Scientists Resort to Once-Unthinkable Solutions to Cool the Planet

https://www.wsj.com/science/environment/geoengineering-projects-cool-planet-weather-f0619bf7

by silverkite • 2 years ago

16 21 2 years ago

JohnMakin3• 2 years ago

These are true long-shots. We need to drastically reduce emissions in a time frame that is becoming increasingly unrealistic. I don't pretend to know the solution, but part of it is going to have to be the global economy realizing our current level of consumption is not sustainable. Since that is not likely to ever happen, we should shift to a combination of emissions reduction + catastrophe mitigation (funding for building seawalls on vulnerable coasts, investing in new agriculture technology to help stave off famine, etc.).

archontes2• 2 years ago

We just need to price reclamation into the cost of energy. If a process that has reduced emissions is more efficient, it'll be used, if it's not, it won't, and if the product isn't worth the cost of its combined production and reclamation, it won't be purchased.

namaria• 2 years ago

"You just need to" answers to complex problems are almost always wrong. People can't even agree climate change needs policy addressing. All solutions needing political consensus are an automatic fail. All solutions requiring intensification of mining/industry/energy consumption are adding to the problem. We need less consumption, and short of hitting rock bottom in terms of global consequences and widespread societal failure, that is not gonna happen. So chose well where you buy land.

krunck• 2 years ago

Yes. We need to end growthist economic thinking. Slowing or reversing population growth would also help.

Supermancho• 2 years ago

Slowing or reversing population growth

That has already happened (slowing population growth). Look at demographic predictions by country over the next 50 years. Many countries are going to run out of labor, as the existing population ages, because of the huge decline in birthrates for industrialized nations. To put it in simpler terms, "half of all babies in 2100 will be born in Africa".

jaggs2• 2 years ago

Sigh. Another day, another attempt to normalize geo-engineering. Some of the most insane ideas ever to see the light of day. Follow the money and you'll see where it starts (hint: carbon capture and carbon credits are losing their revenue generating hype).

jdawg7773• 2 years ago

Personally I like some of these ideas. They could be our only hope of preserving earth's climate. Face it, we already manipulate earth's environment on a massive scale - just not intentionally.

JohnMakin3• 2 years ago

They are bandaids with no guarantee of working and a lot of potential downsides with very dire consequences. It's still far easier and more effective to reduce carbon emissions.

james_david• 2 years ago

The fact of our unintentional alteration of the climate does not give us permission to do so further. Imagine this logic in other scenarios, e.g., "he has killed six people, what's another two more?"

jdawg7773• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/1QlL0

dadjoker• 2 years ago

Or, we could just accept that 1) the earth goes through warming and cooling cycles and 2) some warming is not a bad thing.

But, as jaggs, points out, follow the money - that's what this is all about.

hnhg• 2 years ago

The world is not ready for the kind of migration that a warming planet will drive. Think of the scale of social upheaval and conflict. Outside of the human cost, the economic repercussions will be immense. This is why most institutional investors are taking this very seriously. Follow the money indeed.

itishappy• 2 years ago

That's already widely accepted.

Also accepted is that at some point it becomes a bad thing. Boiling the oceans is a hyperbolic example, there's clearly an ideal temperature range.

Not accepted is what that threshold is and where we're headed, because current trends don't look like any warming or cooling cycles in human history.

archontes2• 2 years ago

It's less hyperbolic than you might imagine. Water vapor is also a greenhouse gas. On a long timeline, I believe it is possible to follow a chain of CO2 increasing the temperature until we get uncontrolled CH4 emission that will then increase temperatures until we get into a positive feedback loop of increasing water vapor.

I have read that this is likely how Venus became a hot dry ball.

imtringued• 2 years ago

This isn't a cycle though.

lm28469• 2 years ago

"Some warming" and "some cooling" killed and displaced entire species over continents but besides that sure

ramijames• 2 years ago

At this point I think I've just given up. I don't believe my kids even have a future. We are all just going through the motions.

Scientists Resort to Once-Unthinkable Solutions to Cool the Planet

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