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Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

cnbc.com

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Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#151

Post by concordDance »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #67
perihelions wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Who benefits from non-responsibility? Why are we not capable to produce figures capable to shoulder public burdens and are thrustworthy enough? Why do we prioritize moral shortcomings of a person/character over the effectiveness of the work when discussing politics? Whore, drink and murder all night for all i care, if the individual can prevent ecologic collapse and economic collapse during the day, thats still a goo…

> Whore, drink and murder all night for all i care, if the individual can prevent ecologic collapse and economic collapse during the day, thats still a good deal, even if i would be among the murder victims.

This is too simplistic due to second order effects. E.g. visibly doing those things makes it far more likely other people in slightly lower positions of power will try it on, many crossing the boundaries of what they can get away with. Then the corruption starts along those fuzzy boundaries until it infects everything else.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#152

Post by mschuster91 »

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…

> 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.

This is precisely why there are such immense amounts spent on geoengineering research - the big polluters do everything they can to keep making money out of fucking over the planet.

The solution to climate change is not waiting for some kind of "tech miracle" (be it carbon capture, sulfur dioxide, H2 electrolysis, nuclear fusion, ...), it is to get rid of fossil fuel usage.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#153

Post by concordDance »

wolverine876 wrote: post #31
perihelions wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's a symptom of the US Republican Party. They are the only thing standing in the way. Don't take it for granted and give them an out; that's how they can keep doing it. Look at the aggressive obstruction - taking action against businesses (remember the party of the free market and business?) who do anything about climate change, even Microsoft for giving Xboxes a sleep mode. That's the problem. If you blame somethi…

The UK is much more stagnant than the USA and has nothing like the Republican party.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#155

Post by concordDance »

remexre wrote: post #11
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…

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.

Which means that the techniques and treatments they would have discovered (and indeed, did discover back in the more wild days) aren't discovered and the amount of new treatment research each euro gets goes waaaay down.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#156

Post by concordDance »

seri4l wrote: post #49
cgeier wrote: post #39

I believe (at least) research in solar geoengineering is urgently needed. No, this is not a long-term replacement for bringing down carbon emissions (not least, because carbon also acidifies our oceans), but if you look at the horrible effects climate change is already causing now, imagine how a world will with average temperature raised by 1.5° or 2.0° Celsius.

Since our society is unable to perform any activity without descending into an uncontrolled positive feedback cycle, I would rather none of us work towards cooling the Earth.

We're currently in a number of feedback loops that are rather more dangerous.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#157

Post by sokoloff »

MrOwnPut wrote: post #57
AlexAltea wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every local action has global consequences. Throwing a dead battery into a dump -> Battery acid gets dragged by the rain -> Polluting a river -> Flows polluting a sea -> Currents polluting all oceans. Of course effects become smaller as scope grows, but still in many instances it's measurable, see Fukushima.

Yes, you're missing my point to the GP, and he missed the point to the GGP. It's in Mexico's right to stop experiments on the global atmosphere from their country.

I doubt either the globalists or the “every country is sovereign”-ists disagree with your last paragraph.

I think it’s also in Mexico’s right to authorize prototype experiments that could be potentially scaled up to have a material global effect.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#158

Post by concordDance »

paganel wrote: post #53
cgeier wrote: post #39

I believe (at least) research in solar geoengineering is urgently needed. No, this is not a long-term replacement for bringing down carbon emissions (not least, because carbon also acidifies our oceans), but if you look at the horrible effects climate change is already causing now, imagine how a world will with average temperature raised by 1.5° or 2.0° Celsius.

> 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?

IIRC the IPCC has released some estimates on how damaging the current trajectory is.

It gets very overhyped by campaigners but global climate change is still going to be very expensive to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars and tens or hundreds of millions of premature deaths.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#159

Post by concordDance »

iso1631 wrote: post #98
mrpopo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And of course entire countries are being wiped out due to global (20% US, 11% China, 7% Russia) CO2 emissions

Entire countries? IPCC projections don't indicate any island nations going underwater in the next two centuries.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#160

Post by concordDance »

manholio wrote: post #43
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…

Why yes, what could possibly go wrong by releasing the main constituent of acid rain in an haphazard attempt to cool down the Earth, a problem itself created by releasing uncontrolled quantities of other pollutants. Sounds like the setup for a dystopia.

People really shouldn't comment before doing a bit of googling on the scale of things. I doubt you'd have made this comment if you'd known how SO2 much was being released and how much is normally released during the course of the day.
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