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Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

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Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#141

Post by quickthrower2 »

perihelions wrote: post #18
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…

It's a symptom of the Great Stagnation. There's a clear crisis with multiple plausible solutions, yet somehow all of humanity has made ~zero progress (on the geoengineering front) for decades. Never mind that the world's wealthier and more democratic than ever; or that information has never been more accessible to anyone who looks for it; or that technology and engineering are at their highest point in the history of…

We (as a species) are good at wars I guess (which are or at least were easier to sell) than spending money on long term and expensive problems where you can just blame everyone else.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#142

Post by Arnt »

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.

They're releasing something into the atmosphere, then measuring its effect before it disperses so much that it loses its measurable effect.

That means that it affects people locally, not globally.

(It's about 1kg of materials released.)

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#143

Post by schiffern »

jaggs wrote: post #136
schiffern wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have it exactly backwards. Your semantics game is the "straw man." The atmosphere doesn't care what we call it, only what we dump in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34529944 >calculated to be scaled up on a global level You say that like polluting industries don't try to scale up to a global level.

Industries don't try to scale up pollution. The pollution is a by-product of trying to scale up profits. And one wrong doesn't make the other a right.

>Industries don't try to scale up pollution. The pollution is a by-product of trying to scale up profits.

There's that word "try" again...

My exact point is that the atmosphere doesn't care about intent. It cares about emissions.

Humans care about intent. That's fine, but apparently the rule here is that you can hurt people (for amoral profit), but don't you dare try to help people!

My argument is that maybe we should rethink this ethical schema.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#144

Post by quickthrower2 »

ta8645 wrote: post #21
hef19898 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A baloon you mean? What is there to validate?

That the media will deliver the payload to potential customers.

Maybe we can coin a new phrase “releasing sulphur” for any operation by a company that is adulterated specifically to get more press coverage. In other words they do something differently for the sole reason of going viral.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#145

Post by jaggs »

jaggs wrote: post #136
schiffern wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have it exactly backwards. Your semantics game is the "straw man." The atmosphere doesn't care what we call it, only what we dump in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34529944 >calculated to be scaled up on a global level You say that like polluting industries don't try to scale up to a global level.

Industries don't try to scale up pollution. The pollution is a by-product of trying to scale up profits. And one wrong doesn't make the other a right.

Not sure I follow you any more. In what way would you like to rethink this ethical schema? What schema?

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#146

Post by schiffern »

dubcanada wrote: post #119
schiffern wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny enough, me either. But that's missing the point. How long until we "truly understand every possible outcome"? 10 years? 15? When you speak in absolutes, you don't even need to move goalposts. Since we will (obviously) never understand everything , if we follow your criterion then nobody could ever start anything. This weird double standard is only ever applied to geoengineering, but never regular pollution. Bas…

No need to be snarky. I’m just trying to have a discussion. I also never said I support pollution, but if I support going to mars I must because a rocket is a lot of pollution. My main premise is I tend to think we’ve messed up so much so fast (in regards to the earth), I don’t think trying brand new studies that are based off words like “presumably”, “promising makes sense. Wikipedia says > However, as of 2021, ther…

No snark. I thought we were having a nice conversation.

> Do you think based on those words we should just be firing up balloons and see what happens?

> I’m not saying at some point in time with studies done...

How can we possibly gain enough scientific confidence is nobody is allowed to perform a single experiment (aka do X "and see what happens")?

This all sounds rational on the surface, but underneath it's a paralysis-inducing catch-22.

Asking endlessly for "more studies" is a classic delay tactic, with a long history of use (you surely don't intend that, but the effect is the same). Unfortunately we've run out of time for further delay.

Unpopular as it is to say, "move fast and break things" will lead to the least overall damage and death. But we'll never be able to show it, because of paralysis by these curious Reverse Good Samaritan / Reverse Hippocratic Oath attitudes.

We comfort ourselves that it's about stopping harm, but with the pervasive geoengineering-vs-pollution double standard the de facto rule is "first, attempt no good."

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#147

Post by blippitybleep »

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…

I think I’ve had about enough of venture capitalists. It’s tiring it this point.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#148

Post by hannob »

mrpopo wrote: post #92
schiffern wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? I…

It's also brought up for "regular old pollution". Neighbouring countries of Germany are pushing for Germany to stop polluting the atmosphere with coal. South Korean associations are making efforts in China to stop them from building incinerators on their east coast, outside of Beijing. You probably are just not living in an area of concern.

> Neighbouring countries of Germany are pushing for Germany to stop polluting the atmosphere with coal.

Unfortunately it is not my impression that this is happening. (Also two neighboring countries - poland and czechia - of Germany have an even higher share of coal and one - the netherlands - is in the same ballpark.)

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#149

Post by concordDance »

onion2k wrote: post #35
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%…

If it's so insignificant why not do it in the US then?

Because the regulations don't allow it. Laws and regs are very blunt and don't take into account every possible case, like 500g into stratosphere.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#150

Post by mschuster91 »

mrpopo wrote: post #92
schiffern wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? I…

It's also brought up for "regular old pollution". Neighbouring countries of Germany are pushing for Germany to stop polluting the atmosphere with coal. South Korean associations are making efforts in China to stop them from building incinerators on their east coast, outside of Beijing. You probably are just not living in an area of concern.

> Neighbouring countries of Germany are pushing for Germany to stop polluting the atmosphere with coal.

Which is ridiculous on its own, Poland has been ordered for years to shut down the Turow open-pit mine on the border to Germany and Czechia, they refused and were sentenced to 500.000€ per day of continued operation [1], got 15 million € in EU disbursements held back [2]... the size of that thing is insane [3].

[1] https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/polen-tagebau-turow...

[2] https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/polen-eu-kommission-behaelt-n...

[3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagebau_Tur%C3%B3w#/media/Date...

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