Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, but it's enough to validate the delivery mechanism.
A baloon you mean? What is there to validate?
That the media will deliver the payload to potential customers.
Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering
21–30 of 272 posts
Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
> These folks were planning to release 500g of sulfur dioxide — that’s completely insignificant, right? Just a POC? Yes, that is a practically undetectable addition of SO2. For reference, the US emitted approximately 2M tons of SO2 in 2019; that's about 1.8 billion kg. The 500g here is approximately one part in one billion. If the startup added 500g of SO2 every single day for the next 10,000 years, they would add 1%…
OT but your post made me learn that in English "Tonne" and "Ton" denote two different units!
“Ton” itself can also refer two different units: The 2240 lb British long ton and the 2000 lb American short ton. And “metric ton” refers to “tonne”.
Tl;dr: a ton of confusion.
Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering
#23> The tiny startup Make Sunsets, which had been experimenting with releasing sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight in order to cool the earth. This is the mechanism in Neal Stephenson’s _Termination Shock_. The book’s plot depends on a future US government which is non-functional, thus no one can shut them down. These folks were planning to release 500g of sulfur dioxide — that’s completely insignifi…
Pina2bo here we go! I think the first 1/4 or so of the book was a riff on the famous `How do I kill 30-50 feral hogs ...`[0] tweet. I did like the book though.
[0] https://nitter.lacontrevoie.fr/williemcnabb/status/115804530...
Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering
#24See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34158033 with a bit of dialogue with someone from the company about what they are doing (not about this latest event).
Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering
#25> The opposition to these climatic manipulations is based on the fact that there are currently no international agreements that address or supervise solar geoengineering activities, which represent an economically advantageous way out for a minority and risky for the supposed remediation of climate change. > We agree that there are no alternative technologies that replace the need to reduce emissions to remediate cli…
Preventing private organizations from unregulated experimentation in releasing chemicals into the atmosphere? I don't know what you're asking, but I suppose that would be considered dogma from the liberterian extremist perspective.
Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering
#26> The opposition to these climatic manipulations is based on the fact that there are currently no international agreements that address or supervise solar geoengineering activities, which represent an economically advantageous way out for a minority and risky for the supposed remediation of climate change. > We agree that there are no alternative technologies that replace the need to reduce emissions to remediate cli…
I think the logic is similar to why doctors aren't allowed to "just try stuff" on cancer patients without proper oversight, except on a global scale -- if it turns out a geoengineering project has a much worse second-order effect that wasn't considered, people who didn't get a say in its deployment would be impacted.
But why not allow research?
Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering
#27> The opposition to these climatic manipulations is based on the fact that there are currently no international agreements that address or supervise solar geoengineering activities, which represent an economically advantageous way out for a minority and risky for the supposed remediation of climate change. > We agree that there are no alternative technologies that replace the need to reduce emissions to remediate cli…
Dogma? The idea that the people of the earth should have a say in altering the earth? I'll accept that "dogma".
The plan might be defended as just a pure research project maybe. But otherwise, government might not be the best representatives of the broad populations' view but they're better than one random startup.
Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering
#28> The opposition to these climatic manipulations is based on the fact that there are currently no international agreements that address or supervise solar geoengineering activities, which represent an economically advantageous way out for a minority and risky for the supposed remediation of climate change. > We agree that there are no alternative technologies that replace the need to reduce emissions to remediate cli…
Because 'winging it' like this would be akin to doing your development on prod environment. And if by a complete accident one of these would make money for them (through gov bribery, carbon credit equivalent sales, vc investments, etc.), even if the initial one wouldn't poison everyone, a 100 more would immediately spring up and would poison everyone as long as they can make a cool billion before going to jail. That's why there has to be a sensible, globally agreed upon framework for global-scale geoengineering.
And "the economy" is fighting to keep the climate change going to the last breath, because taking any tool from the chest (and we have an overflowing chest right now!) that is effective and working would 'hurt the economy'.
Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering
#29This isn't a Mexican company; the person behind it is.
> Luke Iseman, a serial inventor and the former director of hardware at Y Combinator ... he started tinkering with releasing sulfur dioxide particles into the atmosphere with balloons, raised venture capital to fund the startup, and brought on co-founder Andrew Song to manage sales.
Why did they choose Mexico? They couldn't get away with it in the US, so it's ok to do experiments with the atmosephere of the people of Mexico? After they were forced to stop,
> In a mea culpa blog post published on Wednesday, the startup acknowledged it had barged forward.
> "We appreciate the Mexican government's concern for protecting communities and the natural environment and support their call for scientific expertise and oversight of climate intervention activities. We also appreciate their concern for national and local engagement and regret that we had failed to take this into consideration sooner," Make Sunsets said.
Who believes that? Who would guess that the people of the community and country might want to control experiments in their atmosephere?
Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
OT but your post made me learn that in English "Tonne" and "Ton" denote two different units!
“Ton” itself can also refer two different units: The 2240 lb British long ton and the 2000 lb American short ton. And “metric ton” refers to “tonne”. Tl;dr: a ton of confusion.
Funny, as "Tonne" is the german word for barrel or cask. And also for a metric ton, equaling 1000 kilograms, or 2000 german "Pfund", i.e. pounds.