I see a lot of comments about not harming luxury tourist beaches. But I would (perhaps naively) imagine there’s a lot of garbage beaches along the equator. Is this reasonable? Perhaps in polluted areas that aren’t especially valuable anyway?
Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
161–170 of 341 posts
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like we've reacted when scientists told us about rising co2 levels 30 or 40 years ago?
I don't think I understand your position here. Do you believe there is a profit motive to doing this kind of carbon sequestration? As I understand it, it's going to be expensive to do, and require significant money/time/effort to keep doing it. So, what will keep it going in your runaway scenario? Why will people keep mining and moving these materials into place beyond the point where it is necessary to counter our c…
I was talking about possibility of having multiple projects run by different countries/non-profits at the same time, without any coordination, and messing up the climate even more. Why is that so controversial?
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#163At first I read this and was like "okay, you want to dump 30 Gigatons of Olivine per year for 'a number of years' on tropical beaches" That sounds crazy, considering we pump out +10Gigatons of CO2 per year as it is. But, does the science actually make sense in that if we actually did that, we'd end up with less CO2 in the atmosphere, and subsequently the oceans? That would seem to make this a great tool (possibly amo…
At the moment the oceans are being acidified by dissolving more CO2 in them - I assume that if you dump enough olivine into them to negate that (or rather return them to preindustrialization ph) then long term you'll also soak up about the right amount of CO2
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#164Amazing! When you're team is hiring or looking for volunteers, let me know and I'll throw you some free job post credits to use on https://climate.careers :)
- Evan
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lol. Im sure $150 co2 sensor will be able to detect co2 concentration in the atmosphere of our planet. Climat is a very delicate system. Once we remove too much there might not be enough time to reverse this.
In general yes - Outside my co2 sensor shows an accurate enough current planetary co2 level. Watching it is frightening.
So you're looking at the display and instantly you know what the value was last year, and how the seasonal variability affect whatever you see on the display?
Whatever you're reading on your co2 sensor, thermometer, or any other sensor device RIGHT NOW is only indication of what's happening right now, in your location. That's not a global trend, not even a local trend. And having the sensor installed in incorrect place can mean that the data is worth less.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#166Whoever cares about climate should also read about the biotic pump theory.
Huh. I dunno about that, but I have definitely seen the coastal forests exhaling clouds up in N. California. FWIW.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
4,000 ppm was a period far before humans or advanced primates, and very different flora. 200ppm is around the level humanity, and much of the flora we share the planet with, evolved. It's the level we started to develop from, to farm. Nature and the planet has no ideal, it copes with whatever there is. Humanity on the other hand would appear best served by the level we evolved with - 200ppm or thereabouts. 400ppm cau…
>4,000ppm would almost certainly be the end of us or as near as makes no odds. If by "end of us" you mean human extinction, I'm curious why you think that. Reducing the co2 in a building to whatever level one wants is cheap enough (by bubbling air through water mixed with soda lime or lime) that it seems to me feasible for a few million humans to survive indefinitely even without major advances in technology. (I am a…
So you can breathe easily if you can afford bubbler supplies, hmm. Not sure the global economy is surviving 4k ppm unscathed though. Not entirely convinced "the economy" will mean anything at all any more. :)
End of our civilisation. End of us as an industrial society. Perhaps as relevant and historic as the Romans or Ancient Egyptians. I'd prefer to stop long, long before that.
Who knows all the knock on effects of 4,000ppm, I certainly don't except to say it's way beyond the worse case models I've seen. End of much productive work outside. Reduced performance for all. Probably much of the equatorial and tropical simply uninhabitable. We'd be looking at what, 7, 10, 12 degrees? I have no idea. Heaven knows how many reinforcing tipping points will kick in. I don't think we can confidently say it won't result in actual extinction. Even if it probably won't.
We'd lose both ice caps, so something like 60 odd metres of sea level. How many major cities and entire countries does that lose? I've seen maps that at just 4C much of the USA's farm land would be near desert, and the Sahara greening. Unprecedented temperature, habitat and rainfall changes with no idea which species will make it, and which not, maybe many we depend on to eat. How much forced and unwelcome migration? Which prediction is the accurate one? With that energy in the system are we looking at cat 10 super-hurricanes?
Does it matter if it's 0%, 1 or 2%, or even 10% are grubbing out a post-apocalypse zero growth life or whether it's Mad Max, 18th C or bronze age? Unrecognisable. Unpredictable. Survivors would tell fables that their ancestors did it. Knowingly. Maybe some other species gets its chance and does a less idiotic job.
I don't think the difference matters. At all.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#168“To carry out this plan, it will take a volume of 7 cubic miles of olivine rock placed on 2% of the world high-energy, tropical shelf-seas each year.” To put this in perspective, the global annual oil production is about 1 cubic mile [1], and concrete production is about half a cubic mile [2], [3] (4.4 BN tons at 2.4 t/m3 = 1.83 cubic km = 0.44 cubic miles) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil [2] ht…
In terms of fossil fuel volume in oil equivalents, we are at a yearly level greater than 10 km^3...
In terms of construction materials, these 2009 calculations give 2005 numbers of over 60 Gt...
Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century - http://www.vegetal-e.com/fichiers/2009-krausmann-al_14696916...
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#169“To carry out this plan, it will take a volume of 7 cubic miles of olivine rock placed on 2% of the world high-energy, tropical shelf-seas each year.” To put this in perspective, the global annual oil production is about 1 cubic mile [1], and concrete production is about half a cubic mile [2], [3] (4.4 BN tons at 2.4 t/m3 = 1.83 cubic km = 0.44 cubic miles) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil [2] ht…
That’s to counteract for 100% of emissions, right? A more reasonable goal would be to go for 10%. Still very ambitious, but could be done and would have a pretty huge impact. Combine that carbon pricing, technological advancements, and other sequestration schemes, and targets for avoiding environmental catastrophe seem achievable.
Re: Project Vesta – Mitigating climate change with green sand beaches
#170Well jeez. I know it's not a popular thought on HN, but climate change is a problem of such scale that it's going to need government-level funding and oversight to find and validate geoengineering solutions, and global-level funding and coordination to implement them. This third-way aspiration to a non-government solution just seems like a pipe dream.
The important part is pretending something will be done (ideally by someone else), not actually tackling it.
I'm an advocate that places like YCombinator should be pushing the places they invest in to take this seriously.
Every company should have to present an environmental action plan and plan to become Carbon Neutral as part of its investment strategy. Right now, because it's the right thing to do, in future, because environmental exposure is a huge risk for companies
YC has led the world in tech investments and growth/value creation by typical measures. It should lead the world by environmental measures also.