I think it's weird that people react so negatively to geoengineering when the status quo is that we're changing the climate adversely just by thoughtless inaction with respect to reducing CO2 emissions.<p>I do agree with the sentiment though that solar radiation management doesn't actually solve anything in the long run. We need to remove CO2 from the atmosphere in large quantities and raise the pH of the ocean, and SRM does neither -- it just buys time for modern civilization.<p>I think we should study SRM because we're going to do it anyways eventually -- I don't see a plausible future where we don't. At the same time I feel like we don't have the moral authority to smash the snooze bar one more time unless we're actually doing as much as we can to cut back on CO2 emissions. Maybe a fair policy is to have an international treaty that says: no country is allowed to do SRM or have any say in how it's performed unless they've actually become carbon neutral. But then maybe that's too rigorous a standard and no one will meet it.
> “Stratospheric Aerosol Transport and Nucleation,” or SATAN for short<p>Nice branding.<p>The kind of Solar Radiation Management technology that we need is for containerships. New low sulfur blends for fuel oil are ironically increasing warming because the ships no longer produce reflective soot. Also, the cleaner fuels also reduce marine cloud brightening effects (ship tracks).<p>We urgently need research on solutions where ocean water can be aerosolized behind containerships to support cloud brightening. This could significantly reduce ocean warming for a low cost. Alternatively, adding chemicals to fuels. But the later is likely to freak people out, whereas aerosolized ocean water is very palatable to the public.
I find the whole idea that we shouldn't study something because of imagined consequences repulsive. "If we knew these facts, people might behave badly, therefore we should enforce ignorance."
Such a hideously dystopian idea. Yeah, let's allow (probably the US) government or some billionaires to start blotting out the sun instead of scaling back our dependence on fuels that were always pretty dreadful environmentally, socially, and politically.<p>My prediction is that a big, unauthorised experiment will happen, probably go wrong, and the backlash will be enormous. People see the earth as a shared resource, and they will hate this. Especially if it is a divisve rich person trying to play the hero.
IDK seems like a situation where you have vested national interests/individuals that hold hostage the rest of the world with some significant ripple effects that we can't possible model. Even if they started out of goodwill I can't imagine it staying that route.<p>Look at the internet for anything that started good and has really degraded over time. Our environment is already pretty degraded - can't imagine politicians controlling the levers to bring any good value to the table here.<p>It is after all modeling weather which is one of the hardest challenges that we have yet to figure out.<p>What could possibly go wrong?
Reflecting the sunlight to get <i>less</i> of it?! I'd very much like the opposite — please reflect a shitload of sunlight at my city. We barely get any, especially in the winter. Besides, there's zero practical benefit of the temperature going below freezing in a city anyway. It just makes people suffer and the snow creates more work for municipal services.