Solar geoengineering could buy humanity time against climate change—or trigger a dangerous new arms race. A first-of-its-kind simulation offered a glimpse of what happens when geopolitics takes the wheel.
Furthers my conclusion that we’re just not (socially and scientifically) evolved enough to handle geoengineering.
Politically it really shouldn’t be under the control of one country. Perhaps the UN (or a reformed international council without ‘major power’ veto). Way too easy to freeze some poor bastards for profit.
Scientifically it really needs to be easily and completely reversible when the inevitable fuck ups in climate and ecology show up. Random chemicals into the stratosphere GO! is not that, maybe it’s just a distraction to keep fossil fuel profits rolling, maybe a scam for funding, maybe batshit insane narcissists with a god complex.
I could get behind a dimmable shade in synchronous orbit somewhere (preferably outside the earth moon system), shading the whole earth equally but that’s a bigger project. Perhaps better patterns than whole earth exist, but that needs to be a testable hypothesis. Reverse by making transparent, if that fails rotate to edge on, or just blow it up.
The real solutions are get rid of fossil fuels as fast as possible, economy (or 1% profits) be damned, actually functional now carbon sequestration (e.g. sinking trees in deep cold water) and shit-tons of renewables. Everything else is nice to haves.
Furthers my conclusion that we’re just not (socially and scientifically) evolved enough to handle geoengineering.
Politically it really shouldn’t be under the control of one country. Perhaps the UN (or a reformed international council without ‘major power’ veto). Way too easy to freeze some poor bastards for profit.
Scientifically it really needs to be easily and completely reversible when the inevitable fuck ups in climate and ecology show up. Random chemicals into the stratosphere GO! is not that, maybe it’s just a distraction to keep fossil fuel profits rolling, maybe a scam for funding, maybe batshit insane narcissists with a god complex.
I could get behind a dimmable shade in synchronous orbit somewhere (preferably outside the earth moon system), shading the whole earth equally but that’s a bigger project. Perhaps better patterns than whole earth exist, but that needs to be a testable hypothesis. Reverse by making transparent, if that fails rotate to edge on, or just blow it up.
The real solutions are get rid of fossil fuels as fast as possible, economy (or 1% profits) be damned, actually functional now carbon sequestration (e.g. sinking trees in deep cold water) and shit-tons of renewables. Everything else is nice to haves.