Refreezing Earth's poles feasible and cheap, new study finds | Hacker News Reader

Refreezing Earth's poles feasible and cheap, new study finds

phys.org

38 pointsrmason26 comments

This is frighteningly inexpensive – if it did work, I worry it would alleviate the necessary concerns to find permanent solutions.

The world could easily afford this. Some individuals in the world could easily afford this. It’s too easy.

Perhaps it could reduce other issues and actually prevent various species-specific catastrophes around the poles. As a conservation effort it might make sense.

I do worry about downstream effects. People far smarter than I am are researching this, but there are so many potential knock on effects.

Even so, I’m glad to see progress being made in this kind of research. That’s a big step up from my childhood.

Is this another diversion/distraction by the fossil fuel industry to allow them to continue business as usual for as long as possible?

Even if it is highly effective, wouldn't they then argue that climate change is "solved" and we can go back to releasing CO2 as much as we want? Further, would they then underwrite astroturfing campaigns to shame people who don't accept that the problem is solved as never-satisfied malcontents who should be ignored?

Feels like society at large wants to continue business as usual. Electric cars are still super wasteful compared to public transport, tonnes of metal and battery that the majority of time sit around idle and a minority of time transport one person. I saw an article yesterday where Clear Channel was defending the placement of digital street-level billboards, but hey "We try as much as we can to use renewable energy to power these things.".

Looking forward to seeing those aerosol flights all over the planet, as humanity get desperate.

“Every complex problem has a solution which is simple, direct, plausible — and wrong.” -- H. L. Mencken

"On the other hand, we cannot ignore efficiency" -- D. E. Knuth

Since the article didn't specify and I had to go to the original paper: the "aerosol" substance is sulfur dioxide

Smells like Cane Toads.

As an Australian, I agree.

lol I feel like this is more or less exactly what led to the earthwide frozen wasteland in Snowpiercer

These stupid geo-engineering 'solutions' are a disaster waiting to happen. Morons.

Disaster is a possibility - but note that your answer implies that the climate emergency isn't, you know, an emergency; since in emergencies corners are frequently cut and some chances taken. I'm wary too, but I'm convinced the emergency word isn't just puffery.

Totally agree with you about the emergency, but to believe that we can fix the climate crisis by throwing more speculative technology at the problem - with no real idea of what the unintended consequences will be - is total madness.

Not to mention the fact that no one person or nation has the right to experiment with everyone's existence just because they 'think' it will work. At least on paper. Meanwhile we could be working towards real solutions instead of this foolishness. Sorry, I get really annoyed with these idiots.

Some level of madness may be a required for the continued survival of our species.

No, not really. There are a large number of sensible solutions we can use which will ensure our survival as a species. We just need to remove the global growth imperative as fast as we can.

The current capitalist trajectory is directly opposite to what we need. Managed, responsible degrowth can deliver everything we need without massive disruption. Yes, we'll need to accept lower levels of convenience and comfort, but that's probably a good thing in terms of overall life balance and well being.

There's absolutely no need to start chucking sulphuric acid aerosols into the stratosphere. Fix the problem, don't just try and mask it.

Do you have concerns that this will trap the billions of very poor in permanent destitution? Do you see a way to stop global growth and raise these people out of poverty? Global per capita gdp is 10k. From a first glance, even if we established a global government that redistributed wealth, no one will be living well - at least by modern standards.

I'm not sure it's possible to go over all of the possible socio-economic options for a future world in a Hacker News thread. :) I guess that my original comment was to point out that we have options to tackle the climate crisis which don't have to involve geo-engineering to a ridiculous extent.

> real solutions instead of this foolishness

We don't know what the solution for climate crisis is but i am happy that someone is running numbers on potential solutions. No idea however absurd should be left unchecked just because you think its foolish.

It seems quite foolish to try a solution this radical before trying a global price on carbon emissions.This is risking the livelihoods of everybody for the profit of a few in that case. Otherwise I agree.

The issue for me is that it's not attacking the root of the problem. Are we just going to keep escalating this solution to keep up with emissions? Any breathing room it creates, like breathing room in almost any budget, is going to be eaten up. And we head towards an ever more complex pile of band-aids that certainly will result in some unforeseen consequences. But, at the same time, maybe that is just the way, maybe there's no going back to letting nature run itself. And it certainly doesn't take away from people working on other solutions any more than anything else.

to whit, that this doesn't alter the acidification of the oceans by CO2; it addresses a major symptom; but one symptom.

Well be paying the pole tax in perpetuity for yearly “aerosol treatment.”

Hmm, this was proposed 10 years ago by David Keith: https://mashable.com/archive/arctic-global-warming

I wonder what has changed, apart from going from $8 billion to $11 billion.

Cheap fix, cheap way to make more problems in the long run

So contrailing the poles? Imagine that.

What could possibli go wrong?

No Simpsons fans here.

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