White House is pushing ahead research to cool Earth by reflecting back sunlight

It&#x27;s interesting to me how much people are trained to reflex against this possibility. As mentioned in the article, dust in the atmosphere is literally a natural occurrence also. Sure, the exact impact should be researched and understood, but people are already jumping to the fashionable conclusion that human technology bad, gods and wood spirits will punish us for trying to escape from the primordial toil.<p>Myself, I think that both this type of things and emission controls should be going on to get the situation under control. Simply because we cannot know exactly how much any of this will accomplish and the needs are <i>big</i>.<p>The climate question&#x27;s credibility is hurt by limiting solutions to an ideologically approved list and treating it as a vehicle for one&#x27;s favorite causes. People can suspect that if the activists are so choosy about the methods, this cannot be <i>that</i> serious and this is not how truly desperate people act.

I feel like stratospheric aerosol injection would have some crazy unintended side effects. The size and complexity of the atmosphere is mind blowing. A mistake here could literally ruin the atmosphere for the entire globe.<p>Reduction of Carbon Emissions is and always will be the best strategy to slow down global warming. These moon shot initiatives are necessary but should not be taken too seriously given their low probability of success.

These threads always have people saying &quot;hmm, I don&#x27;t know about this, seems like there might be negative unintended consequences&quot;. I always want to say this, so I&#x27;ll say it here:<p>Without some drastic step, global temperatures will rise by more than 2 degrees, causing widespread death, countless displaced people, extinct species, collapsed biomes, and so on. Second-order consequences like starvation, viral outbreaks, and wars are are harder to predict, but seem very likely.<p>The solution to this, if there is one, will not be to reduce, reuse, and recycle. It will not be driving cars less, or eating less meat, or getting more power from renewable resources. Those are not drastic solutions, those are sensible solutions we could have taken a hundred years ago, but didn&#x27;t. The thing to realize is that the damage has already been done, and we are just waiting for the effects to propagate.<p>We&#x27;re now in a situation where, distasteful and dangerous as they may be, technological solutions like this are the only <i>possible</i> solutions. Not necessarily this, but things like this, and as crazy (or crazier) than this sounds. Yes, unintended side effects. Yes, expensive. Yes, not guaranteed to work. That&#x27;s what&#x27;s on the table. From what I&#x27;ve seen, anything short of a novel technological solution at this point amounts to just waiting.

I&#x27;m going to make an out there prediction. It works, but its expensive and demands a lot of technology which people like santos, bechtel, schlumberger are absolute EXPERTS at supplying in a cost+ government project with no penalty clauses.<p>I&#x27;m going to make a second prediction. It wont work as well as moving out of the industrial processes into newer ones which don&#x27;t exacerbate the problem, it&#x27;s just that the money flows won&#x27;t help the people who have the ear of the WH on this.<p>And a third one. it will have serious downsides. things which we didn&#x27;t think of which are exceptionally hard to remediate at scale once we&#x27;ve put the material up there in volume.<p>This isn&#x27;t really predictive. Its actually not that far removed from what the other commentors say Neal Stephenson said anyway.

Honestly, at this point tech is probably the only way climate change will be fixed. You won&#x27;t get people to agree to make their life worse for the sake of the environment, no matter how much activists keep trying to push that. And so if drastic measures like this are what&#x27;s needed, then those are what&#x27;s needed. We can either argue about responsibilities and sustainability for years with little effect, or accept that technological methods are probably going to be the solution here.<p>Plus it&#x27;s not like this would have to go on forever. Once all sources of energy are &#x27;green&#x27; and carbon capture has removed enough of the CO2 from the atmosphere, then any means of reflecting back sunlight or reducing the amount that reaches Earth can be gradually scaled back.

So nuclear energy is too dangerous but apparently this is okay?<p>The biggest danger I see here is that we won&#x27;t reduce emissions, we&#x27;ll just carry on business as usual and pump up aerosols to compensate.<p>And then if one day we can&#x27;t pump up enough aerosols and they begin to dissipate there will be intense warming. It&#x27;s a band-aid.<p>Nuclear power is the best solution we have for a sustainable and prosperous society.

People have proposed approaches to increasing the earth&#x27;s albedo (and thus reflecting more sunlight) without launching material into the atmosphere.<p>Best known is probably the idea of painting roads and rooftops white.<p>Another interesting approach: setting up very light-weight (thin plastic?) mirrors in large quantities in farmer&#x27;s fields. Farmers have incentive to do this in areas that are getting hotter and where crops may already grow better with some partial shade than in full sun. Spacing mirrors on posts in fields can provide this.<p>This is being proposed by Ye Tao, an MIT Chemistry PhD who has pivoted to this project. Discussed on Dave Robert&#x27;s Volts podcast [0].<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.volts.wtf&#x2F;p&#x2F;volts-podcast-dr-ye-tao-on-a-grand#details" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.volts.wtf&#x2F;p&#x2F;volts-podcast-dr-ye-tao-on-a-grand#d...</a>

The article fails to mention a really important idea - Sulfur Dioxide is not the only aerosol that can be injected, and there are other options that seem much more promising. For example, using Calcium Carbonate may actually help restore the Ozone layer while also reducing the temperature.<p>&gt; Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.harvard.edu&#x2F;gazette&#x2F;story&#x2F;2019&#x2F;09&#x2F;harvard-groups-research-planet-cooling-aerosols&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.harvard.edu&#x2F;gazette&#x2F;story&#x2F;2019&#x2F;09&#x2F;harvard-group...</a><p>&gt; &quot;The chemists think the solution could be calcium carbonate — the stuff of chalk, limestone, marble, and seashells. It may be less harmful to the ozone, and it’s not a big health concern. The team is studying how the substance affects chlorine and nitrogen oxides, which also exist in the stratosphere — largely due to man-made emissions — and speed ozone destruction. The researchers think the calcium carbonate might help to lower levels of these gases.&quot;

While post leads with “the White House is pushing…” in fact the report was requested by Congress:<p>“In the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy […] was directed by Congress to develop a five-year – “scientific assessment of solar and other rapid climate interventions in the context of near-term climate risks and hazards.” &#x2F;1<p>1&#x2F; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whitehouse.gov&#x2F;ostp&#x2F;legal&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whitehouse.gov&#x2F;ostp&#x2F;legal&#x2F;</a><p>I point this out so those with concerns can direct letters to all relevant actors.

OMG, I did not see this coming so quickly. This is Neal Stephenson: Termination Shock happening in real life. I love the fact that he wrote a book, but setup the sequel in the name of the book. What is the math? 100 grams of sulfur removes the effects of 100 tons of CO2?

It&#x27;s easier to geo-engineer the atmosphere than to stop polluting it? I&#x27;m not sure I understand what&#x27;s going on in the world anymore.

&quot;This computer model says the Earth might get 1 degree warmer over the next 100 years, let&#x27;s blot out the sun!&quot;<p>It&#x27;s probably an unpopular opinion here, but these people sound like reckless lunatics to me. The fact is we don&#x27;t have anywhere near enough of a mature climate science to allow any kind of responsible engineering. It&#x27;s a good goal, and I applaud research in that direction. But I deplore the possibility of some idiot billionaires getting the numbers wrong by a few percent, creating a positive feedback loop, and causing a glaciation event. Lest we forget, we are still in the Quaternary Ice Age! This is just an interglacial period. All of the major geological factors to make a snowball Earth possible still obtain! And I guarantee you that humanity will better adapt to a hothouse than a snowball.<p>I know it&#x27;s taboo to mention votes, but please, please, if you&#x27;re thinking about downvoting me because I&#x27;m wrong, please at least offer the consolation of explaining why glaciation is nothing to worry about.

I think this is pretty hard to stop and not necessarily a bad idea depending on your perception of how screwed we already are.<p>It&#x27;d be hard because many proposals are within the range of many nations or just billionaires and it&#x27;s going to be really hard to stop a nation being hit hard by climate change from acting to protect themselves. So the sensible thing to do is to try to do it in the most understood and least harmful way because otherwise there are going to be less discerning and more desperate people doing it their own way.

Seems like something fossil fuel industry would concoct against the solar panels.<p>&gt; Morpheus : We don&#x27;t know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky.<p>I was hoping to read they are pushing for reflection from space, from the lagrange point directly between earth and sun. That one at least possible to turn off, if something went wrong.

The only geoengineering approach I see discussed in the media is this sulfur dioxide aerosol method. Does anyone know why seeding iron filings in the Southern Ocean doesn&#x27;t get more consideration? That&#x27;s always seemed a more straightforward route to me, and one that could be pursued more cautiously.<p>For those that don&#x27;t know, coccolithophores are single-celled phytoplankton that grow a calcium carbonate shell, of sorts. When they die, their shells sink to the ocean floor. It&#x27;s posited that their population growth in the Southern Ocean is inhibited by the availability of iron in the water — the theory is that if you dumped some iron filings in the ocean, you&#x27;d get a coccolithophore bloom, sucking out carbon for their shells, and then sinking it permanently.

This reminds me that it was mentioned how the decrease in global shipping during the pandemic and the fact that the bulk of those ships burn high-sulfur fuels may have had an observable effect on warming.

Pinatubo already did this. The side effects have already been observed. We survived. This is not a permanent solution, so much as a hotfix (heh) while we develop more sustainable solutions.<p>If I were a wealthy truck-stop billionaire, I&#x27;d probably do this without asking anybody. If I were the head of a global NGO, I&#x27;d be advocating for this.

Bleak, but also hilarious the lengths the fossil fuel industry will be defended and coddled- almost as astounding as the people who refuse to understand how the greenhouse effect works despite encountering it on a regular basis. Scientists have been warning about the potential climate impacts since more than a century ago:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.popularmechanics.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;environment&#x2F;a14416134&#x2F;popular-mechanics-on-climate-change&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.popularmechanics.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;environment&#x2F;a144161...</a>

The deadline was last month to submit a paper to the white house on this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mailchi.mp&#x2F;ff8ed2a3ed98&#x2F;save-the-date-usgcrp-international-workshop-6-7-december-6109224" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mailchi.mp&#x2F;ff8ed2a3ed98&#x2F;save-the-date-usgcrp-interna...</a>

My preferred method of this is a filter&#x2F;shade between the earth and sun. That’s second to actually pulling carbon out of the air&#x2F;ocean.

“So the leaders conceived of their most desperate strategy yet, a final solution - the destruction of the sky. Thus would man try to cut the Machines off from the sun, their main energy source. May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins.”<p>- The Second Renaissance, Part 2

The downside of &quot;crazy schemes&quot; is they take focus away from what <i>really needs to be done</i>, which is stop producing greenhouses gasses.

I hope this doesn&#x27;t end up like the plot of Snow Piercer:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Snow_Piercer#Plot" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Snow_Piercer#Plot</a>

The weight of a decision is often determined by the ability to back out of the decision should it turn out to be the wrong one. This seems like a solution that would be very hard to back out if we discover unintended side-effects.<p>A giant mirror in space would be harder to achieve but much easier to turn off.

How about a way to reflect HID headlights on 3&#x27;6&quot; high front end trucks?

Now imagine this: if we could do this, we could just as well put a shade in front of Venus. We could cool Venus as much as we want, in particular we could cool it to below the freezing temperature of CO2. All the CO2 in the atmosphere would fall to the surface. The pressure would decrease from the current 93 bar to very nearly 1 bar (the pressure on Earth). A factor of 3.5 comes from the lowering of the temperature (from about 700K to 200K) and another factor of 30 from the disappearance of the CO2, which currently represents 96.5% of the Venusian atmosphere<p>How long would it take for this to happen? Most likely just a few years.<p>But how do you make Venus habitable? If you let more light come through, the temperature goes up, but so does the CO2. You need to first sequester the CO2.<p>We would need to plant trees on Venus. Initially, we&#x27;ll put them in some greenhouses. Besides CO2, trees need water and oxygen, but not a lot of oxygen, because once they get started, they create oxygen from CO2. As for water, there&#x27;s very little of it on Venus, but there&#x27;s plenty of clouds of sulfuric acid, from which we could make water. After that trees would need nitrogen, and Venus has plenty. Also potassium and phosphorus. I&#x27;m not sure if they&#x27;d be easy to source.

When narratives collide. I hope someone does the math on how much this will degrade solar panels.

I wonder what Montgomery Burns is charging for his consultation.

An interesting bit from the article:<p>&gt; Ironically, as the world reduces coal burning to curb the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming, we’ll also be eliminating the sulfur dioxide emissions that mask some of that warming. &gt; &gt; “Sulfur pollution that’s coming out of smokestacks right now is masking between a third and a half of the heating signal from the greenhouse gases humans have already emitted into the atmosphere,” Parson said.<p>That&#x27;s not great.

We need to strip CO2 out of the atmosphere too. CO2 is a known cognitive retardant [1], ocean acidifier[2], and plant nutrition degrader[2].<p>Iron fertilization seems like a good option: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Iron_fertilization" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Iron_fertilization</a><p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencedaily.com&#x2F;releases&#x2F;2020&#x2F;04&#x2F;200421090556.htm#:~:text=Put%20simply%2C%20when%20we%20breathe,anxiety%2C%20and%20impair%20cognitive%20function" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencedaily.com&#x2F;releases&#x2F;2020&#x2F;04&#x2F;200421090556.h...</a>.<p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.noaa.gov&#x2F;education&#x2F;resource-collections&#x2F;ocean-coasts&#x2F;ocean-acidification" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.noaa.gov&#x2F;education&#x2F;resource-collections&#x2F;ocean-co...</a><p>[3]:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thelancet.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;lanplh&#x2F;article&#x2F;PIIS2542-5196(19)30108-1&#x2F;fulltext#:~:text=Second%2C%20increased%20concentrations%20of%20carbon,by%20up%20to%20a%2030%25" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thelancet.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;lanplh&#x2F;article&#x2F;PIIS2542-5...</a>.

Really is the sun not the root cause of our warming problem? We should simply blow it up.

Also in the news &quot;Solar Power Harnessed From Space Could Be Wirelessly Transmitted to Earth&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newsweek.com&#x2F;wireless-electricity-space-solar-panels-renewable-energy-emrod-new-zealand-1751884" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newsweek.com&#x2F;wireless-electricity-space-solar-pa...</a><p>Maybe get these teams together?

This will sound very familiar to anyone who read Neal Stephenson&#x27;s Termination Shock. The picture of Pinatubo was too much.

What percentage drop in solar conversion will PV panels have after the change? If I have 40x400 watt monocrystalline panels rated at 22% efficiency what will my power reduction be, approximately? Or in other words, how many panels will I need to add to maintain 16kw? <i>Not delivered yet queued up with a vendor, may change order</i>

A white house already reflects sunlight, so they&#x27;re way ahead.

This reminds me of Neo encounter with Morpheus in the Matrix<p>Morpheus : We don&#x27;t know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar power. It was believed they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun.

I think there are some ideas here that are low risk and low cost. I only know a little about the topic, but it seems doable and much better than the alternative of doing nothing and just taking our medicine.<p>A very interesting discussion on freezing the poles using aerosols (e.g. sulfur compounds): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;DQbwSI_MI7I" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;DQbwSI_MI7I</a><p>That is far cheaper than dealing with just the effects of rising sea levels, nevermind everything else. It&#x27;s relatively low risk because the effects don&#x27;t last long, and they stay trapped by the polar vortex, and nobody lives there. If it doesn&#x27;t work, or has sufficient undesirable effects, you cancel the experiment.

DOE chief under Obama Steven chu proposed painting roofs and roads white to improve earths albedo

This sounds like something straight from The Simpsons.

Shoot, I was looking for my personal favorite [0] but it isn&#x27;t in the list: send a few hundred rockets loaded with thin sheets of aluminum foil to the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, and unroll them in space as a sun shield.<p>It is crazy enough to be exciting yet practical enough to potentially be within reach given recent technological developments and – perhaps best of all – very easily reversible!<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencedirect.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;article&#x2F;abs&#x2F;pii&#x2F;S0094576522000777" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencedirect.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;article&#x2F;abs&#x2F;pii&#x2F;S00945...</a>

“ Well, the Simpsons really called this one first. In Season 6, Episode 25, &quot;Who Shot Mr. Burns,&quot; the evil Mr. Burns decides that he&#x27;s going to block out the sun to cool Springfield so people have to rely on his energy company to heat their homes and power their lights.”<p>Read More: Simpsons Called It First: Bill Gates Wants To Block Out The Sun To Cool Earth | <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;97x.com&#x2F;simpsons-called-it-first-bill-gates-wants-to-block-out-the-sun-to-cool-earth&#x2F;?utm_source=tsmclip&amp;utm_medium=referral" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;97x.com&#x2F;simpsons-called-it-first-bill-gates-wants-to...</a>

The goal should be to have a thermostat on our planet. Alien civilizations are looking at us like we&#x27;re living in a house without A&#x2F;C. They out here building dyson spheres and sh*t.

Something tells me it may not be welcomed by other countries and playing with climate can have lots of unintended and disastrous consequences.<p>On the other hand we may reach a point where we would not have much choice.

Why do exotic and dangerous solution like dimming the sunlight, get attention and funding, but natural, safe and evolutionary tested carbon sequestring biological systems are ignored?<p>For example, we have been trying to find funding to get our project off the ground and no one is interested (including Y Combinator). Meanwhile we just lost 477 pilot whales (amazing biological carbon sequestering systems) in mass stranding in NZ because there are no resources and technology to save them.

Isaac Arthur has a few videos about the viability of this on his YouTube channel. Very much worth a watch if you are into the science part of science fiction.

I say cover all land and ocean surfaces with self-replicating robots with solar panels. Instead of the energy going into heat, it generates electricity, which powers the robots, which make more of themselves as well as do other valuable things like wash our dishes and fold our laundry.<p>I&#x27;m sure there is a problem with this idea but I&#x27;m not sure what it is.

As usual, when humans try to solve a subtle ecological issue, they will fix one thing and create 20 new problems... because we just don&#x27;t understand everything. Just stop digging up tons of CO2 per day from underground reserves, and start capturing the CO2 that we released and put it back where we got it from.

I don&#x27;t see why research is a bad idea. Research is a great idea and should be encouraged. Of course it sounds scary to modify the atmosphere of the whole planet, but please, at least allow some scientists to take that money, go away and run checks for a few years and present back what they think.

This is so dumb. The reflection of sunlight to reduce TSI should happen at the L1 Lagrange point using moon dust, not by further polluting our own atmosphere.<p>The benefit of L1 is that it’s not perfectly stable. Anything you throw up into that orbit will only stay there without course correction for about a decade.

I have not seen a mention of the most efficient and controllable method of reflecting solar energy away from the earth: - Ground mounted mirrors, which can be glass or plastic film. They provide a cooler living space underneath and global cooling potential. See MEER.org

What worries me the most is that some day, a mad billionaire will decide to implement such measures without anyone&#x27;s approval. That&#x27;s why we need to reform the system such that it is impossible for anyone to be a billionaire. Nobody should have the resources or power to unilaterally transform the earth without majority consensus.<p>The problem must be solved at the individual level. We need an efficient economic system which gives individuals enough financial surplus such that they can afford to start worrying about such issues as climate change.<p>Most people are too busy trying to survive the next day to even think about such long term issues as climate change. It became the elites&#x27; problem because nobody else has the surplus resources necessary to do anything about it... Even though the problem would be far easier to solve on an individual basis if each individual was responsible for negating or offsetting their own environmental impact.

Bjorn Lomborg has pointed out that simply painting roofs white could have a significant impact.

I hope we manage to reduce emissions before we&#x27;re forced to enact these desperate measures. Be prepared to strike if your industry isn&#x27;t planning to reduce consumption to safe levels

As we know too little about how this will affect climate dynamics, be sure that suspicion, loaded infodemics and extreme events will trigger more than one climate-based conflict.

Isn’t dropping a giant ice cube in the ocean enough? (&lt;~ Futurama reference) Both are creative attempts of a solution without having to mess with the source of the problem

I am not sold CO2 is causing the warming anymore. CO2 is heavy and so falls to the ground if cool. Adding more trees and vegetation on the ground near cool areas should do the trick.<p>Methane is probably more of a contributor. And blocking the sun is not a real solution. It has the potential for catastrophic changes like less vegetation.<p>Plus there are studies on global dimming. More pollution leads to global dimming which leads to less evaporation which leads to less clouds cover.<p>As a matter of fact, global dimming is better studied and should be a topic before conducting this research

You, nor your car, or your plastic straw, or the waste you create comes even a &#x27;nith close to volcanoes and the Military Industrial Complex.

I&#x27;m all here for the roll out of a more positive outlook towards the impending climate hell as we try to fix it before the storm is too big.

This is a very tricky topic.<p>If NASA (or whoever) sprays too much UV blockers it might lead to crop failure.

If this plan would only impact the sun received by the USA. Fine feel free to do whatever you want to yourself.<p>In reality this plan is intended to impact all countries. So this war mongering country is unilaterally deciding how much sun my country receives? No, that&#x27;s not allowed.<p>All this to fix a problem that you caused? Clear incitement of war; which is exactly the USA&#x27;s goal. The USA doesn&#x27;t know what it&#x27;s like not to be at war.

Wasn’t this the plot of Highlander 2?

Another great argument for nuclear power: it keeps on humming even when you block out the sun.

Approach #2...<p>Send a 747 flying across the desert loaded with white paint, and literally paint the land white.

It will help, we need these big efforts.<p>But it won’t reduce ocean acidification via too much CO2.

I am actively working on SAI. If you&#x27;d like to help, please reach out.

Worth at least looking into. I would be profoundly surprised if this worked.

We could also ask the God of Sun to reduce his level by some sacrifice.

&gt;spraying an aerosol like sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere What happened to it being a toxic gas? And is this why they were pushing so hard to completely discredit the notion of &quot;chemtrails&quot; so that all criticism of this idea can be killed easily?

As someone else once pointed out here on hacker news: &quot;Mankind will rather fight the sun than capitalism.&quot;

Glad to see the white house pulling a classic &quot;too little, way too late&quot;. How about we pour that money into actual solutions. Crazy idea, I know. We already have them, the US just needs to actually grow a spine and commit to them.

they know we&#x27;re boned, and the only fix is geoengineering.

Anything to keep ignoring the problems fossil fuels bring us. Unbelievable that anyone is considering such an obviously goofy approach when there&#x27;s an obvious and easy one.

What could go possibly go wrong?

nice, this could create a new business model a new SaaS, Sun as a Service

Artemis Fowl much?

Five years, isn’t that like, all of them that are left?

Oh god the chemtrail people are gonna go nuts.

Did the oil industry global warming flippening just happen?: When the oil companies 100% side with environmentalists, completely accept global warming, and endorse geoengineering to fix it.

I think it is quite possible that humans attempting to “fix” nature is what will ultimately lead to the extinction of the human race. It is pretty fitting too since we are the ones who helped accelerate the mess we are in.<p>The article points out some of the problems here:<p>&gt; There are significant and well-known risks to some of these techniques — sulfur dioxide aerosol injection, in particular.<p>&gt; First, spraying sulfur into the atmosphere will “mess with the ozone chemistry in a way that might delay the recovery of the ozone layer,” Parson told CNBC.<p>&gt; The Montreal Protocol adopted in 1987 regulates and phases out the use of ozone depleting substances, such as hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) which were commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioners, but that healing process is still going on.<p>&gt; Also, sulfates injected into the atmosphere eventually come down as acid rain, which affects soil, water reservoirs, and local ecosystems.<p>&gt; Third, the sulfur in the atmosphere forms very fine particulates that can cause respiratory illness.<p>Who gets to make the call that these risks are okay and are not as bad as the negative impact(s) we may face from climate change? Who decides that it is an acceptable trade-off to wipe out entire species and ecosystems and potentially some percent of the human population?<p>The problem is when it comes to climate change impact, it is all hypothetical based on models we have limited understanding of whereas with this stuff there are <i>concrete</i> risks and side-effects now.

This administration is so far off the rails at this point that I wish they&#x27;d just say screw it, print another trillion dollars EACH for everybody who wants to build nuclear reactors in the Nevada desert, and just call it a day. We&#x27;re heading for a massive depression anyway, might as well get some nuclear reactors out of it.<p>Absolutely f off with this absurd nonsense. Look at what this idiotic climate engineering crap did by introducing asian carp.<p>The answer is in front of you. Nuclear power. FFS.

Launch giant rolls of toilet paper. Spread them out in low orbit. They will reflect light; ablate incoming space junk, and sequester carbon as well as stimulating the forestry industry. If we want to we could subsidize newspapers by having them print ads on them before launch.<p>Of course they won&#x27;t last long, even low orbits are harsh. This will be an ongoing opportunity for several industries capable of making important campaign donations.

Since the beginning of time man has yearned to destroy the sun.

The lack os skepticism in these comments makes me want to go back in time to assassinate William of Okham.

I heard the White House is also planning research on how Nuclear Armageddon will actually be green in the long run. &#x2F;s

1. We are currently in an ice age (defined as both poles covered in ice)<p>2. A few degrees the wrong direction and the whole globe turns to ice.<p>3. A warmer earth with more carbon increases crop yields and actually has positive effects. The downside might be people need to move inland.<p>4. Much more concerning is the chemicals we are releasing into the atmosphere — I’d be seriously concerned here.