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

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

#241
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…

You have absolutely no idea if the "solutions" we try won't lead to even worse outcomes. Up until the point climate change is becoming an existential threat, which it isn't yet, we shouldn't go doing anything too drastic. There is plenty of evidence that we can still avert the worst of it without resorting to geoengineering.

>There is plenty of evidence that we can still avert the worst of it without resorting to geoengineering.

And zero evidence we will...

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

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That metaphor implies an understanding and overview that we simply do not have. Think of it as changing bytes in an executable file which will be run in 50 years, based on what "seems reasonable" to you staring at a wall of hex without even a de-compiler existing, much less you being able to use one. The only reason to even dream of it is not having to suffer the consequences, period. And that's not just because you might not be here in 50 years, it's because you're just one person in one very, very narrow walk of life, as opposed to being billions of people.

The carbon emissions of the richest 1% of humanity are more than double than that of the poorest half of humanity. Oil and coal companies profit, while putting out disinformation, as they have been for decades. But why step on the toes of the powerful when you can just use inject sulfur into the atmosphere?

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

#243

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…

> For the short term future (decades) the only strategy that seems to make sense on the face of epistemic uncertainty is to refrain from aggravating the situation while studying ever more deeply the system we are now perturbing so much.

Sometimes perfect is the enemy of good. If climate change really was going to kill a billion people then taking the risk with some geoengineering would be better than just letting it happen.

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

#245

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…

> Not sure which computing analogy would drive home the complete recklessness of this mentality Geoengineering is an act of desperation. Its like your laptop is on fire, so you throw some water on it.

> Its like your laptop is on fire, so you throw some water on it.

Is it a lithium fire? I think this might be a very good analogy.

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

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have absolutely no idea if the "solutions" we try won't lead to even worse outcomes. Up until the point climate change is becoming an existential threat, which it isn't yet, we shouldn't go doing anything too drastic. There is plenty of evidence that we can still avert the worst of it without resorting to geoengineering.

>There is plenty of evidence that we can still avert the worst of it without resorting to geoengineering. And zero evidence we will...

This kind of defeatist attitude doesn't help with the situation at all. We can all do our part in reducing our daily carbon emissions, raise awareness, and educate policymakers and business stakeholders on the importance of mitigating climate change!

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m saying I used to think climategate was all conspiracy theory nonsense. Now I think there was likely an attempt to hide unhelpful data.

I think you are miss remembering what climategate was. Climategate deniers where saying "There is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change" and they released some out of context emails to support their claims. How does finding out sulphur reduction was masking actual warming effect make climate science any wrong.

I read many of the emails recently so I don’t think I am misremembering.

The missing sulphur effect suggests mainstream climate models are incomplete, which makes one skeptical of their results. In the same way deleted data and other shadiness during ClimateGate made people skeptical of the science then.

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

#248
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Just stop the bleeding

Convincing every country in the world that they don't need fossil fuels isn't possible.

Blocking some sunlight from reaching the Earth is.

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

#249
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]

>You sound like someone about to perform a triple bypass with a butter knife.

This style of comment is lazy and simply trying to shut down conversation without actually making an argument. If you have an objection to the comment you're responding to, then say why you think they're wrong, what your alternative point of view is, and why your point of view is the correct one.

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

#250

A better wording for the title: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships has reduced masking of global warming The word 'cause' in current title seems wrong.

Your rewording is inaccurate. There is no masking, it was actually reflecting energy away from earth, reducing warming. This is important because, turns out, we unintentionally ran an ethically dubious climate engineering experiment, the results of which can now be used to inform future possible climate engineering efforts.
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