Maybe I don't understand the ramifications of this, but it kind of sounds like we missed the offramp where we just stop burning carbon.
Shouldn't we just be moving to something drastic like a massive sun shade project ASAP?
Shouldn't we just be moving to something drastic like a massive sun shade project ASAP?
If we think it's really the case that most wild animals will perish in the climate upheaval, then doesn't that change the math a bit on how much risk we should be willing to accept when it comes to climate engineering? If the wealthiest humans could probably adapt to +5c, but a billion poorer ones would die, how much does that change the math?
Personally I'd be willing to accept quite a lot of risk to avoid these awful outcomes.
AFAIK the plans to put sulfur into the stratosphere are modeled on exactly what a volcano does, i.e. a natural process. Of course it could turn out bad, but it doesn't sound to me like a totally out-of-bounds idea.
Maybe someone with a better background could tell me otherwise? I only know about computers.
We really do need to get started before things get so bad we are unable to bring the massive resources to bear that we will need for something like this.
Doesn't that particular option seem like it'd be adding on extra unknown consequences? I wonder how that'd effect our natural CO2 scrubbers.
Nuclear has gone from very cost-competitive (5c/kWh) to not at all cost-competitive (alternatively: "financially risky," often shortened to "risky" in a disingenuous attempt to imply something else) because we gave NIMBYs and self-styled environmentalists a free pass to introduce arbitrary delays into the construction process, and they did, and it was very effective at raising the price / financial risk. That is what people mean when they say that we decided to stop building nuclear.
I was quite pro-nuclear in the 80s and 90s...
Sounds like China is making a go for it, though. Maybe in 20 years they can come build some plants to save us from the duck curve.
Personally, for most of the 21st century I've seen wind, solar, tidal and (pumped) hydro as increasingly more suited - far faster to bring onstream, and without quite the same scale of NIMBY delays of nuclear. A network of micro generators seems more suited to the adoption of community heat and power which also seems an essential part of reaching zero emission - as seen today in Ireland's emissions plan.
What is our plan to deal with carbon waste?
Not enough. Some countries that had it even ran from it recently (like Germany).
I've started thinking that people with good intentions are often the most terrible because they will never question their methods (or results) as their goal is holy and justifies all.
We need to start leaving carbon in the ground. Try to burn less fossil than the year before, instead of setting record after record. All green energy initiatives are just red herrings.
Slowly on the scale of individual people, but a quick snap on geological time scales, a process of change was initiated in the global economic system by the widespread climactic shifts. a series of events moved the global system towards a phase change which sealed Homo sapiens' fate. No one can pinpoint the exact minute, hour, or day, but at a certain point, global civilization lost the necessary level of coordination to mount the necessary sun shade project. Just as the ancient empires lost the ability to coordinate their own defense and trade in the Bronze Age Collapse, the world lost the ability to avert the next Permian-Triassic level event.
Intimations of war and shifting alliances were punctuated with alleged sabotage and contested destruction of satellites and the closing of the nascent space infrastructure. No one country felt safe letting the other country control the sunlight and the sky. Acrimony only increased when the first nuclear submarine was lost to the loss of buoyancy amidst the first spontaneous mass methane clathrate release. We luckily averted prematurely ending ourselves in nuclear fire and ash, but future generations might look back at it as a lost chance at quick mercy. Eventually, the petty geopolitical squabbles faded and almost everyone universally believed the science, but it wasn't until it was several years too late.
The updraft tower depending on configuration can transport large amount of dust upwards helping to create clouds, or condensate the moisture in the air (which is particularly effective in arid regions near the sea).
The balloon-solar plants would also help to reduce the temperature.