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Comment by somewhat_drunk | Hacker News Reader

I've been saying for a long time that we'll eventually have to geoengineer our way out of climate change. Sadly, I still think that's the case.

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For the scientific take on this with estimates of actual amounts, check out Figure 2.5 from the IPCC special report on limiting emissions to 1.5C:

https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/graphics/#cid_457

We are looking at a minimum of gigatons/year of carbon dioxide removal (CDR in the report), with tech that has not yet been developed.

And yet, still, people slowing down our current trajectory. We are nowhere close to making the reductions in emissions in CO2 plotted there.

Even this whole thread is filled with science-denying pedants that didn't even bother to read the attached article. The impediment to technology change is political, not technological, and we need to start holding our colleagues to a higher standard for evidence and scientific accuracy if we want to politically enable the technological change that we need.

Yes, and I find the arguments against quite funny. Because we are already deep into geoengineering it, only in the wrong direction. This is the whole idea behind the proposed, new anthropocene epoch. There is nothing natural behind what is happening now, it’s all literally engineered. Sure, the point hasn’t been to directly affect the climate, only inadvertently so. But that’s even worse.

The argument against is that we might fuck it up. It's a good argument.

We might. I’m one scientist working on making sure we don’t. There are many scientists trying to do that. Hopefully we can learn and act in time.

What's your take on the viability of geoengineering our way out of climate change?

It’s multifaceted. Scientifically it’s too soon to say. Engineering-wise, it’s entirely doable. I’ve seen a couple talks in which they worked out how to do it with current technology and within budgets that are manageable by cooperating governments. Politically it seems like a toss-up, but I’m least qualified to comment on that.

My hunch on the science side (take this with a grain of salt, I’m a computer scientist in climate informatics, not a climate scientist) is that there will surely be undesired effects. I’m working on method development for identifying all of the downstream impacts, but it’s low TRL. I think we’ll end up needing to weigh the negative with the positive impacts unless we find some miracle silver bullet. Intervening in a system as complex as our climate makes it a good bet there will be undesirable impacts.

My guess is we’re ~10 years from confident estimations of what is/isn’t a good idea. Then we have to convince governments to act. That’s really slow. The marginally good news is, perhaps the right intervention can cool the earth fast enough (possibly at the cost of something like Ozone).

That said, we are already intervening in the climate with greenhouse gases. The safest intervention from here is to just stop/slow that. We know what the world is like with less GHG. We only get one shot at a habitable Earth, so while it is scary to try fixing it, it’s more scary to continue breaking it in my opinion. No one wants to act hastily though, we’re working on the science to make sure we know what we’re doing.

>That said, we are already intervening in the climate with greenhouse gases. The safest intervention from here is to just stop/slow that. We know what the world is like with less GHG. We only get one shot at a habitable Earth, so while it is scary to try fixing it, it’s more scary to continue breaking it in my opinion. No one wants to act hastily though, we’re working on the science to make sure we know what we’re doing.

Agreed 100%. Gambling with the only planet we have is tremendously stupid, yet there are many (including in this very thread) who advocate doing just that. The mind boggles.

Thanks for your response. I'm a former mechanical engineer turned software engineer who's currently studying data science while between jobs. I want to do something good for humanity, and your field sounds like it could be a good fit, and interesting. Are there many remote positions in climate informatics?

Yeah it’s a dream for me and I hope funding persists.

I wish I had a good answer. I’m a late-stage PhD student and I work full time at a national lab that is doing this work. I ought to start gauging the job market for when I defend my dissertation. With the current administration, there are several national labs interested in this problem. I have thought about looking at NOAA, NASA, NSIDC, etc as well. I’ve heard many of these government orgs are looking for data scientists for climate work, I suspect eventually there will be enough climate-data-scientists to hire them specifically. It’s all government I suspect; there’s not much for a private company to gain from climate research unfortunately.

It’s hard to imagine the outcome will be as bad as our current trajectory.

If everyone acted rationally yes. A good example of how we might make things worse is mandating that every structure have solar panels on the roof. Sure that might make sense in Arizona, it makes zero sense in Maine and other areas without sufficient sunlight, never-mind the implications for the grid.

Humans are prone to performative overreactions, because what works and what's emotionally satisfying to the masses are often two very different things.

Case in point: the ideological drive for electric vehicles. To ameliorate the greatest amount of carbon emissions as fast as possible we should be going all-in on PHEVs, because you can essentially take the one large battery in a single electric vehicle and chop it up to equip several PHEVs. Plus the batteries are small enough to charge overnight on a standard Level 1 outlet. Given that most people don't drive beyond a decent all-electric range (say 40-50 miles) each day, with PHEVs you get rid of something like 80% of tailpipe emissions from several people, which is a lot more than 100% of emissions from 1 person. And you don't need to build-out nearly as much extra electrical infrastructure or battery manufacturing/mining.

But let's not let math get in the way of all the talk about "half measures" and how PHEVs allow BIG WORSE-THAN-HITLER OIL to continue to exist, because obviously moral purity and Captain Planet cosplay is more important that the boring business of actually lowering carbon emissions.

BEV lifecycle emissions are significantly lower than PHEV lifecycle emissions.

https://theicct.org/publication/ghg-benefits-incentives-ev-m...

OP says Perfect is the enemy of good

yes! Here's my reasoning:

- conservation doesn't work in the developed world: there's simply too much sacrifice required, too quickly.

- conservation doesn't work in the developing world: no way will people agree to freeze development while watching rich people in the developed world.

- decarbonization/etc are cute but even if we did EVERYTHING and ASAP, it still wouldn't be close to enough.

I'll know we're serious about climate change when we invest $trillions into R&D and seriously consider large scale geoengineering, no idea too weird.

We're getting there: consider this $52B proposal ($100+B with the usual overruns) to temporarily protect NYC/NJ from sealevel rise: https://www.google.com/search?q=nyc+sea+level+rise+protectio... - now multiply to Miami, Jakarta and dozens of other cities.

> conservation doesn't work in the developed world: there's simply too much sacrifice required, too quickly.

I would add the corollary to this that those entities that profit from the products that are killing the environment are unlikely to be sufficiently de-incentivized by any large Capitalist or hybrid-Capitalist/Socialist society/economy.

Simply stated, superpowers like the US lack the intestinal fortitude to force megacorps- our biggest offenders- to change their ways any quicker than the torpor of a hibernating bear.

Even if the US had the will and inclination, it would take massive wars of conquest to impose that will on the rest of the world. Such wars would probably do more damage to the planet than they could ever hope to prevent. Forget using superpowers to solve this.

yep - but even if they did have the intestinal fortitude, it still wouldn't be enough... so there's no need to get judgy when we can come together on this one, accept human nature and start looking for real solutions instead of "delay and pray" nonsense.

Yes, it's the civilizational equivalent of the student who does nothing until the deadline is near and then half-asses the project to get a C.

Perfect analogy.

Indeed, I lived that analogy. The best part is when someone says, "but what about ocean acidification?" or some other concern. That's why it's not whole-assed.

First we need fiction to inspire or convince us. A James Cameron or Roland Emmerich movie.

Ok, so you say the climate is not allowed to change anymore?

Are your shoes tied?

That is indeed a serious question. Because if you argue that we have to influence climate change through geoengineering, then there are obviously limits that humans put on the climate, within which limits it is allowed to change.

Who defines these limits? Is it allowed to get warmer? Is it allowed to get cooler? If so, how fast? Are the changes defined in a democratic decision-making process?

So please - what is your strategy then?

Give people a thermostat to play with and there will be fights.

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