[HN Gopher] Geoengineering test launched in Alameda
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Geoengineering test launched in Alameda
Author : hammock
Score : 49 points
Date : 2024-04-08 13:33 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.politico.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.politico.com)
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| it has to be kept secret, because otherwise people might complain
|
| - if it gets so hot that people start dying on mass, the leaders
| of that country are going to start dumping aerosol into the
| atmosphere and nothing short of war is going to stop them
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| This will be the future everywhere. Wait til a country
| experiencing drought gets the choice to start stealing rain
| that should have fallen on their neighbors
| jerlam wrote:
| According to this article, the experiment is marine cloud
| brightening:
|
| https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/national-international/ma...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_cloud_brightening
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| My favorite opportunity for Marine Cloud Brightening is in the
| shipping industry. If container ships had saltwater
| aerosolizers or new fuel additives, it should be possible to
| bring back the shiptracks--these are the low marine clouds that
| were recently diminished due new clean fuel standards [1].
| Those standards are great but they inadvertently increased the
| warming effect of shipping by about a _third_ [2]. Ouch.
|
| Solar is doubling in capacity every ~2.5 years -- roughly a 25%
| annual growth rate [3]. That means, in 30 years, we might have
| some 1500 terawatts of solar. That would dwarf current fossil
| fuel use. The point is that shouldn't _avoid_ figuring out the
| science of climate management (geoengineering etc) because we
| are afraid people will just keep using fossil fuels. We need to
| get the heat balance undercontrol before 30 years go by.
|
| [1] https://www.nasa.gov/missions/aqua/nasa-study-finds-
| evidence...
|
| [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/marine-clouds-climate-
| change...
|
| [3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-
| capaci...
| cjensen wrote:
| I have no issue with experiments. But putting particulates into
| the air of a population center seems like a pointless risk and
| will generate needless controversy.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I have some bad news for you about exhaust and tire wear....
| patrickdavey wrote:
| According to this link [1] I saw yesterday, the UAE is seeding
| clouds to cause rainfall too....
|
| I'm not sure where this ends, but, once you start taking water
| which might fall someplace else it seems it might end badly....
|
| 1. https://mastodon.solar/@dave/112233242269447817
| lumost wrote:
| We're fast approaching the point where many events will
| "happen". Geo-engineering is easy and economical. Small
| Governments/Billionaires/Corporations will pursue it barring a
| legal framework to ban it. Given the lack of progress on
| nuclear, and slower than needed progress on renewables. It
| seems certain that a large scale geo-engineering project will
| be pursued by _someone_ to lower atmospheric CO2 /temperature.
| patrickdavey wrote:
| Termination shock here we come...
| pc86 wrote:
| Why is "happen" in quotes?
| soared wrote:
| There are 8 approved organizations in Colorado that can seed
| clouds, but it's dubious if it actually works as it's
| effectively impossible to test/prove. More snow means millions
| in more revenue for huge skiing/travel companies, but even they
| don't do it regularly.
|
| https://cwcb.colorado.gov/focus-areas/supply/weather-modific...
| LunaSea wrote:
| This ends very quickly when the neighbouring country sues you
| in international court because you stole some of the clouds
| that would have arrived on your territory.
|
| An example of this is the fight between various Spanish
| provinces on this exact topic.
| JamesLeonis wrote:
| "We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we know that it
| was us that scorched the sky." [0]
|
| We're fixing the fallout from burning fossil fuels by adding more
| particulates to reflect more energy back. Seems a bit
| counterproductive. We probably should look at the alternatives
| first.
|
| [0]: https://www.matrixfans.net/movies/the-matrix/transcript/
| lainga wrote:
| On a narrower window, we're fixing the fallout from eliminating
| acid rain[]. Think of it like we were cloud seeding for free,
| and now we can do it with aerosolized salt instead of sulfates.
|
| []
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfate#Reversal_and_accelerat...
| slothtrop wrote:
| The alternatives are being explored. It's not a long list, and
| this is the approach that is most readily implementable and
| cost-permitting as of right now.
| exoverito wrote:
| That particular plot point is about denying all solar energy to
| the machines. Needless to say it's a fictional movie and more
| serious calculations should motivate our analyses.
|
| It's been estimated that current increases in CO2 have a
| radiative forcing effect of about 2 watts per square meter,
| compared to the total solar irradiance of 1361 W/m2. If CO2
| levels doubled to 800 ppm then it's estimated this would have a
| radiative forcing effect of 6 W/m2. This scenario would require
| mitigation strategies like stratospheric aerosol injection to
| reduce solar irradiance by about 0.4%. In the context of plant
| growth this reduction in sunlight would be negligible given
| that photosynthesis is only 1 to 2% efficient. If anything we
| should see significantly accelerated plant growth by about 10
| to 50% due to the CO2 fertilization effect at 800ppm.
|
| The alternatives consist of completely replacing all energy
| infrastructure, which will cost trillions of dollars and
| significantly reduce economic growth. We can already see the
| negative effects of these policies in Europe, such as Germany
| which irrationally shut down their nuclear reactors, pushed the
| deployment of solar, while ultimately relying on Russian
| natural gas. They now burn more coal than they did before, and
| risk deindustrializing due to high energy costs. This is an
| epic strategic blunder since China, India, and Africa will
| continue burning hydrocarbons irrespective of the West's
| economic self-sabotage.
|
| There's also no realistic way to extract the amount of CO2
| that's been emitted into the atmosphere. Simple thermodynamics
| would have us expend far more energy than we cumulatively
| gained from burning hydrocarbons since the industrial
| revolution to extract such an extremely diffuse gas from the
| atmosphere.
| 91bananas wrote:
| related: https://sawpa.gov/santa-ana-river-watershed-weather-
| modifica...
| berkeleynerd wrote:
| What if we go further out on the carbon limb since this or a
| similar technology allows us to further delay implementing carbon
| reductions and then, for some reason, our civilization fails and
| we can no longer continue to dope the atmosphere to protect us
| from the now even more serious consequences of our emissions?
| This approach strikes me as madness; like the behavior of a
| junkie who takes uppers to wake up in the morning because they've
| become addicted to downers to get to sleep.
| alas44 wrote:
| Shared feeling
| lainga wrote:
| You will need to create and propagate a religion that
| emphasizes the virtue of smashing up silicate rocks and wetting
| the dust. It's a lot more tedious than cloud seeding, but it's
| low-tech and works at scale.
|
| Ed. this produces carbonic acid, but if you feed it slowly into
| the biosphere, small friends will turn it into bone and shell
| silverquiet wrote:
| I've been thinking about it a bit like medicine. My grandmother
| over her life had a kidney removed, an artificial heartvalve
| implanted, both hips replaced, a pacemaker implanted and
| upgraded, and had a rather involved drug regime eventually to
| service a lot of that. I doubt she would have lived past her
| 60's without all that. Of course she eventually died, but she
| did get a couple more decades with all the interventions. I
| suppose it's the best you can hope for sometimes.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| The important thing to say out loud is we've lost. We blew
| right past 400ppm without looking back. In the coming decades,
| the right heat wave in the right place at the right time will
| cause death and destruction on a level never before seen. If we
| can do anything, _anything_ , to help mitigate that we should.
| Especially since first world countries with wealth will be
| better able to handle it, yet it's literally all our fault. We
| can and should be doing anything to help the situation. We can
| do geoengineering and fight to limit the burning of carbon at
| the same time.
| thereisnospork wrote:
| That's a false moral hazard. Let me play devil's advocate for a
| sec:
|
| Since global warming is trivially abated by aerosolizing
| seawater it would be negligent to revamp our economy and
| degrade our quality of life to avoid carbon emissions [which in
| this hypothetical the main negative is trivially abated].
| pgalvin wrote:
| You're playing devil's advocate so I won't criticise :)
|
| But I'll add - cloud seeding might prevent heating, but it
| can't prevent ocean acidification. Secondly, if one country
| or organisation came to dominate it, and the world settled
| into a rhythm of pumping more carbon dioxide into the
| atmosphere and artificially mitigating the heating effects...
| what happens if the political winds changed direction for
| even a few years? We'd potentially see centuries of heating
| in a short timespan.
|
| Just look at Europe's reliance on the US (through NATO) for
| protection and the efforts to become more independent now
| that a Trump presidency has opened their eyes to the risk
| that carries. Further fossil fuel burning would mean more and
| more geoengineering each year, putting control in the hands
| of fewer and fewer nations. One benefit of most suggested
| geoengineering efforts is that the particulates fall after a
| few years. If we came to depend on it (we shouldn't!), that
| constant maintenance should terrify us.
|
| It's an imperfect, short-term solution that could sentence
| future generations to horrific consequences.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| It's obvious to anyone who's taken 5 minutes to read up on
| climate change that cutting emissions is how we ultimately fix
| the problem. Unfortunately we're on track for 3+C of warming.
| Do you really believe we're going to stand by and watch that
| happen? I don't. Is geoengineering dangerous and short sighted?
| Yeah. Is it gonna happen? Also, yes. Should we research it to
| make it as safe as possible? Heck yeah.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| And what if geoengineering doesn't work? Just waving our
| hands and saying technology will solve our problems in the
| future vs doing what we know works now (reducing consumption
| and cutting emissions) seems insane to me.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Who's waving hands? As I explicitly stated, I am _all_ for
| the drastic cuts needed to stop global warming. The thought
| that you can somehow divorce 'the economy' from the health
| of the environment is laughable. I'm just saying that we,
| as a species will probably resort to geoengineering and it
| would probably be a good idea to try and understand the
| dangers of it _before_ some country decides to unilaterally
| start pumping sulfides in the atmosphere.
| pgalvin wrote:
| I think the point being made is that mankind is not acting
| fast enough - we are currently on track for facing a real
| risk of an irreversible domino effect of heating that we
| can't stop. The IPCC reports discuss a range of
| possibilities - this isn't guaranteed - but it's possible.
|
| In an ideal world, we would reach net zero in time to
| prevent that. This is the only long-term solution. But what
| if, in a decade or two, every projection says we won't? Are
| we to chastise the rest of humanity, say "you could have
| prevented this the proper way!", and let the dominos begin
| to fall?
|
| Geoengineering, if the science is proven, should only act
| as a last resort to prevent such a domino effect. It would
| symbolise a profound failure of our species. But surely, if
| we realise we failed, this risky Hail Mary is better than
| not acting?
|
| The risks of another massive human intervention into the
| atmosphere are obvious. Furthermore, geoengineering risks
| giving many nations an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels.
| Nobody has the right answers yet and everybody sensible
| agrees we need to do everything we can to reach net zero
| first.
|
| But what if we don't?
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| That's exactly what I said, but longer.
| pgalvin wrote:
| You're right :) I misread your comment as saying there
| was no scenario where we should resort to it, and I meant
| to raise the question of if there could be one day.
| philipkglass wrote:
| The flip side is: what if people aren't cutting emissions,
| or aren't cutting them fast enough? That's the actual
| situation we are in. Old social problems are even harder to
| solve than novel technological problems. If social change
| isn't happening fast enough to prevent the problem then I
| think we should try technological approaches. It's similar
| to how I would give Naloxone to someone overdosing on
| fentanyl even if the better solution would have been for
| them to not develop an opiate habit in the first place.
|
| It is of course possible that both technological and social
| approaches will prove insufficient, and we'll go well
| beyond the "safe" level of global warming.
| silverquiet wrote:
| Try telling people that they shouldn't fly in planes (I've
| done it) and see how far that message gets you. The status
| quo wherein we geoengineer the climate ever hotter is
| indeed insane, but I suppose people are habituated to it.
| Solar radiation management is probably the only real chance
| to avoid drastic consequences at this point (and really
| only buys time; it's more of a half-assed fix).
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I've read many of the recent popSci books on global warming, and
| I fully believe that the path we're on leads to catastrophic
| warming (3c+).
|
| I also believe that many geoengineering techniques are dangerous
| and we should be focusing on limiting CO2, as that's the only
| _safe_ way to address global warming.
|
| Having said all that, I simply _do not_ believe we 'll stand by
| and watch the world burn without trying a 'ministry of the
| future' style geoengineering effort. Is it ideal? No way, but
| IMHO it _will_ happen. It drives me insane that the scientific
| community is so vehemently against geoengineering research for
| fear that it will create a moral hazard that makes it 's
| deployment more likely.
| lainga wrote:
| >I've read many of the recent popSci books on global warming
|
| Have you read any of the IPCC reports? Are you familiar with
| the RCPs?
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I've read the summaries and yeah I'm vaguely familiar with
| the RCPs from various youtube vids covering the topic. I
| think the last I've seen for projections off our current
| commitments is 2.7-3.4C.
| slothtrop wrote:
| The prevailing view right now appears to be that limiting CO2
| is no longer sufficient.
| askvictor wrote:
| Yes. But one danger is once we start geoengineering, people
| will give up on trying to limit carbon emissions
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| There's no way geoengineering will be consequence free. I
| think when we start using it as a temporary measure it will
| become very clear what the downsides are, and that reducing
| our emissions are still the best path forward.
|
| I just don't buy the apocalyptic doomerism so breathlessly
| described in most books on global warming. When it gets bad
| enough, we will act. It won't be ideal, but there's no way
| we're just going to sit by, accept our fate and let the
| world burn.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| The assumption here is that when it gets really bad we
| _will_ still be able to act. The problem is that the
| earth system is incredibly complex and may be able to
| absorb a lot of energy in ways that aren't easy to
| reverse (at least in ways that are comfortable to
| humans.) There's a reason we call these things "tipping
| points": like unbalancing a piece of heavy furniture, you
| might not have the strength to catch it once it's gone
| past a certain point.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| Why aren't the people conducting this test in jail? Who gave them
| the authority/permission to run these tests? Geoengineering is
| literal cloud cover for further GHG emissions.
| justinzollars wrote:
| Geoengineering from a political engineering website:
| politico.com. We are scientistic.
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