Real question: why isn’t some billionaire using subversive techniques to manipulate the population into doing something? If it can work for Russia to put Trump into the Whitehouse, can it not work in support of carbon reduction?
http://www.innovationconcepts.eu/res/literatuurSchuiling/oli...
Weathering is exactly how the earth brought itself back into equilibrium over millions of years after the mass extinction events. We just have to advance that process dramatically, and specifically target beaches and critical places in the ocean where ocean acidification would devastate ecosystems.
Edit: Also this is an affordable plan. It costs about $12 per metric ton of carbon removed compared to other carbon sequestration technologies which usually cost $100+/ton.
If we want to offset a huge chunk of human emissions we still need billionaire or government backing.
Same folks as Vesta, I think: https://climitigation.org/olivine-can-reverse-climate-change...
Some general information: https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/07/olivine-weathering-...
Another research group, I think: https://olivoa.eu/
Maybe there is selection bias, where only borderline (at least) psychopaths seeking individual profit and power become billionaires.
Also, I think the steel-man of the conservative position isn't that AGW doesn't exist (it clearly does), but that economic damage from over-reaction is actually a bigger threat and cost than adaptation will be. They just focus on fuzzing over the science since that is much easier to sell than what they really believe, which I think is actually more like "We just don't care much about animals, and what we're doing is about comparable to effect to what our species did when we invented the automobile and air travel and paved the earth. This is progress, deal with it."
The biggest danger of the climate change is that some nation or company gets a bright idea how to fix it and then seriously fucks the climate up. If you think few degrees too warm is bad, consider how bad having a mile thick ice cap all over Europe and North America would be if we manage to swing the system the other way.
To change opinion on climate you’re talking 30-705 swings. Even those who believe in it don’t take it that seriously for the most part. Support for a meaningful level of carbon taxation is quite low.
I think it’s beyond the level of billionaires to sway. They could buy politicians, who are easier to influence. But politicians can’t move far ahead of the people.
Yes, I’m aware the petroleum industry and Fox News have a very effective disinformation campaign. But that’s moving in a short term direction people are already inclined to support.
Look at Japan and Germany, two countries largely uninfluenced by American media propaganda and renowned for sensible planning: they’re both tearing down nuclear plants and increasing their carbon emissions.
The world population at large doesn’t take climate change seriously, and it’s damned hard to swing public opinion as much as we would need.
This may be outdated. The article also mentioned some 80% of the japanese population is opposed to nuclear.
There are obviously valid concerns, but....my point is the public fears one and takes little heed of CO2.