I am pro geoengineering. But this is what governments are for. Or international organisations. Profit driven geoengineering sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Money and free markets are a...
I am pro geoengineering. But this is what governments are for. Or international organisations. Profit driven geoengineering sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Money and free markets are a powerful technology for achieving the things we want as a civilization. But at some point we actually have to decide and plan for what we want ourselves, and not leave it up the market.
What are governments but collectives of equally selfish and greedy individuals? Public private partnership is often just profit driven entities using public funds to further their profits. Think...
What are governments but collectives of equally selfish and greedy individuals? Public private partnership is often just profit driven entities using public funds to further their profits. Think of the messes they have made of industries we know so much about: housing, transportation and employment got wrecked by airBnB, pie in the sky mag tube + cancelled rail lines to rural communities, and precarious employment thanks to gig economy and mechanical Turk etc. It's not always bad but they tend to feel inadvertent rather than by careful design and well safe guarded implementation.
Unfortunately climate change isn't going to be solved via democracy: just not that many of us care enough to put our current livelihood at risk, too many people's survival depend on staying the course and the developing world will never go for it. So private enterprises and their insane ideas might be the worst option, except for doing nothing. We might be gifted with the miracle of hitting the jackpot and survive anyway due to someone's get rich quick scheme.
The very conceptual foundation of it being engineering IMO already makes it an issue. Engineering a "better" climate, as opposed to implementing policies better for the health of the biosphere,...
The very conceptual foundation of it being engineering IMO already makes it an issue. Engineering a "better" climate, as opposed to implementing policies better for the health of the biosphere, inherently implies hyperdynamic strategies focused solely around calibrating a narrow set of variables to a desired range. If it were anything else, it simply wouldn't be understood to be engineering. Polluting the air with SO2 just to reflect sunlight is extremely shortsighted, and there's a reason why, in Atlantic shipping, regulations were put in place against it.
There are two facts about geoengineering that, combined, terrify me. It is, as far as we could tell, something that we could do, and it is something that is being seriously considered. Someone...
There are two facts about geoengineering that, combined, terrify me.
It is, as far as we could tell, something that we could do, and it is something that is being seriously considered.
Someone could just do it. The US or China could just start trying to cool the planet without getting anyone else's OK.
I, and many others, would argue that we have been geoengineering for decades... Centuries even. We might not have called it that, but it's what we've done with CO2 emissions, large scale...
I, and many others, would argue that we have been geoengineering for decades... Centuries even. We might not have called it that, but it's what we've done with CO2 emissions, large scale deforestation, etc.
This is true, but it's worth learning from the fact that when it comes to these actions, there were massive (often unforeseen) consequences and that it's been incredibly difficult to stop them...
This is true, but it's worth learning from the fact that when it comes to these actions, there were massive (often unforeseen) consequences and that it's been incredibly difficult to stop them once they're started. I'm not against geoengineering on the whole but I think extreme caution is warranted to not avoid fucking shit up worse than it already is.
Oh for sure. I wasn't intending to downplay the risks. I was simply responding to the notion that it was something we could do, by pointing out that we do already.
Oh for sure. I wasn't intending to downplay the risks. I was simply responding to the notion that it was something we could do, by pointing out that we do already.
There's also the unintended consequences. Because a lot of our current issues are a result of immediately capitalizing on an opportunity/technology or as a reaction to other issues. We could argue...
There's also the unintended consequences.
Because a lot of our current issues are a result of immediately capitalizing on an opportunity/technology or as a reaction to other issues.
We could argue that we didn't have to decimate every woodland or build every factory or burn all that oil. But human brains have a hard time imagining things at a mass scale and globalization is a fairly novel concept. I single car trip or Starbucks or iPhone isn't causing a wildfire but every one just might.
I can't wrap my mind around the Rube Goldberg machine of climate systems that will be set off by cooling one city, let alone a country. And VC tech bros aren't exactly concerned with consequences beyond the IPO.
The most reasonable idea I have heard for geoengineering was release of volcanic materials into the upper atmosphere. Because we understand the impacts very well, at least compared to...
The most reasonable idea I have heard for geoengineering was release of volcanic materials into the upper atmosphere. Because we understand the impacts very well, at least compared to alternatives.
I think I'm parroting this omega tau episode: https://omegataupodcast.net/385-solar-geoengineering/ (Fantastic podcast btw, if anyone is looking for something deeply technical that covers anything that meets my personal definition of "cool".)
And all we'd have to do is develop an airplane that can fly at 60,000 feet while releasing real chemtrails and then build 100 of those planes and then have those planes fly 60,000 sorties a...
And all we'd have to do is develop an airplane that can fly at 60,000 feet while releasing real chemtrails and then build 100 of those planes and then have those planes fly 60,000 sorties a year...every year...forever. Then we'd be free to pollute the atmosphere even more! As long as we keep up those tens of thousands of flights every year because if we don't the temperature will shoot right back up. It would also be fun because it "could also change global circulation patterns with potentially serious consequences such as changing storm tracks and precipitation patterns," and it's just so fun when new natural disasters pop up where they shouldn't be happening.
And another great benefit is that we can tailor it to best help one country--or even one corporation!
Oh and don't forget the best part of scattering sulfur dioxide across the sky--it eventually all comes back down in the form of acid rain, and that just sounds badass. Plus the acid rain and increased emissions this will enable will turn the oceans acidic even faster and acid oceans are something straight out of science fiction, so sign me up!
I'm sorry. Maybe it was naive of me to assume that what I said could be taken in good faith. I did not post that with the intention of persuading people that climate change doesn't require them to...
I'm sorry. Maybe it was naive of me to assume that what I said could be taken in good faith.
I did not post that with the intention of persuading people that climate change doesn't require them to personally take action. Or in any other way indicate that geoengineering isn't by far the worse outcome.
I thought I had some information to add to the conversation that personally was interesting to me.
Even if I did have such an opinion, my odds of snaring an innocent bystander on tildes with misinformation of that kind are (I hope) very low.
I think the podcast won't be what you're expecting, it's not at all a positive spin on any of this.
Maybe I should have defused this preemptively by providing a summary of what I thought was relevant, but I didn't have much time.
I've read Termination Shock, the Neal Stephenson novel mentioned in the article. The geoengineering works, but it does not go well. It's a cautionary tale. Termination Shock spoiler. Various...
I've read Termination Shock, the Neal Stephenson novel mentioned in the article. The geoengineering works, but it does not go well. It's a cautionary tale.
Termination Shock spoiler.
Various countries end up using predictive models to pump the sulfur in such a way that the resulting weather patterns benefit them and fuck up the countries they don't care about.
I'm thinking that laws regarding nuisance are likely to come into play, but liability happens after the fact. nuisance law There is nothing stopping a would be geoengineer from moving to a low...
I'm thinking that laws regarding nuisance are likely to come into play, but liability happens after the fact. nuisance law
There is nothing stopping a would be geoengineer from moving to a low regulation country if they have the resources.
I'm really partial to marine cloud brightening. Only uses sea water, can be powered by wind and solar power, cools the planet the same way exhaust gas from shipping diesel engines used to (before...
I'm really partial to marine cloud brightening. Only uses sea water, can be powered by wind and solar power, cools the planet the same way exhaust gas from shipping diesel engines used to (before they cleaned it up), completely stops the same day you stop spraying.
I expect we'll see it on a larger scale in the near future. Design a swimming platform with a small wind turbine and/or solar panels, make it use all its energy spraying sea water into the air. Park a few hundred of those platforms upwind of the Great Barrier Reef and we probably could significantly slow the reef's dying in summer from warm water.
Yeah, that's one of the best parts of fossil fuel use: the ones we used to use more are so dirty that we actually underestimated the effects of greenhouse gasses because the fuels had so much...
cools the planet the same way exhaust gas from shipping diesel engines used to (before they cleaned it up)
Yeah, that's one of the best parts of fossil fuel use: the ones we used to use more are so dirty that we actually underestimated the effects of greenhouse gasses because the fuels had so much particulate matter that cools the Earth mixed in their emissions. Actually, for a while in I think the 60s or 70s, it was thought that we may have been cooling the Earth until we realized that "ope, the greenhouse gasses are way stronger than the rest of the emissions and we're never going to see snow again in a handful of decades, maybe a century."
I am not in favor of a wild west approach to geoengineering. I don't think anyone but startup founders are. But one project that I think is really important is Project Vesta, which is designed to...
I am not in favor of a wild west approach to geoengineering. I don't think anyone but startup founders are. But one project that I think is really important is Project Vesta, which is designed to not only capture marine carbon dioxide in olivine rock, but to use tidal forces to keep the olivine from sealing itself with an oxidized rind, which means it can absorb and process CO2 in perpetuity. According to their calculations, only 2% of global (mostly tropical) beaches would need to be turned green (olivine is green) for the current excess amount of CO2 in the world's oceans to be treated.
Geoengineering is definitely scary, but there are a number of processes like this that can be implemented incrementally. For too many people, they believe it's a single giant engineering initiative like a million square kilometer sun shield in space. We don't need to do that. We can slowly add albedo to cloud cover and ice fields in small amounts and continually study the interactions of the larger systems. Yes, we will certainly make mistakes, but as we are currently sprinting toward hell in a handbasket, I believe many more geoengineering strategies will be crucial to the continued livability of the planet.
I am pro geoengineering. But this is what governments are for. Or international organisations. Profit driven geoengineering sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Money and free markets are a powerful technology for achieving the things we want as a civilization. But at some point we actually have to decide and plan for what we want ourselves, and not leave it up the market.
What are governments but collectives of equally selfish and greedy individuals? Public private partnership is often just profit driven entities using public funds to further their profits. Think of the messes they have made of industries we know so much about: housing, transportation and employment got wrecked by airBnB, pie in the sky mag tube + cancelled rail lines to rural communities, and precarious employment thanks to gig economy and mechanical Turk etc. It's not always bad but they tend to feel inadvertent rather than by careful design and well safe guarded implementation.
Unfortunately climate change isn't going to be solved via democracy: just not that many of us care enough to put our current livelihood at risk, too many people's survival depend on staying the course and the developing world will never go for it. So private enterprises and their insane ideas might be the worst option, except for doing nothing. We might be gifted with the miracle of hitting the jackpot and survive anyway due to someone's get rich quick scheme.
The very conceptual foundation of it being engineering IMO already makes it an issue. Engineering a "better" climate, as opposed to implementing policies better for the health of the biosphere, inherently implies hyperdynamic strategies focused solely around calibrating a narrow set of variables to a desired range. If it were anything else, it simply wouldn't be understood to be engineering. Polluting the air with SO2 just to reflect sunlight is extremely shortsighted, and there's a reason why, in Atlantic shipping, regulations were put in place against it.
There are two facts about geoengineering that, combined, terrify me.
I, and many others, would argue that we have been geoengineering for decades... Centuries even. We might not have called it that, but it's what we've done with CO2 emissions, large scale deforestation, etc.
This is true, but it's worth learning from the fact that when it comes to these actions, there were massive (often unforeseen) consequences and that it's been incredibly difficult to stop them once they're started. I'm not against geoengineering on the whole but I think extreme caution is warranted to not avoid fucking shit up worse than it already is.
Oh for sure. I wasn't intending to downplay the risks. I was simply responding to the notion that it was something we could do, by pointing out that we do already.
There's also the unintended consequences.
Because a lot of our current issues are a result of immediately capitalizing on an opportunity/technology or as a reaction to other issues.
We could argue that we didn't have to decimate every woodland or build every factory or burn all that oil. But human brains have a hard time imagining things at a mass scale and globalization is a fairly novel concept. I single car trip or Starbucks or iPhone isn't causing a wildfire but every one just might.
I can't wrap my mind around the Rube Goldberg machine of climate systems that will be set off by cooling one city, let alone a country. And VC tech bros aren't exactly concerned with consequences beyond the IPO.
The most reasonable idea I have heard for geoengineering was release of volcanic materials into the upper atmosphere. Because we understand the impacts very well, at least compared to alternatives.
I think I'm parroting this omega tau episode:
https://omegataupodcast.net/385-solar-geoengineering/
(Fantastic podcast btw, if anyone is looking for something deeply technical that covers anything that meets my personal definition of "cool".)
And all we'd have to do is develop an airplane that can fly at 60,000 feet while releasing real chemtrails and then build 100 of those planes and then have those planes fly 60,000 sorties a year...every year...forever. Then we'd be free to pollute the atmosphere even more! As long as we keep up those tens of thousands of flights every year because if we don't the temperature will shoot right back up. It would also be fun because it "could also change global circulation patterns with potentially serious consequences such as changing storm tracks and precipitation patterns," and it's just so fun when new natural disasters pop up where they shouldn't be happening.
And another great benefit is that we can tailor it to best help one country--or even one corporation!
Oh and don't forget the best part of scattering sulfur dioxide across the sky--it eventually all comes back down in the form of acid rain, and that just sounds badass. Plus the acid rain and increased emissions this will enable will turn the oceans acidic even faster and acid oceans are something straight out of science fiction, so sign me up!
If you're into podcasts, then this is a good one that covers problems with geoengineering: The Climate Denier's Playbook: We Shall Blot Out the Sun!
I'm sorry. Maybe it was naive of me to assume that what I said could be taken in good faith.
I did not post that with the intention of persuading people that climate change doesn't require them to personally take action. Or in any other way indicate that geoengineering isn't by far the worse outcome.
I thought I had some information to add to the conversation that personally was interesting to me.
Even if I did have such an opinion, my odds of snaring an innocent bystander on tildes with misinformation of that kind are (I hope) very low.
I think the podcast won't be what you're expecting, it's not at all a positive spin on any of this.
Maybe I should have defused this preemptively by providing a summary of what I thought was relevant, but I didn't have much time.
I didn't say you were commenting in bad faith...?
I’m pretty sure he thought your comment was sarcastically making fun of what was said initially regarding the volcanic materials in the atmosphere
I've read Termination Shock, the Neal Stephenson novel mentioned in the article. The geoengineering works, but it does not go well. It's a cautionary tale.
Termination Shock spoiler.
Various countries end up using predictive models to pump the sulfur in such a way that the resulting weather patterns benefit them and fuck up the countries they don't care about.I'm thinking that laws regarding nuisance are likely to come into play, but liability happens after the fact.
nuisance law
There is nothing stopping a would be geoengineer from moving to a low regulation country if they have the resources.
I'm really partial to marine cloud brightening. Only uses sea water, can be powered by wind and solar power, cools the planet the same way exhaust gas from shipping diesel engines used to (before they cleaned it up), completely stops the same day you stop spraying.
I expect we'll see it on a larger scale in the near future. Design a swimming platform with a small wind turbine and/or solar panels, make it use all its energy spraying sea water into the air. Park a few hundred of those platforms upwind of the Great Barrier Reef and we probably could significantly slow the reef's dying in summer from warm water.
Yeah, that's one of the best parts of fossil fuel use: the ones we used to use more are so dirty that we actually underestimated the effects of greenhouse gasses because the fuels had so much particulate matter that cools the Earth mixed in their emissions. Actually, for a while in I think the 60s or 70s, it was thought that we may have been cooling the Earth until we realized that "ope, the greenhouse gasses are way stronger than the rest of the emissions and we're never going to see snow again in a handful of decades, maybe a century."
I am not in favor of a wild west approach to geoengineering. I don't think anyone but startup founders are. But one project that I think is really important is Project Vesta, which is designed to not only capture marine carbon dioxide in olivine rock, but to use tidal forces to keep the olivine from sealing itself with an oxidized rind, which means it can absorb and process CO2 in perpetuity. According to their calculations, only 2% of global (mostly tropical) beaches would need to be turned green (olivine is green) for the current excess amount of CO2 in the world's oceans to be treated.
Geoengineering is definitely scary, but there are a number of processes like this that can be implemented incrementally. For too many people, they believe it's a single giant engineering initiative like a million square kilometer sun shield in space. We don't need to do that. We can slowly add albedo to cloud cover and ice fields in small amounts and continually study the interactions of the larger systems. Yes, we will certainly make mistakes, but as we are currently sprinting toward hell in a handbasket, I believe many more geoengineering strategies will be crucial to the continued livability of the planet.
Good thing I was already planning on designing my worldwide luxury train loop!