271–280 of 365 posts
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If we figured out how to store chopped down trees somewhere where the wood doesn't break down, that would be a really effective way to get CO2 out of the air! Easier said than done, of course. Sinking millions of trees to the bottom of the ocean might be the most practical way.
Those space datacenters that SpaceX is building, can't they make them out of wood?
That will lower the warming!
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Even if we stopped emissions today, Earth will keep warming up for a couple of decades. We’re not at equilibrium temperature for the current CO2 levels.
One not very well known fact is that even if we stop emissions today, the elevated CO₂ levels will remain for many centuries. They way I think/hope we can fix this is two parts: 1. The only way I think you can get rid of the excess CO₂ at scale is to permanently sequester it underground. The oil/gas industry can cheaply deposit huge amounts of gas there. The unsolved problem is extracting enough CO₂ from the atmosphe…
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The Mt Pinatubo volcanic eruption in 1991 actually did inject huge amounts of SO₂ to the stratosphere, and it disappeared over the next few years. While it remained, northern hemisphere temperatures lowered by ~0.5°C. USGS report: https://pubs.usgs.gov/pinatubo/self/ Since the stratosphere is far above the rain cycle, it's very hard to imagine a mechanism whereby this could produce acid rain, and even if it did, acid…
> acid rain is a much smaller problem than global warming. In fact it used to be a common occurence during the heavy industrial pollution in the 20th century. So much that after the pollution stopped, farmers had to start applying sulphur to their fields as nutrients for some crops (I learned about this after unsuccessfully trying to grow tomatoes in alkaline soil).
I remember watching news reports about acid rain in the 90s and being terrified that any ominous rain cloud might be full of acid rain which would melt away my town and family.
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Prescribed burns are a good way to clean forests! Burn the debris every 10-20 years rather than let it accumulate and become unstoppable disaster fires once a century. This tends to be very hard hard to do in a democratic system though. People really don't like their forests burning.
I find it ironic to discuss how burning forests is going to help fight the consequences of… too much CO2?
Any reason SpaceX cannot just build a giant solar shade at L1? This seems fairly doable on the decade timescale, plus it could do double duty as a weapon.
Taking estimates for Starship payload to Mars as the likely payload to L1, carrying to L1 enough thin reflective mylar film to block around 0.5% of light to earth would cost between $80-100 billion. Which is a lot but not nearly as much as I expected and not outside the realm of possibility.
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One not very well known fact is that even if we stop emissions today, the elevated CO₂ levels will remain for many centuries. They way I think/hope we can fix this is two parts: 1. The only way I think you can get rid of the excess CO₂ at scale is to permanently sequester it underground. The oil/gas industry can cheaply deposit huge amounts of gas there. The unsolved problem is extracting enough CO₂ from the atmosphe…
> It sounds scary, but is actually safe Posted by the account, BurningFrog. You can't make this shit up. Forgive me if I do not take "making sunsets" as a credible source of information. There's a body of research that covers existential risks associated with sai and srm: - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00163... - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/climate/articles/10.338... - https://agupu…
https://www.science-gate.com/IJAAS/Articles/2025/2025-12-01/...
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Ok... but now we're damaging ecosystems by installing hydroelectric power stations and dams and such in these areas. Besides, not every country can effectively utilize hydroelectric power. Germany, like other countries, should be investing in a mix of power sources. You probably want your backbone to be nuclear and then renewables where it makes sense with a goal (at least in western countries) of also eliminating re…
We should make sure that the indirect cost for CO2 are added to the price of energy and imported products depending on the mix. It is one of the few areas where I think a market can fix things.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333873233_Hidden_ca...
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/12/elephant-in-the-ro...
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Just replacing expensive fossil energy with cheap renewables and storage doesn't help. The problem is Jevons paradox. Cheaper energy means more consumption. A sensible global policy could be: - Tax carbon positive energy consumption to death. I.e. coal, oil or natural gas. - Tax (close to) carbon neutral energy consumption at a fixed high rate, e.g. solar, hydro, nuclear or wind. Tax nuclear separately because of its…
> carbon negative energy consumption There is no carbon negative energy consumtion.
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> I.e. We can use different energy than the one we got out of the fossil fuels we burned. We're talking about using more energy than the one we got from the fossil fuels we burned, right? So that means that on top of replacing fossil fuels with renewables, we would need to more than double it in order to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. This, in itself, is impossible. Already we won't be able to replace fossil fuels e…
So the neat thing is that this isn't at all true. The total annual CO2 budget of the earth is tremendous; less than 5% of CO2 emissions each year into the atmosphere are from humans. Volcanism, photosynthesis, and other natural sources outweigh humans by far. In numbers, ballpark 730gigatons from natural sources and about 30gt from humans. If you look at the amount the CO2 levels increase each year in the atmosphere,…
Imagine every year a company makes $730,000 in revenue but spends $730,000 on various expenses. Its bank balance doesnt change because the income and expenses cancel out.
Now suppose the company starts receiving an additional $30,000 every year while its expenses stay the same. At the end of each year, its bank balance increases by $30,000.
By your logic, someone could argue: "That extra $30,000 can't be responsible for the growing bank balance because it's less than 5% of the company's total annual cash flow of $760,000."
That's obviously nonsense. The bank balance grows *entirely because of the net imbalance*, not because the extra income is a large fraction of the gross cash flowing through the account.
The carbon cycle works the same way. Natural emissions and natural uptake are both enormous and are approximately in balance. That 730 gigatons of CO2 released by natural sources has a corresponding 730 gigatons of CO2 capture from natural sinks. Its human emissions of CO2 that are the extra deposit that creates an ongoing imbalance, and that's why atmospheric CO2 continues to rise.
Also photosynthesis is not a source of CO2, on the contrary it's one of, if not the biggest carbon sink, reclaiming a significant portion of that 730 gigatons of CO2 released by volcanos and other sources.
There is no "new normal", we are in a slope. As long as we emit CO2, the climate will get worse. Year after year. With effects like fires accelerating it, or the loss of the Amazon (it's pretty much lost already, isn't it?) that will just result in more CO2 being released. We don't have to adapt to the situation as it is now , because it is pretty much the best scenario. We have to adapt to the fact that it will get…
As long as major countries like Germany are keeping their ban on nuclear power, climate change cannot be that urgent.
The same people who dismiss green policies as damaging to the economic are often the ones calling for nuclear power.
I like a daily paradox.