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Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

cnbc.com

251–260 of 272 posts

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#251

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…

Andrew Song, Co-Founder of Make Sunsets here. > Why did they choose Mexico? They couldn't get away with it in the US, so it's ok to do experiments with the atmosephere of the people of Mexico? After they were forced to stop, We chose Mexico as our initial launch site because deployment in the tropics have greater cooling per gram via increased particle residence time [1] (another source)[2]. Luke also bought land in…

Also, Luke is not a Mexican, he's as gringo as they come, but he's learning to speak Spanish.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#252

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…

The atmosphere now has borders?

We deploy 20km up. We spoke with people at Project Loon and the only orgs that are in that space is the military and they don't want you to know they're up there.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#253

> The tiny startup Make Sunsets, which had been experimenting with releasing sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight in order to cool the earth. This is the mechanism in Neal Stephenson’s _Termination Shock_. The book’s plot depends on a future US government which is non-functional, thus no one can shut them down. These folks were planning to release 500g of sulfur dioxide — that’s completely insignifi…

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Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#254

> The tiny startup Make Sunsets, which had been experimenting with releasing sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight in order to cool the earth. This is the mechanism in Neal Stephenson’s _Termination Shock_. The book’s plot depends on a future US government which is non-functional, thus no one can shut them down. These folks were planning to release 500g of sulfur dioxide — that’s completely insignifi…

Correct, completely insignificant, this is our "hello world" deployment, but we're pushing to prod and skipping staging. As more people buy, we will increase our payload and measure what we can. It's extreme, but if you have a better solution like scaling up fusion tomorrow, we're kinda fucked if we don't cool the planet.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Andrew Song, Co-Founder of Make Sunsets here. > Why did they choose Mexico? They couldn't get away with it in the US, so it's ok to do experiments with the atmosephere of the people of Mexico? After they were forced to stop, We chose Mexico as our initial launch site because deployment in the tropics have greater cooling per gram via increased particle residence time [1] (another source)[2]. Luke also bought land in…

Thanks for clearing up this controversial topic and showing up to give a detailed explanation. Without your intervention, I would have kept some speculations as reasonable opinions.

Just read some academic papers and realize that anything we're doing right now to reverse global is a little too late. CDR, DAC, fusion, planting trees, solar, wind, nuclear, and nations coming together to decide we need to deploy stratospheric aerosol injection are all decades away while the planet warms 0.1C every decade.

We deeply respect what scientists have been sounding alarm for years, but more people are worried about putting food on table than catastrophic weather events that might happen in the future.

Totally open to hearing another way to slow down global warming that isn't as fucking crazy as dimming the sun, but we're all addicted to burning dead dinos. Unless we put the environment over profits and scale up CO2 sucking tech, our children will have incredibly shitty lives.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#256
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's essentially what has happened. We are sicker than ever because we have easy cures. The problem is that modern medicine works on the symptoms, not on root causes. So the more we "cure" symptoms, the more sick we become, overall.

By what specific measure are we sicker than ever? Show your work.

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Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we actually only have 1 option, which is that climate changes, no matter what humans do, and we can change it on the margins though are actions as well. dumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere is geo-engineering. it is just unintentional. saying that climate change (of the anthropocentric CO2 caused variety) will necessarily be catastrophic is scientifically unsupportable. there is a possibility that it will be c…

It's very clear we are not planning to stop. Given that decision, there is no need for us to lie to ourselves and pretend things will be ok, or that what we are doing is no big deal. Or that we can "adapt" our way out of being 20m under water etc...

20m is not catastrophic at all. Maybe the elites buying beach front properties didn't get the memo?

I live well above that and I'll gladly be closer to the sea.

We are lucky to live in such a time of heat. Actually that's the main reason so many of us CAN be here in the first place. In reality world what we shall fix is pollution and co2 isn't one. What we need is abundant, extremely cheap energy.

But don't fret, the sun will teach you a lesson or two...

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#258
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, only 80% of say the maldives by the time my kids are my age.

I wonder what Americans would do if other countries worked together to put every single state apart from Alaska and half of Texas underwater in the next generation.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/80-of-maldives-could-b...

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I indeed knew the scale, it's plastered all over this thread, but it's not relevant to the point being made. The whole scheme is harebrained regardless of the amount, what depends on the amount is the harm it can cause, in the range .

Your stated point was acid rain. And the amounts are too low to cause that, making your point invalid.

Re: Mexico cracks down on solar geoengineering

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure, only 80% of say the maldives by the time my kids are my age. I wonder what Americans would do if other countries worked together to put every single state apart from Alaska and half of Texas underwater in the next generation. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/80-of-maldives-could-b...

2050 is a 10cm rise from today. I expect most of the Maldives is already "uninhabitable" (and always was) by whatever standard is being used there.

You could literally dredge up land 100x faster than sea levels rise for the Maldives.

There are many nasty consequences of global climate change, sea level rise is an irrelevant distraction from things like India heating up and ocean acidification.

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