…or we could simply stop emitting greenhouse gases. Like, right now.
We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
61–70 of 165 posts
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#62…or we could simply stop emitting greenhouse gases. Like, right now.
Stanley wrote on his greenhouse gas powered device from the comfort of his greenhouse gas powered office environment at his greenhouse gas powered employer that his favorite greenhouse gas powered transportation vehicle had brought him to, while slacking of from his day job which was to significantly increased the life quality of millions of people while emitting greenhouse gases.
I think you’ve found a great solution. Unfortunately it only works for spherical cows in a vacuum.
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#63…or we could simply stop emitting greenhouse gases. Like, right now.
Stanley wrote on his greenhouse gas powered device from the comfort of his greenhouse gas powered office environment at his greenhouse gas powered employer that his favorite greenhouse gas powered transportation vehicle had brought him to, while slacking of from his day job which was to significantly increased the life quality of millions of people while emitting greenhouse gases. I think you’ve found a great solutio…
Well, generate the gas with renewables
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#64I think I'm a relative optimist about global warming because there are a number of possible climate engineering interventions which seem fairly cheap and could plausibly buy us another decade or so. I can imagine a future where perhaps India or China decides to act on their own to this effect, risks be damned.
All of the "climate engineering interventions" people keep trotting out that don't actually remove carbon from the air end up making things radically, disastrously worse. We know how to remove carbon from the atmosphere, in bulk, with super-plentiful olivine. Cutting off emissions and deploying olivine works. Almost anything else ends up doing no net good, at best, and funnels us deeper into the hole. Soluble iron co…
I have no idea why this has been down-voted. Sure, it's a strong opinion but that's what HN is all about.
Couple of questions:
- Do we have any estimates yet on how long olivine would take to be effective? - Can we do HFC-capture in a similar way to carbon capture? Would this be more productive?
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#65I think I'm a relative optimist about global warming because there are a number of possible climate engineering interventions which seem fairly cheap and could plausibly buy us another decade or so. I can imagine a future where perhaps India or China decides to act on their own to this effect, risks be damned.
you should share your optimism with the million(s) starving in Africa due to extreme drought. also don't forget to put the IPCC in copy, i'm sure the scientists that devoted their life on the subject are interested on your views.
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#66I think I'm a relative optimist about global warming because there are a number of possible climate engineering interventions which seem fairly cheap and could plausibly buy us another decade or so. I can imagine a future where perhaps India or China decides to act on their own to this effect, risks be damned.
I'm extremely sceptical that climate engineering is gonna help: Mitigating continued CO2 emissions is VASTLY more expensive than reducing emissions themselves (in every scenario I've seen so far), and we had 4 decades (!!) to do anything about the emissions but nothing happened.
I see no reason to assume that governments are suddenly going to spend significant parts of GDP on climate engineering if they could not be arsed to spend a tiny fraction of that on mitigation so far :(
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#67What concerns me about almost all of the Solar Radiation Management (SRM) proposals is that they don't address the root issue of high Greenhouse Gas (GHG) concentrations.
This means that we would have to continue them indefinitely, forever, without fail. (I'm assuming that we would just use the SRM measures to continue with business as usual, but having seen our progress against GHG emissions so far, that doesn't seem an unfair assumption.)
And should we fail to do so then the protective effect would dissipate leaving us with full solar radiation on a planet with presumably much higher GHG concentrations. This would not only cause temperatures to soar to hitherto unseen heights, but to do so in an incredibly rapid manner.
It's not clear that our ecosystems would be able to withstand such a drastic and sudden change.
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know you're joking, but your comment inspires me to imagine a blanket of orbiting solar panels that simultaneously generate a lot of electricity, and also shade the Earth. One can dream!
While it's a carbon neutral-ish way (except launch options and production of the satellites) to get power, the energy that the solar panels beam down is going to heat up the Earth as well. The better the efficiency of the solar panels, the worse the shadowing effect. Even worse, the solar array in orbit also reflects heat back at Earth! If the size of the array is significant enough to shadow Earth from the sun, it's…
You don't have to take all of it. If you can either vent off energy in a harmless direction or decide to reflect a significant portion back at the sun, it's not a problem.
Besides, whatever the power conversion technology is, it's unlikely to be anywhere near 100% efficient. That means you need to be getting rid of thermal energy in large quantities anyway. As long as you're at least pointing that away from Earth, it's a win.
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#69Perhaps if we made plastic more reflective, then the Great Pacific Garbage Patch could cool down Earth.
Re: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth
#70I think I'm a relative optimist about global warming because there are a number of possible climate engineering interventions which seem fairly cheap and could plausibly buy us another decade or so. I can imagine a future where perhaps India or China decides to act on their own to this effect, risks be damned.
Was reading about food and economic disaster in Sri Lanka and how much of their problems would be solved with cheap coal electric and fertilizer plants. If we had an easy way to counter global warming, maybe countries could more easily borrow funds for such projects.
cheap coal electricity for the environment? i assume you are joking?