Earth is losing ice faster today than in the mid-1990s, study suggests

Exactly. Carbon emission controls the second derivative of global temperature. What we've done is reduce the pressure with which the accelerator is pushed to the floor of the car, but it hasn't had time to spring back up yet and close the throttle.

FWIW: people were warning about this control problem (and even using that very metaphor) back in the 1980's.

can't we just freeze the ocean water? pfft. "global warming".

"...solving the problem once and for all."

"but-"

"ONCE AND FOR ALL!!"

It’s not comparable to a massive war killing a huge portion of people. That’s a more immediate, visible consequence that is clear on how to avoid.

It’s a slow moving extra/unpredictable hurricane/drought/monsoon/heat wave/cold snap that gradually reduces quality of life year after year, with no clear solution to prevent it and still enjoy all the modern trappings of life.

The recent pandemic has convinced me that that war would have more than its fair share of denialists and even cheerleaders.

No, not even a massive war.

Remember that in the 1960s this was the consensus between policymakers and the public -- that there was a very real chance that the entire world would be annihilated by global thermonuclear war.

What did we do? Doubled down and continued building nukes.

We are completely fucked on this. If you don't hear that O&G companies are stopping the drilling machines, "X will stop climate change" is a lie and a farce.

I'm just thinking the same thing. BTW the excess energy can be reflected to orbit labs or moon to make something more interesting (reactors, generators, water electrolysis etc)

Reflective white poles that are covered up are no longer acting in a reflecting manner. If they are not acting in a reflective manner, since they're being covered up, what good are they?

In my mind, geostationary satellites with reflective properties are a solution to a symptom but not to the root cause. I was always taught to fix the root cause of problems, not their symptoms. Therefore I find your strategy to be sup optimal.

Having said that, I agree that if we find the root cause to be unsolvable, we should look into fixing some of the symptoms instead.

Wouldn't it be better to have the reflectors over the equator?

Stopping the Earth receiving sunlight uniformly across the surface could have some interesting unintended consequences.

Here's a video of someone going through the maths and their various assumptions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yqi0FabHHs

TLDR: It's preposterous in just about every way, from the number of shades needed to the costs to the number of launches required.

We can wait for private enterprise to build giant mirrors in orbit or, you know, lobby for subsidies for oil, coal and gas to end and become more sustainable, thus transitioning to a society that doesn't need giant mirrors in orbit to survive.

I did the math on this once out of curiosity. If we launch lots of bits of thin, reflective mylar film to the L2 Lagrange point with the sun, it will reflect incoming light and lower the Earth's insolation. About $200 billion worth of Falcon Heavy launches, all carrying mylar film to L2, would be sufficient to lower insolation by 1/20th of a percent, which would indeed halt global warming.

Obviously this would have tons of other consequences for the planet, and doesn't account for solar wind pushing the mylar out of position, etc.

There's already a more practical way of accomplishing what you're suggesting:

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/09/harvard-group...

The problem is that it a) is tackling a symptom rather than the underlying problem,

b) may encourage "business as usual",

and c) may come with undesirable side effects.

I briefly looked at this a while ago. The short answer is no, space mirrors (or lenses which focus light away and need less fuel to maintain position) are not a viable solution launched from earth. We'd be better off reducing emissions.

If you want to do large scale construction in space you need to get material from outside of a gravity well.

I can't wait for a world where economic sanctions are based on sunlight restriction.

Is there any science fiction around this concept?

Also, regarding your questions. It is possible to adjust the earth's temperature with that method, but aerosols seem to be cheaper. Regarding solving global warming. Kind of. There are some trade-off with sunlight reduction. See https://youtu.be/dSu5sXmsur4 for more detailed information.

Even better, a carbon tax would create a market for solutions of getting rid of CO2 in a cheaper way than the tax. Finally an incentive to put all that awesome entrepreneurial creativity that gave us all the benefits we are enjoying every day to work on saving the planet. Win-win...

It makes so much sense, it's just crazy to see how little support there is for the idea.

This and other things are starting to convince me that the average person is actually incapable of making smart policy decisions, and that if we used technology to implement a direct democracy, it would likely be worse than what we have now. I used to think it was a great idea, but I've lost some faith in humanity lately looking at people reacted to the pandemic.

> I don't get why conservative politicians aren't behind this?

Because it doesn't benefit them. They're politicians. "Conservative" is just the label they've figured out will garner them the most votes. And "conservative" voters have been brainwashed over generations to believe this isn't a real crisis.

1. "Tax" is anathema to conservative politicians, in any form.

2. They're heavily invested in the "it's a hoax" stage to global warming. It's a more engaging narrative than later stages: not merely a disagreement over facts but an actual enemy to be defeated: the hoaxers, and by extension their political opponents on every subject. People who, I would note, they can project as "pro tax", and more generally representing a threat to your hard-earned wealth.

Ideally, libertarians would fall on the side of science. But there's heavy pressure to disregard the science and portray the scientists as failures. If there's no problem, then you don't need a solution.

Must every frontpage post contain an element of surprise?

I submitted it as a reminder that climate change is still occurring, there's still research being done, and is still an issue we globally need to address.

Climate change has not been surprising for decades. But it remains important.

The effect of greenhouse emissions vs climate takes _decades_ to be seen. The paper here is not to be linked to the reduction in greenhouse emissions from 2020.

The negative effects of climate change are caused by the total level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, not the current rate of emissions. The world reduced the rate of emissions by 10% last year. That's better than nothing, but the overall level of greenhouse gases still rose by a lot last year, so it makes sense that ice would continue to melt faster. This trend will continue until we have net negative emissions, which is pretty much only possible if we first have close to zero emissions from power generation, transportation, and agriculture, as well as cash subsidies for carbon removal and sequestration.

The fix to climate change has never been reduced emissions, it has been negative emissions or zero emissions if you're willing to accept a slower, inferior solution. Reducing emissions just buys a little bit of time (but not much, based on what most of the world considers "reduced").

This is why we need to teach calculus in schools.

We've dropped the second derivative of f(t) to the lowest value in decades. Why is f(t) not itself also low?

The fact that some of the crap spouts are slower doesn't mean the pool isn't filling.

You can think of it like this: There is an very large pool about 2/3 full of human crap, being filled by a number of spouts. Some of the spouts kinda stop ocasionally, but not for long.

There is a sinkhole, but it's not big enough, so it keeps filling.

When it fills up, you and everyone you love included, along with all of humanity, will have to drink from that pool forever as their sole form of sustenance, possibly dying of it. It's taking the plants and kelp with it, too, so eventually there will be nothing we can recognize as good.

The only way out is to make the sinkhole bigger or close every spout and try to make it _very_ clear what happened so future generations don't mess with it. Every other path leads to everyone and everything dying a horrible death.

The climate is changing because of the amount emitted. We've emitted a shit tonne. We're still emitting too much, even with covid and a recession. So climate isn't getting better.

I don’t think this post deserves the downvotes- it’s a statement of confusion, but the confusion comes from an honest, understandable place and there’s a clear answer to the question.