I agree. I don’t really think putting chemicals into the air sounds like a good idea but when millions of people will have their lives destroyed I guess it will become reality.. can’t make money off the poor people if they are all dead.
The topic is geoengineering, which is humans manipulating the environment. It’s not just aerosol masking, there’s cloud seeding, increasing albedo, iron fertilization and many other potential methods to try to slow down the runaway train that is our climate. The bellowing of carbon into the atmosphere increasing our global temperature is indeed geoengineering, we just didn’t do it on purpose until 50 years ago.
They just asked about the consensus on geoengineering. They didn’t specify in what way and someone correctly pointed out how we already have engineered the planet. You’re assuming all geoengineering is only such if it cools the planet, it’s any change we make. Even dams changing water patterns and affecting the rotation of the earth could be considered geoengineering.
I’m sorry to say that geo-engineering will probably happen. It’s not at all clear if it will work. And if it even sorta works it will have to go on indefinitely. The current BAU has a very similar green version where the exact same economy and standard of living continues forever except you have an EV and a heat pump. The entire COP and Green New Deal is based on this. The changes that are required to actually fix the problem are too radical and too much so we will just keep going with the happy talk fiction which will work but with increasing dysfunction until it doesn’t.
It's proven tech. We did it from 1940-1970, which is why the temperatures were flat during those 30ish years.
But then everybody got so sensitive about the acid rain, respiratory illnesses and adverse impact on agriculture. So the powers that be - did a cap and trade and ruined everything.
Sorry - I was trying to be humorous.
Our massive emissions of aerosols between 1940 and 1970 wasn't intentional. We weren't doing "geo-engineering" at the time. We were simply burning high sulfur coal and oil like mad. Our SO2 emissions have dropped 94% since then. Europe has followed suit to a large degree.
[https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11639-climate-myths-the-cooling-after-1940-shows-co2-does-not-cause-warming/](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11639-climate-myths-the-cooling-after-1940-shows-co2-does-not-cause-warming/)
By 1970, we had only increased co2 levels from the pre-industrial 280 PPM, to 320 PPM. A small increase (40 PPM) relative to where we are today. Now that would have steadily (but slowly) started warming the Earth if that was all we were doing. In parallel we were dumping aerosols of various sorts into the air - enough to just overcompensate for the GHG's. In fact it was a teeny bit cooler in 1970 than in 1940. Back in '70 - methane levels had doubled from pre-industrial age (675) to 1340. But now - they are at 1928 almost triple.
So what has happened since 1970 is - the ratio of cooling aerosols to warming GHG's has crashed. **GHG production has effectively tripled in the past 70 years in co2(equivalent) - while aerosols have slowly been removed because they are pollutants. Chemically we are winning. Thermally we are losing.**
Sure. SO2 is a known cooling gas. It is the opposite of GHG, because it cools the Earth as opposed to warming it. For a long time, scientists wondered why temperatures were flat during the period from 1940-1970, considering that we humans were emitting a growing amount of co2 per year during that time. Eventually they came to believe (I also believe it) that the SO2 and other aerosols we were emitting during that time, offset the GHG emissions. Because SO2 is a nasty pollutant the US implemented series of steps to reduce it. This includes a cap and trade system starting in '95. As a result, US SO2 emissions have dropped 94% since 1970. Link below. The EU also lowered their SO2 emissions over time.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/501303/volume-of-sulfur-dioxide-emissions-us/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/501303/volume-of-sulfur-dioxide-emissions-us/)
More recently there was a global agreement of maritime shipping companies to switch to cleaner (low sulfur) fuels. Many people think that the results were both good and bad. Less nasty pollution (good), but an ugly spike in ocean surface temperatures. Bad - and possibly the catalyst of more intense and destructive hurricane seasons. Link below.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2024-05-31/cleaner-shipping-fuel-is-contributing-to-ocean-warming-scientists-say#:\~:text=SINGAPORE%20(Reuters)%20%2D%20Shipping%20fuel,paper%20published%20late%20on%20Thursday.
So yes, I was being sarcastic. We can cool the Earth by dumping SO2 into the air, but it is very nasty. Link below.
[https://www.epa.gov/so2-pollution/sulfur-dioxide-basics](https://www.epa.gov/so2-pollution/sulfur-dioxide-basics)
Not being sarcastic at all now - a recent test using some type of salt cannon, seemed to brighten (cooling) clouds in the ocean. It was a small scale test, but it looked promising. And I imagine we can dump a LOT of salt in the ocean without harming anything. But some folks are very unsettled by doing anything in the field of climate Geoengineering.
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/geoengineering-test-quietly-launches-salt-crystals-into-atmosphere/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/geoengineering-test-quietly-launches-salt-crystals-into-atmosphere/)
There was certainly a big increase in aerosols from burning fossil fuels, but the reason the temps began rising again was not the elimination of aerosols. CO2 simply rose to the point where the CO2 warming overcame the aerosol cooling.
Cap and trade (late 1980s) was done on smokestack emissions and that happened well after warming had begun again.
Saying people became "sensitive about acid rain" and all its side effects is pretty dumb.
Hand waiving away concerns from experts is also disingenuous
Ooops. That was meant in jest. I apologize for creating the impression that I am remotely ok with destroying our environment chemically or thermally.
I worked for 10 years at a sw company that created a module which allowed our electric utility customers to trade so2 emissions credits. Cap and trade was very successful, and US emissions of so2 are down 94% from where they were in 1970.
I support the EU's CBAM strategy. I also like the idea of taxing carbon use and then providing a rebate at the end of the year. If your use is below a defined threshold, your rebate exceeds the tax. If your use is higher than the threshold, than you are in fact paying a tax for being an above average emitter. A lot of good tech is now available - the HVDC and UHVDC opens the door to wheeling solar East multiple time zones. It also generally enables us to use "pools" of wind and solar across very wide geography which will smooth out/reduce the intermittency issues. I am hopeful we will build a lot of pumped storage as well, as pumped storage "gravity batteries" last a long, long time and are amazingly (75% or more efficient).
I believe the carbon credit market is of very low quality and that direct air capture will only be usable if we crack the code on CHEAP fusion.
The most promising geo-engineering I have seen to date was a recent small scale cloud brightening test using a canon to shoot salt particles into the air above the ocean. It seemed like a relatively low risk albedo management strategy. Relative that is compared to the hotter, more meteorologically violent Earth that we are creating.
Otherwise, I am very uneasy about most of the proposed geo-engineering approaches suggested so far.
Nothing good will come of it, at first it will seem a miracle, then the side effects will kick in and we will have another global catastrophe on our hands. Let me tell you the big oil producing nations are all for geoengineering , its good for business. With it they can continue to pump that oil. Nothing good will come from it and eventually it will be catastrophic. For one you will never be able to stop, the minute you do runaway climate change will happen. Then there is the question of ethical impact. Nothing we do happens in a bubble, we will effect others [https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/cop28-new-unesco-report-warns-ethical-risks-climate-engineering](https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/cop28-new-unesco-report-warns-ethical-risks-climate-engineering)
Whats the old Jurassic park meme? "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should" Thats pretty apt for this I would think.
It will happen, we will not get to choose, we'll simply be told it is our only option.
In the US it will be outsourced. Basically, we're gonna put our future in the hands of people like Musk...
Putting sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere will reflect sunlight. But at some point it will come down. That is going to make our oceans more acidic.
There is also a risk that if it is done, the need to reduce CO2 will seen to some as less urgent. So it could be counter productive.
Just imagine the conspiracy theories will have. People lost their minds over the Covid vaccine and 5G, when world governments declare they’re going to take Jurassic steps to cool the planet, people will lose their absolute minds.
Before jumping to geo-engineering.
Are you:
using public transportation
reducing beef intake to 0
eliminate dairy
stopping buying new things?
If you and all your friends did these things we might better off faster than you might think.
Lets not do nothing waiting for the perfect solution. There are lots of things you personally can do.
How many countries will try their own version of patching various symptoms of climate change, like so many untried experiments on our atmosphere and planet.
I think anything that we can directly interfere with using technology, or finely control, will (eventually) always be better than any other solution and can make up for basically anything that we do.
The question is, what is that technology, what does it take to develop and how efficient can we make it? How quickly can we scale with it?
If we can answer all those questions and we can scale to our needs quickly enough,then it's a real solution.
As of now, we can't, so it's not.
I think if we put little loose rock damn in the dry finger beds feeding creeks, we could arrest the flash flood energy of storms. I built one, it slowly drains, and keeps the creek from going dry, allowing aquatic life to come back.
Humans have been geoengineering since we began to tame fire, just didn't know it. In the presence of soot or dust, rain can happen, rather than these hullabaloos that come down like a waterfall. When rain is more frequent rather than all at once, forests don't dry out and catch fire.
Yes, these are clues I've read from anthropologists. We're doing something different now than we used to. When we didn't have fire, we had pollution to rake it's place, but now we've gotten so clean, that the earth needs more particulates to form rain. This is my guess, but it's an informed guess. So enjoy a campfire folks, it's natural.
I'm in favour of cloud seeding (with salt). But it has inbuilt limitations that mean other measures will be necessary, (like a cease to C02 emissions).
I dont like the idea.
1) We will become dependable of it. Stopping doing it would lead to catastrophe
2)People would use it as excuse to delay emissions reductions.
The efforts to needing it will ever be less than the efforts to mitigate the unintended consequences.
We only have one plant, there is no "reset" button on the experiments we do with our one and only atmosphere.
And such is the inertia that we will only be measuring the long terms effect of those experiments decades later; kind of late to go "oups".
Only because mankind refuses to get off the oil tit. We should have had governments install solar across the globe by now, nuclear power plants, all the fucking wasted money for bs and the ultra rich could have paid for solar and nuclear. We should have built maglev trains or at least bullet trains across the country by now! WTF have we been doing the last 30 years! The super wealthy have kept us slaves and deaf dumb and blind so they can ride to power on our backs! The day is coming , their money wont save them from the vengeful bloodthirsty hordes
Thank you for raising this question. It has become obvious to me that we, as a civilization, are not going to address climate chage in a meaningful way. Despite all the attention and effort for awareness, our use of fosil fuels is higher than ever, and projected to continue. If we can't bring ourselves to be preventative, we will land in the inevitable position of being reactive. I don't see a way around it. I'm tired of listening to people say "but it's possible..." when the overwhelming evidence shows that nothing is going to happen to stop this. No one is coming to save us. It's a fantasy. Once the economic impact tips a certain point, we will absolutely be geo-engineering ourselves into a cooler climate. It sucks. But I'm ready to start being realistic about this.
I'm interested in starting a wider discussion/board about what might be possible and how best to survive what is coming. I'm not a doomsdayer. I don't think the earth will be "destroyed". I just want to start my adapting process.
I do not know. I have no idea how it will affect the weather or countless other things. That’s what bothers me. It seems like it could help with warming but hurt several other things.
I don’t like it but I’m sure we’ll do it because it’s the cheapest and relatively easiest option and money is all that matters these days.
I agree. I don’t really think putting chemicals into the air sounds like a good idea but when millions of people will have their lives destroyed I guess it will become reality.. can’t make money off the poor people if they are all dead.
And people will even get paid for it! Because we would never want to do something unless it made money...
We already are. Just the wrong direction
We are undoing it, and getting warmer from it
No, the geoengineering is adding so much CO2 to the atmosphere
Its the sulfur dioxide
That was far less potent. The CO2 is bigger and we’re still doing it
This topic is not about global warming, it's about aerosols and their ability to cool the atmosphere. A last resort solution for the co2 warming.
The topic is geoengineering, which is humans manipulating the environment. It’s not just aerosol masking, there’s cloud seeding, increasing albedo, iron fertilization and many other potential methods to try to slow down the runaway train that is our climate. The bellowing of carbon into the atmosphere increasing our global temperature is indeed geoengineering, we just didn’t do it on purpose until 50 years ago.
The topic is using geo engineering to counter the temperature rise. Co2 is not the geoengineering we are talking about.
They just asked about the consensus on geoengineering. They didn’t specify in what way and someone correctly pointed out how we already have engineered the planet. You’re assuming all geoengineering is only such if it cools the planet, it’s any change we make. Even dams changing water patterns and affecting the rotation of the earth could be considered geoengineering.
You are off topic...
I’m sorry to say that geo-engineering will probably happen. It’s not at all clear if it will work. And if it even sorta works it will have to go on indefinitely. The current BAU has a very similar green version where the exact same economy and standard of living continues forever except you have an EV and a heat pump. The entire COP and Green New Deal is based on this. The changes that are required to actually fix the problem are too radical and too much so we will just keep going with the happy talk fiction which will work but with increasing dysfunction until it doesn’t.
It's proven tech. We did it from 1940-1970, which is why the temperatures were flat during those 30ish years. But then everybody got so sensitive about the acid rain, respiratory illnesses and adverse impact on agriculture. So the powers that be - did a cap and trade and ruined everything.
What do you mean we did it from 1940 to 1970?
Sorry - I was trying to be humorous. Our massive emissions of aerosols between 1940 and 1970 wasn't intentional. We weren't doing "geo-engineering" at the time. We were simply burning high sulfur coal and oil like mad. Our SO2 emissions have dropped 94% since then. Europe has followed suit to a large degree. [https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11639-climate-myths-the-cooling-after-1940-shows-co2-does-not-cause-warming/](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11639-climate-myths-the-cooling-after-1940-shows-co2-does-not-cause-warming/) By 1970, we had only increased co2 levels from the pre-industrial 280 PPM, to 320 PPM. A small increase (40 PPM) relative to where we are today. Now that would have steadily (but slowly) started warming the Earth if that was all we were doing. In parallel we were dumping aerosols of various sorts into the air - enough to just overcompensate for the GHG's. In fact it was a teeny bit cooler in 1970 than in 1940. Back in '70 - methane levels had doubled from pre-industrial age (675) to 1340. But now - they are at 1928 almost triple. So what has happened since 1970 is - the ratio of cooling aerosols to warming GHG's has crashed. **GHG production has effectively tripled in the past 70 years in co2(equivalent) - while aerosols have slowly been removed because they are pollutants. Chemically we are winning. Thermally we are losing.**
You can't just say this without elaborating or dropping some links dude.
Sure. SO2 is a known cooling gas. It is the opposite of GHG, because it cools the Earth as opposed to warming it. For a long time, scientists wondered why temperatures were flat during the period from 1940-1970, considering that we humans were emitting a growing amount of co2 per year during that time. Eventually they came to believe (I also believe it) that the SO2 and other aerosols we were emitting during that time, offset the GHG emissions. Because SO2 is a nasty pollutant the US implemented series of steps to reduce it. This includes a cap and trade system starting in '95. As a result, US SO2 emissions have dropped 94% since 1970. Link below. The EU also lowered their SO2 emissions over time. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/501303/volume-of-sulfur-dioxide-emissions-us/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/501303/volume-of-sulfur-dioxide-emissions-us/) More recently there was a global agreement of maritime shipping companies to switch to cleaner (low sulfur) fuels. Many people think that the results were both good and bad. Less nasty pollution (good), but an ugly spike in ocean surface temperatures. Bad - and possibly the catalyst of more intense and destructive hurricane seasons. Link below. https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2024-05-31/cleaner-shipping-fuel-is-contributing-to-ocean-warming-scientists-say#:\~:text=SINGAPORE%20(Reuters)%20%2D%20Shipping%20fuel,paper%20published%20late%20on%20Thursday. So yes, I was being sarcastic. We can cool the Earth by dumping SO2 into the air, but it is very nasty. Link below. [https://www.epa.gov/so2-pollution/sulfur-dioxide-basics](https://www.epa.gov/so2-pollution/sulfur-dioxide-basics) Not being sarcastic at all now - a recent test using some type of salt cannon, seemed to brighten (cooling) clouds in the ocean. It was a small scale test, but it looked promising. And I imagine we can dump a LOT of salt in the ocean without harming anything. But some folks are very unsettled by doing anything in the field of climate Geoengineering. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/geoengineering-test-quietly-launches-salt-crystals-into-atmosphere/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/geoengineering-test-quietly-launches-salt-crystals-into-atmosphere/)
There was certainly a big increase in aerosols from burning fossil fuels, but the reason the temps began rising again was not the elimination of aerosols. CO2 simply rose to the point where the CO2 warming overcame the aerosol cooling. Cap and trade (late 1980s) was done on smokestack emissions and that happened well after warming had begun again. Saying people became "sensitive about acid rain" and all its side effects is pretty dumb. Hand waiving away concerns from experts is also disingenuous
Ooops. That was meant in jest. I apologize for creating the impression that I am remotely ok with destroying our environment chemically or thermally. I worked for 10 years at a sw company that created a module which allowed our electric utility customers to trade so2 emissions credits. Cap and trade was very successful, and US emissions of so2 are down 94% from where they were in 1970. I support the EU's CBAM strategy. I also like the idea of taxing carbon use and then providing a rebate at the end of the year. If your use is below a defined threshold, your rebate exceeds the tax. If your use is higher than the threshold, than you are in fact paying a tax for being an above average emitter. A lot of good tech is now available - the HVDC and UHVDC opens the door to wheeling solar East multiple time zones. It also generally enables us to use "pools" of wind and solar across very wide geography which will smooth out/reduce the intermittency issues. I am hopeful we will build a lot of pumped storage as well, as pumped storage "gravity batteries" last a long, long time and are amazingly (75% or more efficient). I believe the carbon credit market is of very low quality and that direct air capture will only be usable if we crack the code on CHEAP fusion. The most promising geo-engineering I have seen to date was a recent small scale cloud brightening test using a canon to shoot salt particles into the air above the ocean. It seemed like a relatively low risk albedo management strategy. Relative that is compared to the hotter, more meteorologically violent Earth that we are creating. Otherwise, I am very uneasy about most of the proposed geo-engineering approaches suggested so far.
It is happening, private companies have been doing tests for a couple of years.
>What is this subs opinion on geo-engineering? I fear a short-term solution without considering unintended consequences. Or, giving a damn about them!
It can be used to give us more time, but we still have to transition to a low carbon energy system.
Nothing good will come of it, at first it will seem a miracle, then the side effects will kick in and we will have another global catastrophe on our hands. Let me tell you the big oil producing nations are all for geoengineering , its good for business. With it they can continue to pump that oil. Nothing good will come from it and eventually it will be catastrophic. For one you will never be able to stop, the minute you do runaway climate change will happen. Then there is the question of ethical impact. Nothing we do happens in a bubble, we will effect others [https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/cop28-new-unesco-report-warns-ethical-risks-climate-engineering](https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/cop28-new-unesco-report-warns-ethical-risks-climate-engineering) Whats the old Jurassic park meme? "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should" Thats pretty apt for this I would think.
It isnt the only option. The fossil fuel industry just wants you to think that.
It will happen, we will not get to choose, we'll simply be told it is our only option. In the US it will be outsourced. Basically, we're gonna put our future in the hands of people like Musk...
Putting sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere will reflect sunlight. But at some point it will come down. That is going to make our oceans more acidic. There is also a risk that if it is done, the need to reduce CO2 will seen to some as less urgent. So it could be counter productive.
Just imagine the conspiracy theories will have. People lost their minds over the Covid vaccine and 5G, when world governments declare they’re going to take Jurassic steps to cool the planet, people will lose their absolute minds.
Oh yeah I’m sure it will be fucking insane. Even today people think chemtrails are killing people and turning the frogs gay
this is so stupid, clearly the chemicals are turning the frogs *trans*. It's not the same thing. /s
Before jumping to geo-engineering. Are you: using public transportation reducing beef intake to 0 eliminate dairy stopping buying new things? If you and all your friends did these things we might better off faster than you might think. Lets not do nothing waiting for the perfect solution. There are lots of things you personally can do.
Sorry man but I’d rather die than not eat beef.
How many countries will try their own version of patching various symptoms of climate change, like so many untried experiments on our atmosphere and planet.
I think anything that we can directly interfere with using technology, or finely control, will (eventually) always be better than any other solution and can make up for basically anything that we do. The question is, what is that technology, what does it take to develop and how efficient can we make it? How quickly can we scale with it? If we can answer all those questions and we can scale to our needs quickly enough,then it's a real solution. As of now, we can't, so it's not.
Inevitable.
I think if we put little loose rock damn in the dry finger beds feeding creeks, we could arrest the flash flood energy of storms. I built one, it slowly drains, and keeps the creek from going dry, allowing aquatic life to come back. Humans have been geoengineering since we began to tame fire, just didn't know it. In the presence of soot or dust, rain can happen, rather than these hullabaloos that come down like a waterfall. When rain is more frequent rather than all at once, forests don't dry out and catch fire. Yes, these are clues I've read from anthropologists. We're doing something different now than we used to. When we didn't have fire, we had pollution to rake it's place, but now we've gotten so clean, that the earth needs more particulates to form rain. This is my guess, but it's an informed guess. So enjoy a campfire folks, it's natural.
Probably going to happen. Though not until when the ones with the leavers of power’s discomfort out ways their greed.
I'm in favour of cloud seeding (with salt). But it has inbuilt limitations that mean other measures will be necessary, (like a cease to C02 emissions).
I dont like the idea. 1) We will become dependable of it. Stopping doing it would lead to catastrophe 2)People would use it as excuse to delay emissions reductions.
blot out the sun!
then we will die in the shade
The efforts to needing it will ever be less than the efforts to mitigate the unintended consequences. We only have one plant, there is no "reset" button on the experiments we do with our one and only atmosphere. And such is the inertia that we will only be measuring the long terms effect of those experiments decades later; kind of late to go "oups".
It might have to be done
Only because mankind refuses to get off the oil tit. We should have had governments install solar across the globe by now, nuclear power plants, all the fucking wasted money for bs and the ultra rich could have paid for solar and nuclear. We should have built maglev trains or at least bullet trains across the country by now! WTF have we been doing the last 30 years! The super wealthy have kept us slaves and deaf dumb and blind so they can ride to power on our backs! The day is coming , their money wont save them from the vengeful bloodthirsty hordes
Yet another 'conspiracy theory' which turned out to be completely, unequivocally true. Makes you wonder about other things...
Who will be the planet engineer? China? India? Ruzzia? or the USA?
It’s dangerous, but probably it’ll end up being our only hope.
My personal opinion is I'd prefer if we did not do it, but if we stay in the path we are on, it will probably become necessary (at least for a while)
Thank you for raising this question. It has become obvious to me that we, as a civilization, are not going to address climate chage in a meaningful way. Despite all the attention and effort for awareness, our use of fosil fuels is higher than ever, and projected to continue. If we can't bring ourselves to be preventative, we will land in the inevitable position of being reactive. I don't see a way around it. I'm tired of listening to people say "but it's possible..." when the overwhelming evidence shows that nothing is going to happen to stop this. No one is coming to save us. It's a fantasy. Once the economic impact tips a certain point, we will absolutely be geo-engineering ourselves into a cooler climate. It sucks. But I'm ready to start being realistic about this. I'm interested in starting a wider discussion/board about what might be possible and how best to survive what is coming. I'm not a doomsdayer. I don't think the earth will be "destroyed". I just want to start my adapting process.
How quickly is it reversible when we do 100x as much as we need one month before NY floods?
I do not know. I have no idea how it will affect the weather or countless other things. That’s what bothers me. It seems like it could help with warming but hurt several other things.
[удалено]
Much love thank you.
It's our only hope at this stage to stem the damage
Final season of Snowpiercer coming this summer - maybe we’ll get “the answer!”