Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 272 posts

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#81

Post by paganel »

cgeier wrote: post #73
paganel wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if you look at the horrible effects climate change is already causing now What are those "horrible effects"? And how do you know the cure won't be worst than the supposed "horrible effects" it is meant to make disappear?

Have a look at this for some first ideas: https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate/... (think more draughts, much more intense wildfire seasons, intense rain events, nature's rhythm which is depending on temperature being disturbed). And I don't know if the "cure" will be worse, that's why for now, I'm only advocating for research into solar geoengineering. (But as the stratospheric release of sulp…

Yes, weather (and climate more generally) is not a static phenomenon, it never has been one. "More intense" compared to what? To the last 100 years? (meaning the period for which they have accurate meteorological data) Who says the last 100 years were the norm?

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#82

Post by schiffern »

dubcanada wrote: post #79

I really don’t like the idea of solar geoengineering. If we start sending up sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere and it fixes the problem. What do you think we’re going to do? Stop caring about global warming entirely, and pump way more green house gases… why wouldn’t we? We can just fix it with more sulfur dioxide. Then you send up more and more and more. And eventually something breaks. Now for some reason a countri…

>I don’t think we should be messing around with the earth until we can actually say that all parties are working towards the same thing.

"Unattainable perfection of human nature must be achieved before we can even try fixing something."

Xkcd already debunked this type of argument.

https://xkcd.com/1232/

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#84

Post by cgeier »

paganel wrote: post #81
cgeier wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a look at this for some first ideas: https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/climate/... (think more draughts, much more intense wildfire seasons, intense rain events, nature's rhythm which is depending on temperature being disturbed). And I don't know if the "cure" will be worse, that's why for now, I'm only advocating for research into solar geoengineering. (But as the stratospheric release of sulp…

Yes, weather (and climate more generally) is not a static phenomenon, it never has been one. "More intense" compared to what? To the last 100 years? (meaning the period for which they have accurate meteorological data) Who says the last 100 years were the norm?

Sorry, but I'm not willing to discuss if "the last 100 years were the norm" for climate-wise.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#85

Post by schiffern »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #37
wolverine876 wrote: post #29

This 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…

> [...] experiments with the atmosephere of the people of Mexico? Yeah I'm not sure that's how the atmosphere works. Surely this stuff would diffuse and affect the atmosphere globally.

If nations don't have national sovereignty over their slice of the atmosphere, then are we saying all air pollution is an international crime?

[For clarity I don't particularly disagree with this stance, but my mostly-overlooked point is that:]

If people really think this, why is it that (on HN in particular) we overwhelmingly hear this point made in the context of geoengineering, and not for regular old pollution? Isn't that a double standard?

The general debate has become extremely irrational, to the point that your intent is all that matters.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34529944

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#86

Post by mrpopo »

schiffern wrote: post #82
dubcanada wrote: post #79

I really don’t like the idea of solar geoengineering. If we start sending up sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere and it fixes the problem. What do you think we’re going to do? Stop caring about global warming entirely, and pump way more green house gases… why wouldn’t we? We can just fix it with more sulfur dioxide. Then you send up more and more and more. And eventually something breaks. Now for some reason a countri…

>I don’t think we should be messing around with the earth until we can actually say that all parties are working towards the same thing. "Unattainable perfection of human nature must be achieved before we can even try fixing something." Xkcd already debunked this type of argument. https://xkcd.com/1232/

That's not a "debunking". That's just people having different priorities, some want to work towards sustaining humanity on Earth right now, and some don't want to solve problems on Earth and are just excited with the next new thing. Maybe the latter are firmly believing that they are doing something beneficial for humanity, and that's OK. I don't believe so, but I don't claim to be right, and so should you.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#87

Post by mcv »

perihelions wrote: post #10
jxf wrote: post #8

Earlier 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%…

Keep in mind that ordinary SO₂ pollution doesn't make its way into the stratosphere. It's a different problem.

Isn't that kind of SO2 release the cause of acid rain? Because that's not good.

If we're going to release those millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere anyway, maybe it makes sense to release it into the stratosphere instead, to duplicate the cooling effect of the volcano. Although that's not so easily done.

Also, apart from a cooling effect, what other effects did that volcanic release of SO2 have?

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#88

Post by moconnor »

quantum_magpie wrote: post #28
junofan wrote: post #3

> 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'…

If pumping SO2 into the atmosphere becomes profitable via cooling offsets, we might struggle to get people to stop doing it.

Industrial scale CO2 and SO2 production might be how you get to Venus.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#89

Post by marginalia_nu »

MrOwnPut wrote: post #77
marginalia_nu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end I don't think it really matters.

That's a cop out to the question and discussion.

It's perfectly in line with my position the whole discussion. Laws are arbitrary. Mexico is a soverign country and have the right to have whatever laws they want.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#90

Post by chriswarbo »

schiffern wrote: post #82
dubcanada wrote: post #79

I really don’t like the idea of solar geoengineering. If we start sending up sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere and it fixes the problem. What do you think we’re going to do? Stop caring about global warming entirely, and pump way more green house gases… why wouldn’t we? We can just fix it with more sulfur dioxide. Then you send up more and more and more. And eventually something breaks. Now for some reason a countri…

>I don’t think we should be messing around with the earth until we can actually say that all parties are working towards the same thing. "Unattainable perfection of human nature must be achieved before we can even try fixing something." Xkcd already debunked this type of argument. https://xkcd.com/1232/

They're not saying "we've solved all problems" or "we understand everything". They're saying "all parties are working towards the same thing".

For example, "Acme Sulphur Dioxide Corp" may not have the same goals as scientists, governments, or the general population.

Post reply on HN