Live data from Hacker News

Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

twitter.com

211–220 of 581 posts

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#211

The enthusiasm with geoengineering among the HN community is worrisome. Not sure which computing analogy would drive home the complete recklessness of this mentality but the Earth is not something you can reboot to the last working state once you harebrained patch implodes. It is true that we have been slowly geoengineering for ages (initially unwittingly, recently with eyes wide open) and it is also true that our mo…

More people should upvote your post. If there is a rank of how easily humanity can destroy itself and make the earth uninhabitable for itself geoengineering is probably second only to thermonuclear war.

Also I object to the use of the term geo-engineering. Engineering supposes we know exactly what the outcomes will be following centuries/decades of experience with similar systems. Including many failed experiments. Thinking we can geo-engineer a predictable change when there is no way to experiment, fail and learn safely because we only have one shot at this is massively stupid. Anyone that claims "but we've been geoengineering for decades with our greenhouse gas emissions etc" is simply wrong. No, we haven't been "geoengineering". Engineering implies conscious intent. Humanity didn't start burning coal to increase co2 content in the atmosphere. Confusing these two things are akin to finding a victim of a vehicle accident and doing a roadside open heart surgery by a random bystander. "Hey, the guy is already sliced open, we've already started the surgery so we may as well continue right?" No, wrong. That is insane.

The biggest lie today is that we comprehensively know how climate works. We don't. We don't even measure the earth's temperature properly. We extrapolate huge amounts of data. If we _really_ wanted to learn how climate works it would require not just arrays of sensors covering the entire planet's surface, but also ocean depths and the the entire thickness of the atmosphere. No, satellites are not a replacement. Anyone that knows the limitations of satellite sensing knows we can measure a lot, but reliably measuring temperature, humidity, and wind direction across the entire thickness of the atmosphere is not something we can do. We can roughly approximate some measurements across the entire thickness, in theory in good conditions we can narrow it down to certain attitudes and on this basis we make conclusions on the entire state of the system pulling the missing data from our "models". If we discovere the models are wrong? We just tweak them to match the historic data. We might know the measures in this particular place and time, but we use our "models" to "approximate" everything we are unable to measure.

This is one of the major reasons why we cannot reliably predict weather for next 3 days, and why our attempts at making climate predictions are laughable. We know a certain number of principles so we can make some conclusions like more co2/h2o/ch4 = more temperature, but even in this we have to accept there are processes (positive and negative feedback) we have zero idea of.

Furthermore, our planet has shown us huge climatic variability in the geological record. Within that variability the most dangerous to human life are periods of excessive glaciation (ice ages). We're "just" in the warming period after the last one. Is humanity taking part in accelerating the warming? Yes, is it a licence for stupidity like attempting to "stabilise" something that is inherently unstable and periodic(climate) risking we overdo it and find ourselves in a "mini ice age"? No.

Has it ever stopped us before? No. Anyone interested in results of previous "geoengineering" efforts should read up on the soviet attempts at it and what catastrophe it wrought on the region including the Sea of Azov. People in the entire Black Sea region can consider themselves extremely lucky they haven't implemented more than few percent of their plans. It is generally accepted today had more of Soviet attempts at geoengineering been implemented it would've had same horrible consequences we see near the Sea of Azov far and wide.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#212
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only viable alternative to doing nothing is stopping our quest for infinite growth in all sectors. You're the proverbial boiling frog

No problem with this, apart from convincing like 5-6 billion people to cut their standards of living to half. Also less people is needed, few children. Sounds like impossible now without concentrated media effort and all ruling parties probably would lose for decades.

5-6 billion people are going to have their living standards and reproductive opportunities destroyed anyway.

If not worse.

But you're really just remaking the point that as a species we're incapable of intelligent collective management of our resources.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#213
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no alternative. We have "aggravated the situation" (as you put it) beyond recovery. Doing nothing will now surely lead to an unacceptable outcome. We are going to have to fix it, or resign ourselves to a huge shrinking of the habitable region of the planet, with the hunger/famine/war that will accompany that. Obviously we can always make things worse. But when doing nothing is unacceptable, we have to start…

[flagged]

Or an emergency trach while us sensible folk watch the patient die and hand wring?

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#214
Climate models take this into account [0], contrary to what some people here seem to imply. It is also very likely that this is part of, but not the major factor of recent warming. [1]

I would like to point out that this is not something we're just figuring out "this week" as Hank Green seems to want to frame it.

There's no need to sensationalize. There is no conspiracy here. This is well known. It's good to educate people, but it sucks that even good educators have to crawl in the click-bait mud to reach people.

[0] https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1444679408573419520

[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shippin...

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#215
post #91
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ways to make clouds and have this effect that don't involve sulfur! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_cloud_brightening

You know what happens to soil when it rains salt from the clouds, right? Sulphur at least is more natural, as it's also released by volcanoes. https://extension.psu.edu/sulfur-fertility-management-for-gr...

But we just got rid of acid rain? That was going to eat us and the Colosseum alive back in the day.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is like my relatives who voted Tory because immigrants are taking their benefits away. Only to enter old-age with the Tories taking their healthcare and their benefits away. These are tragic and self-defeating people. It doesn't mean they aren't stupid or dangerous to the rest of us. Or that they aren't responsible for the consequences of their own actions. But that they do stuff which is illogical, self-ha…

I wouldn’t solely hold them to blame but also point to who manipulated them in the first place. While they are blamable through ignorance they are not the real culprits It’s known the masses are manipulable to do and think in certain ways, and almost always to their disadvantage

I can't take a normal person seriously who, with apparent (imagined) perfect awareness, talks about the masses as a blob of stupid individuals who can't think a critical thought.

The real reason the masses often act irrationally—counter to the manipulation that your brain has received—is that they have no power or coordination to act as a group themselves. It has got little to do with ignorance.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#217

I’ve unfortunately come to the conclusion that we are buggered. Watching politics in the U.K. and the rest of the world I’m seeing politicians realise that they can tap into the populist idea that anything green is “the elites trying to control and tax you”. All they care about us short term election prospects.

A weird but predictable thing to fixate on, just like people blame their aunt Peggy for things that were set in motion decades prior.

Populism is basically a slur for an impotent and chaotic democracy, but the media that planted this idea in your brain never take things to their logical conclusion and critique the so-called democracies themselves for some reason.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#218

The enthusiasm with geoengineering among the HN community is worrisome. Not sure which computing analogy would drive home the complete recklessness of this mentality but the Earth is not something you can reboot to the last working state once you harebrained patch implodes. It is true that we have been slowly geoengineering for ages (initially unwittingly, recently with eyes wide open) and it is also true that our mo…

More people should upvote your post. If there is a rank of how easily humanity can destroy itself and make the earth uninhabitable for itself geoengineering is probably second only to thermonuclear war. Also I object to the use of the term geo-engineering. Engineering supposes we know exactly what the outcomes will be following centuries/decades of experience with similar systems. Including many failed experiments. T…

We're actually pretty good at predicting the weather for the next three days.

The point about climate variability is a stock denialist talking point.

In reality climate predictions have been extremely accurate. There is absolute no mystery or ambiguity here. We've been improving our CO2 models for over a century now, and in recent decades the modelling has been extremely good - although if anything it's been too optimistic.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-a...

The problem isn't the science, it's the politics. We have a planetary culture that puts profit and political ambition - naive uninformed personal indulgence and status seeking, mixed with sanctioned reality denial - over collective intelligence and awareness.

While we have individual intelligence - in varying degrees - we still have herd-animal politics and economics. Our management systems have barely changed for millennia, the same issues and tendencies to self-harm keep recurring, and they're completely unsuitable for dealing with the kinds of problems we're facing.

Darwin is remorseless. If a species is maladapted to its environment, extinction - cultural and eventually physical - beckons.

That's where we are now.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#219
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Well, hopefully we have some time to practice first. Because we're the only person in the room and the patient is bleeding out.

So don't do a bloody tripple bypass with a butter knife. Just stop the bleeding. Jeez, this conversation is the best illustration of everything that's wrong with geoengineering ideas.

Indeed we have practiced quite a bit. Read on the catastrophe that was geoengineering attempts resulting in what is now happening with the Sea of Azov.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Or an emergency trach while us sensible folk watch the patient die and hand wring?

You can watch the patient choke from the obstruction as well, but it won't be pretty neither
Post reply on HN