[HN Gopher] Iron Salt Aerosol for Climate Control
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Iron Salt Aerosol for Climate Control
Author : dr_dshiv
Score : 28 points
Date : 2022-04-29 20:50 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ironsaltaerosol.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ironsaltaerosol.com)
| nickelas wrote:
| Would this help ocean acidification?
| DennisP wrote:
| I think it would, since they say it would remove CO2 from the
| oceans.
| oofbey wrote:
| Proposals like this seem promising but are hard to take seriously
| when they refuse to acknowledge potential risks. Merely stating
| the risk is "very low" does nothing to persuade people's
| legitimate concerns about climate engineering.
|
| That said I'm all for climate engineering. Being scared of it is
| like telling somebody obese that they should stick to sugary soda
| because nutrasweet could have unknown health side effects. Or
| teaching abstinence instead of safe sex education.
|
| I know all sorts of buttons are being pushed with these
| analogies. But we obviously have a massive problem on our hands.
| There is a path out (reducing fossil everything) that we know is
| extremely difficult to implement, and by all current measures not
| going to work. So rationally we absolutely should try
| alternatives - at least TRY. And not assume they are bad while
| continuing to yell at the world that they need to be more
| virtuous.
| foobarian wrote:
| These sorts of schemes always remind me of this part in the intro
| of localroger's "Passages in the Void" series hosted on his
| personal site [1]. The whole thing is some of the most amazing SF
| I've ever read!
|
| "Then, about six thousand years after we were invented, it became
| clear that the Earth was entering one of its periodic Ice Ages.
| Left to its own devices this would not have been much of a
| problem, but it was a nuisance both we and the humans felt we
| could avoid. We built enormous sun-mirrors and seeded the
| atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and easily reversed the
| temperature dip. In fact, we succeeded much too well. Within a
| hundred years it became obvious that we had overshot our goal.
| But our efforts to cool the planet were not as successful as our
| efforts to warm it. Both ice caps melted, the sea level rose
| sixty meters, and vast land areas became sea floor.
|
| This was a different nuisance, but it was not the final
| catastrophe.
|
| The Antarctic continent had been crushed for millions of years
| beneath its three kilometer thick shield of ice; like a ship
| relieved of a heavy cargo it now wanted to rise, its lighter
| rocks buoyed up by the denser material of the Earth's mantle. And
| that lifting did not occur evenly. Great fault lines opened up
| into ranges of volcanoes as long-trapped magma suddenly found
| paths to the surface. New mountain ranges added their weight to
| the strain on the ancient continental plate as Antarctica
| regained its equilibrium. All the while a dense soot cloud
| blanketed the Earth and the brief summer of warming darkened into
| a cruel permanent winter.
|
| The ice caps returned, but the southern snow accumulation did not
| stop the volcanoes. Glaciers raced toward the Equator, and after
| they met the oceans began to freeze. Later the atmosphere's
| carbon dioxide began to collect as snow on the poles. We had long
| since given up on saving our creators and worked instead to
| record their accomplishments and understand their biology before
| they were gone."
|
| [1] http://localroger.com/
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| That was a fun read, thanks!
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| It would have been a boring SF story if they had been
| successful with climate control, right? That's the dystopian
| bias. It's hard to make _positive future visions_ emotionally
| interesting, so we revert to the more entertaining visions of
| catastrophe.
| DennisP wrote:
| So this idea is what makes you think of that story, and not the
| century we've spent actually seeding the atmosphere with
| greenhouse gases?
|
| Maybe we should put some thought into reversing this massive
| artificial change we've made, before we suffer the sort of
| consequences described in the story.
| verisimi wrote:
| Why anyone thinks that its ok to attempt to alter the climate, is
| beyond me. How can this be ok? How can someone else (a
| government) decide what weather I can have!??
|
| What happens if oil companies lobby for extra coldness and cloud
| cover, as they know they will more than make up the expense in
| additional fuel costs? What if other vested interests get
| involved in what is bound to become a political scam? Is it
| possible that a slightly warmer climate will be of benefit to
| most people?
|
| The chutzpah that the governance structure has in believing
| themselves righteous in determining not just the level of fines,
| or of the required licensing you need, or taxation, but now even
| the weather is unbelievable! Who gave them the right? Does say
| the US have the right to determine the weather for other
| countries? The whole concept would surely be illegal, if law was
| even based morality.. which its not.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| What do you think we've been doing for the last 100 years?
| verisimi wrote:
| Corporations, working with governments, have done whatever
| they like. So it's not 'we' it's those elites that own
| companies. Get it straight.
|
| Now they want to change things, and they want to 'socialise'
| their tab. They think it would be great if you and I pay for
| their bad decisions. They just need to do really good public
| relations to make you want the bill.
|
| If they do it right, they will make money off the
| environmental issues too.
|
| The upshot will be that government and corporations will be
| stronger, while the citizen/consumer will be weaker.
| DennisP wrote:
| One way or another, we're all going to be footing the bill.
| The method here would make that bill way smaller than
| anything else I've seen.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| We already alter the climate with every action we take, or
| every action we don't take.
|
| It is less dangerous to take deliberate actions with intent
| than take actions without intent.
|
| Every government on the planet is ALREADY determining what
| weather you and others have. Countries that burn large amounts
| of coal have an impact, as do countries that ban coal!
| verisimi wrote:
| > Every government on the planet is ALREADY determining what
| weather you and others have.
|
| I agree that they are determining the weather already, and I
| don't like it. I don't want government to force cold weather
| on me. Do I get a choice on that? No. Neither do you.
|
| All we get is the governance structure attempting to convince
| us of the validity and righteousness of their actions. If
| they do a good job, you will agree with what they say. That
| is propaganda.
|
| I do not recognise that government can be righteous. All I
| see is forcible fine extraction from the citizens it purports
| to help. Climate change + technology will be an excuse to
| take away more freedoms (of travel, life style), levy more
| fines and licenses, while also justifying government
| intrusion and micro-management (how much water, electrity,
| travel credits). Greater gifts and power to those that
| already have power. Its a wheeze. The trick is to make you
| think you want it.
| DennisP wrote:
| How can it be ok that people get to make massive changes to
| everybody's climate, as a side effect of making a personal
| profit? That's what's happening today.
| netfl0 wrote:
| Please don't do this.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| If you are curious, here are 3 other technologies for climate
| change mitigation posted today.
|
| 1. Rock dust carbon sequestration on farm land:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31199271
|
| 2. Algae tech to amplify photosynthetic carbon capture
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178435
|
| 3. "High Hopes": using airships to capture carbon ice in the
| upper atmosphere (stoners!)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178667
|
| And yes, let's be curious! After all, many scientists are seeking
| to _ban science_ in this area. Hard to believe.
| https://climateandcapitalism.com/2022/01/17/climate-scientis...
| Koffiepoeder wrote:
| Makes me think of the last time we shot metals through our
| exhausts. Do we really know all the consequences of algae growth
| and iron particle rain this time around? Or are we going to have
| a leaded gasoline, chapter 2?
| yabones wrote:
| They knew that leaded gas was a bad idea before it even hit the
| market. The inventor himself suffered from lead poisoning mere
| weeks before a major product announcement.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.#Leaded_gaso...
| sacred_numbers wrote:
| According to the source, "Current man-made and natural ISA
| emissions total over 100,000 tonnes and have many beneficial
| climate effects". They are not advocating for doing anything
| particularly new, just scaling up those (partially natural)
| emissions by a factor of 2. Of course, that doesn't necessarily
| mean it's a good idea. Forest fires are natural, but we would
| need to study very carefully before we attempted to double the
| amount of forest fires by artificial means.
|
| In my opinion, though, it would take some pretty strong
| evidence that this would be actively harmful to dissuade me
| from wanting to run large scale experiments. Shoot, if leaded
| gasoline had the potential to slow down climate change it might
| even be worth bringing it back, considering the damage that
| climate change has already begun to cause and is projected to
| cause.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I feel like this is a logical fallacy. Do we know all the
| consequences of trying to solve other problems? Of course not.
| Imagine if we stopped trying to solve any problem due to a
| "precautionary principle."
| Koffiepoeder wrote:
| Very valid point. I think for me an important distinction
| here is the problem size and complexity. The larger your
| problem, the more certainty you need that your solution
| works. This is also why we write thousands of tests for large
| software projects, while just a couple might suffice for a
| hobby project.
|
| Does this mean that we should not explore new science and
| innovative solutions? Certainly not.
|
| But before you start engaging in macro-ecological
| interventions, you better be damn sure that what you are
| doing is safe, now and tomorrow, both in first, second and
| nth order effects.
| DennisP wrote:
| If only that sort of testing had been done before we added
| two and a half trillion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere.
|
| Sadly, now we don't have a choice between making a massive
| change or making no change. We just have a choice between
| leaving one change in place that we know is massively
| harmful, or using another method to reverse that change.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Agree! If the only way to test these technologies was at a
| massive scale, I'd be worried. But they can all be tested
| at a small scale. That's the other logical fallacy: e.g.,
| just because the intention is large scale deployment
| doesn't mean the testing requires large scale deployment.
|
| So, to your point, we really need to be investing in
| testing these different possibilities. Meanwhile, many
| scientists are trying to ban research in the area. I don't
| get it.
| https://climateandcapitalism.com/2022/01/17/climate-
| scientis...
| willis936 wrote:
| I wouldn't worry about it getting too much traction. Even
| stratospheric injection of sulfiric acid (something that
| volcanoes do) is blackballed from even being researched, let
| alone considered.
| DennisP wrote:
| This idea actually seems safer to me, since rather than just
| blocking the sun, it actually takes our excess CO2 emissions
| back out of the atmosphere.
|
| And also methane. It's the first idea I've seen for doing
| that.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| And doesn't produce acid rain, like sulfur does.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Acid rain resulted from the 30+ million tons of sulfur
| dioxide released into the lower atmosphere. To cut global
| warming in half, 25,000 tons of sulfur dioxide would be
| needed in the upper atmosphere. So, 3 orders of magnitude
| less SO2. Meaning, mitigating global warming with SO2
| would not meaningfully increase acid rain.
|
| Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/02/08/84239
| /a-cheap-an...
| castratikron wrote:
| Why was their Twitter account suspended?
| captainbland wrote:
| When you're in a hole you want to get out of, it's usually a good
| idea to stop digging. The "spewing even more manufactured crap
| into the atmosphere" solution to climate change doesn't really
| pass the smell test.
| ResNet wrote:
| Solutions like these seem like they very well may do a good job
| in slowing global warming with relatively little effort/cost
| invested, but for political reasons won't see the light of day
| until they become a last resort, far too late in the game.
|
| I can imagine humans a century from now wishing we had deployed
| them sooner and prevented so much unnecessary destruction.
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