Not really. It's not "blocking out the sun" like the title says, but equivalent to a volcano going off - which happens from time to time regardless.
The real story is in the subtext; they were forced by congress to make this report and it says "nah bro, we're not going to do something that's cheap, effective, and also safe".
Precisely because this and other kinds of geoengineering are a most sensible approach if you actually believe climate change is a serious problem. There's actual ideas for blocking light at L1 LaGrange point - those are out there science fiction, synthetic volcanoes are not.
Well for one super eruptions might make volcanoes the no. 1 cause of mass extinction events in terrestrial history, and two they're not all that analogous to volcanoes going off because most proposals I've seen don't plan to use simple "ash and particulates" but aerosols meant to stay suspended and effective for far longer, so if they're wrong we're just semi-permanently fucked. Unless you plan to go up there and start scrubbing the stratosphere clean, which is a hundred times harder than just shooting the junk up there in the first place.
Geoengineering is powerful, dangerous stuff up there with messing with nukes. If you're contemplating it over some hysterical screeching over laughably flawed models, then you're not competent enough to touch it.
If we took all of the energy we produce in all the world we couldn't even get to 1% of the energy released by a supervolcano like Yellowstone caldera. This is completely a red herring.
The same aerosols are also released by volcanoes and are what cool the planet most, not the ash. What's being proposed is literally the same thing as a volcano erupting except cleaner.
If you're afraid of geoengineering I hate to tell you this but we're doing it all the time in huge ways with industry. But unlike this proposal those other thousands of ways are being done accidentally with no study or thought to the global consequences.
If we took all of the energy we produce in all the world we couldn't even get to 1% of the energy released by a supervolcano like Yellowstone caldera. This is completely a red herring.
What an irrelevant metric, volcanic eruptions are a horribly inefficient way to launch things into the stratosphere, most of that energy has nothing to do with how much energy it would take us to launch that mass up there. Do you really think NASA should have built a giant artificial volcano at Houston instead of choosing rocketry to reach orbit?
The same aerosols are also released by volcanoes and are what cool the planet most, not the ash. What's being proposed is literally the same thing as a volcano erupting except cleaner
Most new plans for SRM stratospheric injections I see are proposing alumina and calcite aerosols, not sulfates (which make up the vast majority of natural volcanic stratospheric aerosol ejections) anymore, for more longevity and power per pound. I guess it's technically true that a small amount of those are ejected by super volcanoes too, but on a scale we could definitely outstrip by human endeavour.
If you're afraid of geoengineering I hate to tell you this but we're doing it all the time in huge ways with industry. But unlike this proposal those other thousands of ways are being done accidentally with no study or thought to the global consequences.
And like with volcanoes all those accidental geoengineering results are a tiny fraction of the output of those activities, a concerted effort to actually geoengineer would have immediate effects that dwarf those byproducts
a concerted effort to actually geoengineer would have immediate effects that dwarf those byproducts
Just fearmongering. You're imagining a worst case scenario if everybody acted irrationally.
Same reason you brought up supervolcanos.
There were problems with the ozone layer due to industry and we fixed it, but I wasn't only talking about the atmosphere. Like overfishing for instance looks to be a big problem.
I brought up super eruptions because you brought up "it's just like volcanoes" like volcanoes haven't caused massive damage to living conditions for the entire planet before.
And the problem is there's no need for everyone to be irrational, just a few powerful individuals could ruin living conditions for everyone else. Go ahead and keep banking on everyone being a perfectly rational actor for your risk taking if you want, but it's not like that delusion hasn't bitten many economists or would-be social engineers in the ass before.
You can call caution about burning bridges fearmongering all you like too, unlike you I think it's better not to play with fire until you at least have a clue what you're doing.
Volcanoes also haven't caused massive changes to living conditions globally. If fact they almost never do.
If a few powerful individuals can just do it on their own and screw everybody, then shouldn't you be in favor of an international, organized attempt to do it? So that they won't attempt it on their own in a haphazard manner because it's being done by serious people?
When you ignore a cheap, effective way to do something like this people everywhere rightly say "these morons, I wish I could just do it myself", some have the capability, and then potentially screw up something that should be safe - like that Titan sub for instance.
This isn't even theoretical. Make Sunsets was releasing aerosols commercially to sell carbon credits before they were stopped (for now). This is only the beginning and if it's outlawed they'll just do it in secret from their islands.
You can't just censor and try to hide things you're scared of. You have to confront them and deal with them in a rational way. I don't know if you've ever read the IPCC reports, but there's no consideration at all given to any technological means of removing or reducing the impact of CO2 in the atmosphere - this is your true recipe for disaster.
A megaproject seems more feasible than getting everyone on earth to stop burning things and raising livestock. Megaprojects have been done before -- even international ones. Getting people to not pollute worldwide has never happened, even with stuff a lot more obviously harmful than CO2.
The Panama Canal. The international space station. ITERS
Want to grow your own plants? Tough. Here's a sun tax to add to it.
Pfft, obviously you're not following the heckin science. Bill Gates thinks this is a good idea, and that guy's a philanthropist.
THE SOYENCE IS SETTLED
Not really. It's not "blocking out the sun" like the title says, but equivalent to a volcano going off - which happens from time to time regardless.
The real story is in the subtext; they were forced by congress to make this report and it says "nah bro, we're not going to do something that's cheap, effective, and also safe".
Precisely because this and other kinds of geoengineering are a most sensible approach if you actually believe climate change is a serious problem. There's actual ideas for blocking light at L1 LaGrange point - those are out there science fiction, synthetic volcanoes are not.
Well for one super eruptions might make volcanoes the no. 1 cause of mass extinction events in terrestrial history, and two they're not all that analogous to volcanoes going off because most proposals I've seen don't plan to use simple "ash and particulates" but aerosols meant to stay suspended and effective for far longer, so if they're wrong we're just semi-permanently fucked. Unless you plan to go up there and start scrubbing the stratosphere clean, which is a hundred times harder than just shooting the junk up there in the first place.
Geoengineering is powerful, dangerous stuff up there with messing with nukes. If you're contemplating it over some hysterical screeching over laughably flawed models, then you're not competent enough to touch it.
If we took all of the energy we produce in all the world we couldn't even get to 1% of the energy released by a supervolcano like Yellowstone caldera. This is completely a red herring.
The same aerosols are also released by volcanoes and are what cool the planet most, not the ash. What's being proposed is literally the same thing as a volcano erupting except cleaner.
If you're afraid of geoengineering I hate to tell you this but we're doing it all the time in huge ways with industry. But unlike this proposal those other thousands of ways are being done accidentally with no study or thought to the global consequences.
What an irrelevant metric, volcanic eruptions are a horribly inefficient way to launch things into the stratosphere, most of that energy has nothing to do with how much energy it would take us to launch that mass up there. Do you really think NASA should have built a giant artificial volcano at Houston instead of choosing rocketry to reach orbit?
Most new plans for SRM stratospheric injections I see are proposing alumina and calcite aerosols, not sulfates (which make up the vast majority of natural volcanic stratospheric aerosol ejections) anymore, for more longevity and power per pound. I guess it's technically true that a small amount of those are ejected by super volcanoes too, but on a scale we could definitely outstrip by human endeavour.
And like with volcanoes all those accidental geoengineering results are a tiny fraction of the output of those activities, a concerted effort to actually geoengineer would have immediate effects that dwarf those byproducts
Just fearmongering. You're imagining a worst case scenario if everybody acted irrationally.
Same reason you brought up supervolcanos.
There were problems with the ozone layer due to industry and we fixed it, but I wasn't only talking about the atmosphere. Like overfishing for instance looks to be a big problem.
I brought up super eruptions because you brought up "it's just like volcanoes" like volcanoes haven't caused massive damage to living conditions for the entire planet before.
And the problem is there's no need for everyone to be irrational, just a few powerful individuals could ruin living conditions for everyone else. Go ahead and keep banking on everyone being a perfectly rational actor for your risk taking if you want, but it's not like that delusion hasn't bitten many economists or would-be social engineers in the ass before.
You can call caution about burning bridges fearmongering all you like too, unlike you I think it's better not to play with fire until you at least have a clue what you're doing.
Volcanoes also haven't caused massive changes to living conditions globally. If fact they almost never do.
If a few powerful individuals can just do it on their own and screw everybody, then shouldn't you be in favor of an international, organized attempt to do it? So that they won't attempt it on their own in a haphazard manner because it's being done by serious people?
When you ignore a cheap, effective way to do something like this people everywhere rightly say "these morons, I wish I could just do it myself", some have the capability, and then potentially screw up something that should be safe - like that Titan sub for instance.
This isn't even theoretical. Make Sunsets was releasing aerosols commercially to sell carbon credits before they were stopped (for now). This is only the beginning and if it's outlawed they'll just do it in secret from their islands.
You can't just censor and try to hide things you're scared of. You have to confront them and deal with them in a rational way. I don't know if you've ever read the IPCC reports, but there's no consideration at all given to any technological means of removing or reducing the impact of CO2 in the atmosphere - this is your true recipe for disaster.
A megaproject seems more feasible than getting everyone on earth to stop burning things and raising livestock. Megaprojects have been done before -- even international ones. Getting people to not pollute worldwide has never happened, even with stuff a lot more obviously harmful than CO2.
The Panama Canal. The international space station. ITERS
What are the odds Joe thinks that he is gonna be blocking the sun on twitter ? 100% ?
Now he just needs to say “excellent” like Mr Burns
"We don't know who struck first. But we know it was us who blocked out the sun."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3LbxDZRgA4
The fuck is this timeline?