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Comment by hpoe | Hacker News Reader

So one question I've had for a while is if we are currently facing such a catastrophe with increased global heat why don't we go ahead and start conducting massive explosions to kick dust up into the air. When Krakatoa went off it caused global cooling throughout the entire world because of the amount of matter it introduced into the air so why don't we do the same right now at least as a stopgap measure if things are looking so dire?

I'm not trying to be argumentative I just don't understand why this is a bad idea?

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I think all geo-engineering is a bad idea. The least worse idea is sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere.

The consequences of any geo-engineering ideas are not well understood.

I could imagine something a bit better controlled could be ok.

Large areas of solar panels, engineered to reflect as much as they can't use, would be a good double benefit. Excess electricity could be opportunistically used for GHG capture or the panels could maybe flip over and become mirrors.

An orbital umbrella that we could modulate such that we can deal with unanticipated consequences could also be ok.

I'm sure there are tons of other approaches that give control in both directions on reasonable time scales. Obviously cutting emissions Right Now is super important, and megaprojects shouldn't distract from that.

I agree that geoengineering is exceptionally fraught with potential problems, but perhaps it is time to begin exploring the options at least.

from my own understanding and reading one of the few feasible cooling efforts would be high altitude aerosol dispersal, which again, has serious risk of unintended consequences.

There is also room for a bit more pressure on countries which emit excessive amounts of carbon, that show no signs of slowing down.

Solar shades have great potential and the unintended consequences can at least be mitigated. Unlike aerosol dispersal they can be “turned off” semi trivially with onboard thrusters or specialized missions. Cost estimates were at $100 Billion 10 years ago which were doubtlessly optimistic, but Starship will dramatically lower the cost of deploying a few hundred tons of shades.

One risk of not exploring geoengineering is that cheap options for it exist and most countries are technically and economically able to engage in them. If a country feels like the burdens of climate change fall unfairly on them, the option exists to do something drastic.

Solar panels are mostly black. Do they reflect more sunlight back into space than what was under them?

Usually not, and certainly not as currently designed. Hence the notion of flipping to a mirrored side in case of excess electricity, or having some fancy coating stack that manages to reflect everything which is not absorbed by the cell.

Then it's time to start understanding them.

Let's start pouring money into research so we don't have to go in blind.

Climate change is at the point where there are actual consequences to people. Humans being what we are, we're not going to sit around and just accept a dramatically worse situation. People (very wealthy people with a lot to lose) are going to demand action, and action is going to be taken.

We can go in blind or we can start learning what the plusses and minuses of various approaches are now.

We are already geo-engineering. That's why the climate is changing.

Significantly reducing the sunlight that reaches the surface also has the tiny issue of killing all the plants. Most grasses will survive, but crops?

You don't think that drastically increasing the amount of particulate matter in the air that we breath could be a bad idea?

Move fast and break things!

I actually laughed at this, great comment.

1 - That was the result of sulfur dioxide more than particulates. 2 - Sulfur dioxide harms the ozone layer. 3 - Krakatoa was 4 times larger than the yield of the largest fusion/thermonuclear bomb ever. 4 - We'd have to do that ever 2 years for centuries.

It is not practical and wouldn't work even if it was practical.

fear of unintended consequences, i imagine. unless it goes off without a hitch, there will be much blame.

for me, it's a conversation of responsibility. its obvious that we (as a species) have not been responsible with the resources of this planet (see consumer culture, disposal culture, and planned obsolescence). it makes more sense to attack the problem at its causes rather than band aids.

I agree there are dangers to applying band aids.

It depends on if the band aids apply enough pressure to stop the patient from bleeding out. We don’t know how much about positive feedback loops for climate change. Things like the tundra melting and releasing more CO2 could create large inflection points which we don’t understand very well. Every day we inch closer to one of these inflection points, gambling the point is further out.

It is my belief that band aids are necessary to prevent nightmare scenarios from occurring. We can quibble about moral hazards and figure out what to do with ocean acidification once we aren’t at the precipice.

If there aren’t positive feedback loops I agree pushing back the problem for a few decades doesn’t help us that much so long as the root causes go unsolved.

[Edit] As it relates to responsibility, unfortunately those most responsible will due to their wealth carry the fewest consequences. We need a way to internalize the externalities of climate change to keep people responsible rather than leaving the global poor to suffer the largest impacts.

What is the cost compared to mass migration of the entire world population to north of the 50th (or so) parallel? Would civilization even survive?

If we don't make serious changes the planet will get so hot that the clouds will vanish and there will be no more rain. We would be in a permanent drought.

I would think that would make the air dangerous to breath, among a host of other downsides.

I mean, that shouldn't be hard to answer, should it?

We can't predict the exact outcome, and risk taking on even bigger problems. Those kinds of events tend to cause crop failures and famine.

And, the only explosions of that scale are nuclear weapons.

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