nicely on farm fields -- not only does it sequester carbon, but it also acts as a fertilizer. I anticipate we'll probably be paying farmers to do it sooner or later.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:17 PM on July 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
I probably phrased this poorly; I am stating that it is a short term solution in that, it can be stopped when we want, and the effects will not continue or persist for a long duration. When we stop implementing it, it stops working with very little lag (especially on the timescale of climate change). It may require long term implementation, but we can mediate that as we need it. It is not a perpetual solution in the sense that you do it once, and then it is just done gone forever.
posted by furnace.heart at 1:22 PM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by furnace.heart at 1:22 PM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
I keep thinking that people are talking about a solar shade at earth-sun L1 point like this article is discussing, using either a solar sail type arrangement or just some shiny dust.
Something that acts like a lens to decrease the intensity of sunlight on any given spot seems like the lowest impact and most easily modified/moved/disabled (well, it's still in space so not effortless).
Lens like solutions are discussed briefly here (with 'one fresnel lens' and 'one diffraction grating' sounding most interesting to me)
Less prone to whim/sabotage/etc, too once it's up.
Unintended consequences are of course not known, but I've always had a warm spot for this particular crazy idea.
Shiny clouds are cool and cheap, sure.
posted by Acari at 1:26 PM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Something that acts like a lens to decrease the intensity of sunlight on any given spot seems like the lowest impact and most easily modified/moved/disabled (well, it's still in space so not effortless).
Lens like solutions are discussed briefly here (with 'one fresnel lens' and 'one diffraction grating' sounding most interesting to me)
Less prone to whim/sabotage/etc, too once it's up.
Unintended consequences are of course not known, but I've always had a warm spot for this particular crazy idea.
Shiny clouds are cool and cheap, sure.
posted by Acari at 1:26 PM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm just a simple caveman, but wouldn't solar shading make solar power less efficient and require us to bring more fossil fuel power back on line?
posted by advicepig at 1:35 PM on July 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by advicepig at 1:35 PM on July 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
As a proof-of-concept, my country Canada is participating in a simulation using forest fires. That pleasant campfire smell is an aid to tracking.
Study away.
posted by Artful Codger at 1:44 PM on July 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Study away.
posted by Artful Codger at 1:44 PM on July 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Trying to dim by launching chemicals into the atmosphere sounds…bad? It seems like it would be less risky to deploy a solar shield into space far enough away that it wouldn’t need to be huge. Basically a single lens sunglass for the entire earth. This would be reversible and we could control the dimming level.
But this is somewhat academic. Reducing the heat from the sun isn’t the only problem. CO2 emissions are doing things like acidifying the ocean. So we need to stop emissions anyway.
posted by delicious-luncheon at 2:09 PM on July 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
But this is somewhat academic. Reducing the heat from the sun isn’t the only problem. CO2 emissions are doing things like acidifying the ocean. So we need to stop emissions anyway.
posted by delicious-luncheon at 2:09 PM on July 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
Okay, maybe just get to work on the Dyson sphere.
posted by exlotuseater at 2:13 PM on July 21, 2023
posted by exlotuseater at 2:13 PM on July 21, 2023
we will have to send up regular payloads, and I mean yearly at a minimum, with no missed payloads FOR ANY REASON, for literally thousands of years.
That's only if we don't also simultaneously reduce greenhouse gasses. Most responsible folks talk about geoengineering as a temporary measure, a stopgap to bridge us to where we have lower CO2 and methane emissions and the earth naturally stops warming so much.
But there's a real danger that folks latch on to "we can just dim the sun!" as a complete fixit for global warming and all the urgency around reducing emissions goes away. We've seen this kind of nonsense with things like blue hydrogen or carbon capture experiments. Climate innovations often serve as an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels.
That concern is why geoengineering has been such a taboo topic among so many climate activists. To be clear it's also a really uncertain technology with all sorts of risks and costs. I think it's worth studying but it's hardly a complete fix.
Wouldn't solar shading make solar power less efficient
That's a potential drawback, yes. It could also disrupt farming.
posted by Nelson at 2:50 PM on July 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
That's only if we don't also simultaneously reduce greenhouse gasses. Most responsible folks talk about geoengineering as a temporary measure, a stopgap to bridge us to where we have lower CO2 and methane emissions and the earth naturally stops warming so much.
But there's a real danger that folks latch on to "we can just dim the sun!" as a complete fixit for global warming and all the urgency around reducing emissions goes away. We've seen this kind of nonsense with things like blue hydrogen or carbon capture experiments. Climate innovations often serve as an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels.
That concern is why geoengineering has been such a taboo topic among so many climate activists. To be clear it's also a really uncertain technology with all sorts of risks and costs. I think it's worth studying but it's hardly a complete fix.
Wouldn't solar shading make solar power less efficient
That's a potential drawback, yes. It could also disrupt farming.
posted by Nelson at 2:50 PM on July 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's all well and good to say "lol just stop burning oil" but energy is prosperity
I am getting pretty fed up with this ubiquitous response to suggestions that we stop subsidizing fossil fuel extraction.
The idea is to fast-track the transition to renewable energy generation by removing its single biggest economic impediment. Without the literal trillions of dollars' worth of our taxes spent on subsidizing fossil fuels both directly and indirectly, renewables would have eaten their lunch decades ago. And the fossil fuel extractors know this full well, which is why they spend as much of our subsidy money as they do on PR devoted to making us keep doing it.
"Energy is prosperity" is a toxic fossil fuel industry talking point, not a reasonable response to proposing that we slap their fucking hands out of our collective hip pockets.
posted by flabdablet at 4:08 PM on July 21, 2023 [17 favorites]
I am getting pretty fed up with this ubiquitous response to suggestions that we stop subsidizing fossil fuel extraction.
The idea is to fast-track the transition to renewable energy generation by removing its single biggest economic impediment. Without the literal trillions of dollars' worth of our taxes spent on subsidizing fossil fuels both directly and indirectly, renewables would have eaten their lunch decades ago. And the fossil fuel extractors know this full well, which is why they spend as much of our subsidy money as they do on PR devoted to making us keep doing it.
"Energy is prosperity" is a toxic fossil fuel industry talking point, not a reasonable response to proposing that we slap their fucking hands out of our collective hip pockets.
posted by flabdablet at 4:08 PM on July 21, 2023 [17 favorites]
I thought this 2009 article in the Atlantic provided a good explanation of geo-engineering options, as well as putting it in perspective: this is an emergency-brake kind of solution. Re-Engineering the Earth. The author concludes:
To summarize where we are on climate change, right now we're still steadily cranking up the thermostat, if at a somewhat slower rate than the business-as-usual case. Once we completely replace our fossil-fuel energy production and distribution infrastructure (e.g. on the transport side: oil wells, pipelines, tankers, refineries, gas stations, internal combustion engines) with a massive expansion of carbon-free electricity, the thermostat will stop going up - but that doesn't bring it back down.
Moreover, there's a significant delay between the thermostat going up and the actual temperature rising to meet it.
If we can make the energy transition fast enough, and if we can handle the warming that's already in the pipeline (maybe 2 degrees Celsius vs. 1.2 today), fine. If not, it's a good idea to have an emergency solution ready to go.
Probably the least risky approach is fixing the problem directly by removing the CO2 from the atmosphere, rather than trying to compensate for it by blocking incoming sunlight.
posted by russilwvong at 5:49 PM on July 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
We should keep investigating geo-engineering solutions, but make quite clear to the public that most of them are so dreadful that they should scare the living daylights out of us. In this way, the colossal dangers inherent in geo-engineering could become its chief advantage. A premonition of a future that looks like Blade Runner, with skies dominated by a ruddy smog that’s our only defense against mass flooding and famine, with sunshades in space and a frothy bloom of plankton wreathing the Antarctic, could finally horrify the public into greener living. Perhaps a Prius doesn’t sound so bad, when a zeppelin is the alternative.Another way to make it easier to imagine: some kind of science-fiction action movie (like a ripoff of Mission Impossible or James Bond) where there's a giant sunshade under construction and the villain is planning to sabotage it or seize control of it.
To summarize where we are on climate change, right now we're still steadily cranking up the thermostat, if at a somewhat slower rate than the business-as-usual case. Once we completely replace our fossil-fuel energy production and distribution infrastructure (e.g. on the transport side: oil wells, pipelines, tankers, refineries, gas stations, internal combustion engines) with a massive expansion of carbon-free electricity, the thermostat will stop going up - but that doesn't bring it back down.
Moreover, there's a significant delay between the thermostat going up and the actual temperature rising to meet it.
If we can make the energy transition fast enough, and if we can handle the warming that's already in the pipeline (maybe 2 degrees Celsius vs. 1.2 today), fine. If not, it's a good idea to have an emergency solution ready to go.
Probably the least risky approach is fixing the problem directly by removing the CO2 from the atmosphere, rather than trying to compensate for it by blocking incoming sunlight.
posted by russilwvong at 5:49 PM on July 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
make quite clear to the public that most of them are so dreadful that they should scare the living daylights out of us
Because scaring the living daylights out of us with fires, floods, freezes, famine, droughts and hurricanes is somehow not doing the job?
It's not the public that needs the living daylights scared out of it, it's Joe Manchin.
posted by flabdablet at 6:05 PM on July 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
Because scaring the living daylights out of us with fires, floods, freezes, famine, droughts and hurricanes is somehow not doing the job?
It's not the public that needs the living daylights scared out of it, it's Joe Manchin.
posted by flabdablet at 6:05 PM on July 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
It is absolutely not a short term solution. Once we ramp up sulfate geoengineering, we will have to send up regular payloads, and I mean yearly at a minimum, with no missed payloads FOR ANY REASON, for literally thousands of years. Because if we are pumping sulfate up there to counteract, say, 5 C of CO2-induced warming, and then we happen to miss a delivery, most of that CO2 will still be up there in several centuries' time. Which means Earth will warm by ~5 C in a year or two. It will be a cataclysm
This is why I am absolutely, 100% opposed.
Based on past performance, we have every reason to believe that governments will not use this as a temporary bridge to reduction in fossil fuels because that would lower their stock portfolios and piss off their donors. Instead, they will kick the can down the road until there's a catastrophic failure. That is what they are doing with climate change generally and that is what they will do with this. Then we'll have the worst of all worlds - continued pollution, cloudy skies and eventually catastrophic one-year warming which could virtually finish life on this planet.
In fact, it's really common for governments to lie about their long-term plans in order to bring on a "temporary" solution as a strategy to stop radical change. Remember when we were going to "rebuild" public housing "better"....conveniently after we knock down the existing housing and disperse the residents?
And consider the absolutely idiotic things that they pretend to "believe" (or worse, do believe because they are wealthy and live abnormal lives). Surrounded by yes-men, these very wealthy people may even truly believe that we can just continue this process forever, never missing. The rich and powerful have no idea about the work required behind the scenes to maintain their smooth-sailing lives, so they do not intuitively think "this seems like a difficult and complex process that could fail, which would kill us all".
But it's what we'll get, unstoppably, because it's something that can be done without upsetting the wealthy - at least until we all die after a pandemic or a war or just unpredictable global problems cause a missed payload.
~~
Over my lifetime, I've seen so, so many programs implemented and I've said to people, I've said, "It seems like we would have to implement this perfectly and everything would have to go right and everyone would have to be on their best behavior for us to get the results that we are expecting" and people have been like "noooooooo, this is a great plan, you're just negative" and I let myself forget my doubts because I know I am a negative person. Then five years down the road everything I feared comes to pass.
We really, really overestimate our ability to keep complex processes under control over time, and we really, really overestimate how much good will and probity people will bring to a process. Just because something would work wonderfully if everyone involved did their very 100% best and was perfectly honest and diligent does not mean that it will actually work, because people won't do that.
posted by Frowner at 5:16 AM on July 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
This is why I am absolutely, 100% opposed.
Based on past performance, we have every reason to believe that governments will not use this as a temporary bridge to reduction in fossil fuels because that would lower their stock portfolios and piss off their donors. Instead, they will kick the can down the road until there's a catastrophic failure. That is what they are doing with climate change generally and that is what they will do with this. Then we'll have the worst of all worlds - continued pollution, cloudy skies and eventually catastrophic one-year warming which could virtually finish life on this planet.
In fact, it's really common for governments to lie about their long-term plans in order to bring on a "temporary" solution as a strategy to stop radical change. Remember when we were going to "rebuild" public housing "better"....conveniently after we knock down the existing housing and disperse the residents?
And consider the absolutely idiotic things that they pretend to "believe" (or worse, do believe because they are wealthy and live abnormal lives). Surrounded by yes-men, these very wealthy people may even truly believe that we can just continue this process forever, never missing. The rich and powerful have no idea about the work required behind the scenes to maintain their smooth-sailing lives, so they do not intuitively think "this seems like a difficult and complex process that could fail, which would kill us all".
But it's what we'll get, unstoppably, because it's something that can be done without upsetting the wealthy - at least until we all die after a pandemic or a war or just unpredictable global problems cause a missed payload.
~~
Over my lifetime, I've seen so, so many programs implemented and I've said to people, I've said, "It seems like we would have to implement this perfectly and everything would have to go right and everyone would have to be on their best behavior for us to get the results that we are expecting" and people have been like "noooooooo, this is a great plan, you're just negative" and I let myself forget my doubts because I know I am a negative person. Then five years down the road everything I feared comes to pass.
We really, really overestimate our ability to keep complex processes under control over time, and we really, really overestimate how much good will and probity people will bring to a process. Just because something would work wonderfully if everyone involved did their very 100% best and was perfectly honest and diligent does not mean that it will actually work, because people won't do that.
posted by Frowner at 5:16 AM on July 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
Probably the least risky approach is fixing the problem directly by removing the CO2 from the atmosphere
Well the risk there is that we don't really have working tech that can do this, so hard to quantify how risky relying on this would be. Even the stuff for taking CO2 out of the combustion outputs at power stations is still pretty ineffective and really expensive, and it's a big jump to stripping it out of the atmosphere, where it is problematic at less than one molecule in two thousand.
posted by biffa at 5:27 AM on July 22, 2023
Well the risk there is that we don't really have working tech that can do this, so hard to quantify how risky relying on this would be. Even the stuff for taking CO2 out of the combustion outputs at power stations is still pretty ineffective and really expensive, and it's a big jump to stripping it out of the atmosphere, where it is problematic at less than one molecule in two thousand.
posted by biffa at 5:27 AM on July 22, 2023
Probably the least risky approach is fixing the problem directly by removing the CO2 from the atmosphere
Well the risk there is that we don't really have working tech that can do this
Yes, we do. They're called plants. Plants do a great job at sequestering carbon. Which is why destroying forests and oceans is a really bad idea. Maybe meet the plants halfway by not deforesting the land and acidifying the oceans and blocking sunlight.
posted by SPrintF at 9:17 AM on July 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
Well the risk there is that we don't really have working tech that can do this
Yes, we do. They're called plants. Plants do a great job at sequestering carbon. Which is why destroying forests and oceans is a really bad idea. Maybe meet the plants halfway by not deforesting the land and acidifying the oceans and blocking sunlight.
posted by SPrintF at 9:17 AM on July 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
Is it just me, or did anyone else immediately think of a sim game where you alter an input to compensate for something else and then you find yourself in an escalating uncontrolled oscillation?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:06 AM on July 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:06 AM on July 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Plants are great at sequestering carbon but you need a lot of them. See here or here or here for some discussion.
The reality here is no one solution will be sufficient to do everything. Planting trees and not cutting down existing trees helps. Removing subsidies on fossil fuels in wealthy nations will change economic behavior. And maybe dimming the amount of sunlight can help, too.
a sim game where you alter an input to compensate for something else and then you find yourself in an escalating uncontrolled oscillation?
I've been wondering why no one has made a really good climate change simulation video game. There's the venerable SimEarth as an example. There are a bunch of modern climate change games on a quick search but they all seam pretty preachy and not much fun. I think a systems balancing game about the climate crisis could be as successful as Civilization or Factorio.
There's a bunch of climate change board games, are any any good at being both fun and teaching about the systems management complexity? I'm eagerly waiting for my copy of Daybreak, a new game developed by some of the folks who did Pandemic.
posted by Nelson at 11:29 AM on July 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
950 million hectares (2.3 billion acres) of new forests could help limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2050. However, he says, “the devil is in the details.”For context, there's about 15,000 million hectares of land on earth, so that'd be re-foresting about 6% the earth's surface. There's about 4000 million hectares of forest now, so we'd be adding 25% to the world's forests. (And there's about 1380 million hecatres of arable land.)
The reality here is no one solution will be sufficient to do everything. Planting trees and not cutting down existing trees helps. Removing subsidies on fossil fuels in wealthy nations will change economic behavior. And maybe dimming the amount of sunlight can help, too.
a sim game where you alter an input to compensate for something else and then you find yourself in an escalating uncontrolled oscillation?
I've been wondering why no one has made a really good climate change simulation video game. There's the venerable SimEarth as an example. There are a bunch of modern climate change games on a quick search but they all seam pretty preachy and not much fun. I think a systems balancing game about the climate crisis could be as successful as Civilization or Factorio.
There's a bunch of climate change board games, are any any good at being both fun and teaching about the systems management complexity? I'm eagerly waiting for my copy of Daybreak, a new game developed by some of the folks who did Pandemic.
posted by Nelson at 11:29 AM on July 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
Ultimately- and I do not say this to justify it- I believe the problem is that continuing to use fossil fuels will end human civilization within our lifetimes. But you stopping using them in your country will end your civilization sooner.
All the problems we have, we have despite the massively useful benefits of cheap fossil fuel energy. Every other problem gets worse without the energy to solve it. Less food. Less water. Less shelter. Less everything.
Fossil fuels are the real-life science fiction drug that give your society superpowers. If your country goes cold turkey, you can expect all the other junkies to mug you to get their fix. And you won’t be able to stop them, because you just gave up your power to fight them. There’s no unilateral disarmament!
And let’s say you massively build up renewables or nuclear or something in your country, more or less out of nowhere, at a truly staggeringly imaginable rate because you just do not realize how much you would need to have to replace fossil fuels. But let’s imagine you did, somehow, by hand wavy magic. How do you get other people to not just burn the stuff you are leaving unburnt? The sudden reduction of your demand just made it even cheaper for them!
I think you’d have to go to war to get them to stop, I think. And that wouldn’t go very well for anybody.
I don’t think there’s a solution here.
posted by notoriety public at 2:35 PM on July 22, 2023 [6 favorites]
All the problems we have, we have despite the massively useful benefits of cheap fossil fuel energy. Every other problem gets worse without the energy to solve it. Less food. Less water. Less shelter. Less everything.
Fossil fuels are the real-life science fiction drug that give your society superpowers. If your country goes cold turkey, you can expect all the other junkies to mug you to get their fix. And you won’t be able to stop them, because you just gave up your power to fight them. There’s no unilateral disarmament!
And let’s say you massively build up renewables or nuclear or something in your country, more or less out of nowhere, at a truly staggeringly imaginable rate because you just do not realize how much you would need to have to replace fossil fuels. But let’s imagine you did, somehow, by hand wavy magic. How do you get other people to not just burn the stuff you are leaving unburnt? The sudden reduction of your demand just made it even cheaper for them!
I think you’d have to go to war to get them to stop, I think. And that wouldn’t go very well for anybody.
I don’t think there’s a solution here.
posted by notoriety public at 2:35 PM on July 22, 2023 [6 favorites]
We're in this mess because a handful of corporations and billionaires won't stop spewing enormous quantities of waste into the air. Rather than slow them down, we're really going to FUCK WITH HOW THE SUN HEATS THE ENTIRE PLANET? Absofuckinglutely not.
posted by abucci at 5:20 PM on July 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by abucci at 5:20 PM on July 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
As has been well stated by others above, serious heating is already locked in -- even if the entire human race reverted to subsistence hunting and gathering today.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 5:28 PM on July 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by paper chromatographologist at 5:28 PM on July 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
notoriety public: And let’s say you massively build up renewables or nuclear or something in your country, more or less out of nowhere, at a truly staggeringly imaginable rate because you just do not realize how much you would need to have to replace fossil fuels. But let’s imagine you did, somehow, by hand wavy magic. How do you get other people to not just burn the stuff you are leaving unburnt? The sudden reduction of your demand just made it even cheaper for them!
It's true that not using fossil-fuel energy means that energy will be more expensive. That's unavoidable. To me it's like unleaded vs. leaded gas: we banned leaded gas, even though unleaded is more expensive, because we know that lead has terrible effects on children's brains. Same thing with fossil fuels cranking up the global thermostat.
It's true that climate change is a massive collective action problem: the costs of forgoing fossil fuels are borne locally, while the benefits are spread over the entire planet. So there's a strong temptation to free-ride, to continue burning fossil fuels while letting other people try to cut back.
But countries are also subject to external pressure, to the three elements of diplomacy: persuasion, compromise, and threats. For example, Canada's a major oil and gas producer, but we're also subject to external pressure from our allies and trading partners. Canada's broad-based, steadily-rising carbon price (fought over in the courts all the way up to the Supreme Court) didn't come out of nowhere: I'm guessing that Keystone XL getting blocked during the Obama administration was a wake-up call for the oil patch. Certainly the oil patch showed a lot more interest in real climate policy in early 2015, as described by Markham Hislop.
posted by russilwvong at 10:14 PM on July 22, 2023
It's true that not using fossil-fuel energy means that energy will be more expensive. That's unavoidable. To me it's like unleaded vs. leaded gas: we banned leaded gas, even though unleaded is more expensive, because we know that lead has terrible effects on children's brains. Same thing with fossil fuels cranking up the global thermostat.
It's true that climate change is a massive collective action problem: the costs of forgoing fossil fuels are borne locally, while the benefits are spread over the entire planet. So there's a strong temptation to free-ride, to continue burning fossil fuels while letting other people try to cut back.
But countries are also subject to external pressure, to the three elements of diplomacy: persuasion, compromise, and threats. For example, Canada's a major oil and gas producer, but we're also subject to external pressure from our allies and trading partners. Canada's broad-based, steadily-rising carbon price (fought over in the courts all the way up to the Supreme Court) didn't come out of nowhere: I'm guessing that Keystone XL getting blocked during the Obama administration was a wake-up call for the oil patch. Certainly the oil patch showed a lot more interest in real climate policy in early 2015, as described by Markham Hislop.
posted by russilwvong at 10:14 PM on July 22, 2023
A short video explainer about what will happen with geoengineering unless the underlying economic incentives are addressed (abolished) as well.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:58 PM on July 22, 2023
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:58 PM on July 22, 2023
It's true that not using fossil-fuel energy means that energy will be more expensive. That's unavoidable.
Again: fossil fuel industry talking point, 100% not reality. LCOE for renewables has seen a very sharp decline over the last two decades, is already well below that for coal and gas, and that trend shows no sign of slowing down. Countries that do more to prioritize renewables over fossil fuels will do better, not worse, than average.
posted by flabdablet at 11:48 PM on July 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Again: fossil fuel industry talking point, 100% not reality. LCOE for renewables has seen a very sharp decline over the last two decades, is already well below that for coal and gas, and that trend shows no sign of slowing down. Countries that do more to prioritize renewables over fossil fuels will do better, not worse, than average.
posted by flabdablet at 11:48 PM on July 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Again: fossil fuel industry talking point, 100% not reality.
I think it's the other way around: arguing that renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels lets politicians off the hook. The fact that fossil-fuel energy is cheaper than carbon-free energy is precisely why we need carbon pricing or equivalent regulations. Mark Jaccard:
I think it's the other way around: arguing that renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels lets politicians off the hook. The fact that fossil-fuel energy is cheaper than carbon-free energy is precisely why we need carbon pricing or equivalent regulations. Mark Jaccard:
Recently, I had a three-way conversation with a leading environmentalist and a cabinet minister. For me, it was déjà vu. Almost 20 years ago I had the same conversation with a different leading environmentalist and a different cabinet minister.posted by russilwvong at 12:09 AM on July 23, 2023
Politician: “At the next cabinet meeting we’ll be discussing policies to advance clean energy. This is a rare opportunity and I don’t want to mess up. What arguments should I make for a stronger renewable energy policy?”
Environmentalist: “Point out that renewables are already cheaper than fossil fuels and attracting more investment, so pushing renewables has no cost for the economy.”
Me: “Did you say renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels? If true, why should government do anything? If renewables have won the economic competition, then government can take credit for falling GHG emissions without lifting a finger.”
Politician (with a smile): “Exactly my thoughts as I heard that.”
Environmentalist: “Well, it’s true. Renewables are the cheapest option. But subsidies to fossil fuels are unfair. If we get rid of these, we’ll accelerate the transition to zero-emission energy. Argue this to cabinet.”
Me: “Good luck. I don’t think you’ll get far trying to eliminate subsidies. They’re difficult to determine, and many economists dispute what some people call subsidies. But I guarantee that the cabinet will fix on your argument that renewables have won. This justifies its delay of politically difficult decarbonization policies. If you want renewables to rapidly replace fossil fuels, you need cabinet to implement more stringent pricing or regulatory policies, and you need them to do that now.”
The conversation dragged on, but you get the point. Statements by renewables advocates and environmentalists that renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels sound encouraging. But if they let politicians off the hook from enacting stringent climate policy, then they inadvertently slow the energy transformation. We can’t afford that.
> this is an emergency-brake kind of solution
What good is pressing on the brakes if they refuse to also let up on the gas?
What good is pressing on the brakes if they use that as an excuse to press on the gas even harder?
posted by AlSweigart at 9:47 AM on July 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
What good is pressing on the brakes if they refuse to also let up on the gas?
What good is pressing on the brakes if they use that as an excuse to press on the gas even harder?
posted by AlSweigart at 9:47 AM on July 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
An orbital sunshade would be precarious, difficult to engineer, and likely require vast numbers of environmentally-damaging rocket launches to build and maintain. Lots of people would be angry about it, because its effects could not be modulated or customized.
Sulfate in the upper atmosphere would have problematic side effects.
I'm going to plug marine cloud brightening again. From what I can tell, it really is the easiest, cheapest, most low-tech, most environmentally benign, and most easily adjustable and/or reversible approach.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:53 AM on July 23, 2023
Sulfate in the upper atmosphere would have problematic side effects.
I'm going to plug marine cloud brightening again. From what I can tell, it really is the easiest, cheapest, most low-tech, most environmentally benign, and most easily adjustable and/or reversible approach.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:53 AM on July 23, 2023
Is it just me, or did anyone else immediately think of a sim game where you alter an input to compensate for something else and then you find yourself in an escalating uncontrolled oscillation?
Aha! We are playing Dwarf Fortress, and the tantrum spiral is just starting!
posted by notoriety public at 11:00 AM on July 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Aha! We are playing Dwarf Fortress, and the tantrum spiral is just starting!
posted by notoriety public at 11:00 AM on July 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
As has been well stated by others above, serious heating is already locked in -- even if the entire human race reverted to subsistence hunting and gathering today.
Scratch the Soylent Something-or-Other Solution, then.
posted by y2karl at 3:17 PM on July 23, 2023
Scratch the Soylent Something-or-Other Solution, then.
posted by y2karl at 3:17 PM on July 23, 2023
Are the current heatwaves evidence that climate change is speeding up?. Contains a pro-geoengineering section in the end but what was more interesting to me was discussion of three specific things happening that may be accelerating global warming.
1. The Hunga eruption is thought to have increased the amount of water vapour in the stratosphere by 13%. That would have warmed the planet ...posted by Nelson at 8:22 AM on July 26, 2023
2. The researchers think that the surplus may be coming from the growth of tropical wetlands, whose plants produce the gas when they rot. This is one candidate for the mechanism that drives the methane spikes seen at the end of ice ages. If true, it opens up the possibility of a feedback loop starting today similar to the ones that seem to have operated in the past. More methane means more warming, which means more wetlands, and therefore more methane. ...
3. sulphate particles in the lower atmosphere reflect sunlight, just like those created in the stratosphere after volcanic eruptions. And, unlike those in the normally bone-dry stratosphere, particles lower down can help create clouds which reflect away more sunshine still. Controls on pollution mean that this climate-cooling side effect has been weakening. ...
« Older In 1999 Olmstead v. L.C. Gave Us the Right to Live... | Fednow service has launched Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:59 AM on July 21, 2023 [60 favorites]