I have presented detailed calculations in the past only to be met with the same mindless brutalization via downvotes, comments and flagging. The HN masses are just as intellectually lazy as masses can be in any other context.
This is no different from recent events in the political spectrum, such as nearly the entire political and media machinery telling the world that Biden was just fine (and a bunch of other lies). Only those of us who managed to think outside the indoctrination seemed to have understood --years ago-- the sad reality that the poor man was being used and abused by the political machinery. Only when reality became inescapable did they start speaking the truth. In fact, it was worse than that, they actively attacked the man and popped him out of the system like a painful puss-filled pimple. The end result? They gave the leadership position to a candidate so flawed that billions of dollars and massive amounts of support from luminaries could not get her elected.
The point is: The truth always has a way to come out, sooner or later. Sometimes with undesirable consequences.
Climate change became a religion a long time ago. The domain is supported by the indoctrinated masses who love to regurgitate what they are told to think. Researchers fear going against the grain because their funding and careers depend on it. The powerful and those making money with this madness actively promote it and make sure they have support for insane projects. Frankly, it would be far easier to join them, regurgitate the nonsense and make millions of dollars per year by being a member of this dishonest club. Not my style. Sorry.
Regarding the flour analogy. You are reading too much into it. This was not a model of the planet and our atmospheric system. I only use these kinds of analogies to show how it takes far more effort, resources and energy to reverse damage that can be done in mere minutes. That's all.
Lot's of commenters on HN do not seem able to (or willing to) exercise critical thinking. Some might not have the requisite scientific background or real-world experience to understand what are otherwise simple arguments rooted in physics. One of the common comments goes something like: If we polluted it in X years we can clean it up in X years or less.
Of course, this is ridiculous. The example of flour spread all over the office is simple enough to illustrate just how silly this idea actually is. And, if someone cares enough to think it through a bit deeper, it also illustrates just how much more energy and resources is required than a sack of flour.
That's it. It isn't a model of a planet and its atmosphere. It's there to say: You cannot fix a problem with less energy, resources or time than what went into creating it in the first place. Nothing else.
> a scrubber in a fixed location can eventually remove all of it
That would be nice if it were possible. Sorry, this is another fantasy. Once again, things fail in a violent manner once considered at a global scale. You cannot filter air at a planetary scale, this is simply preposterous starting with the reality of building these kinds of systems every 10, 20, 50 or 100 miles throughout the planet, the scale, energy, resources and realities of air processing all work against you. These systems are far more likely to "filter" the same air over and over again than to actually "remove all of it".
In a prior life I was involved in large systems installations requiring the construction of clean rooms of varying scales, from small 20 x 20 foot labs to massive aerospace-level clean rooms (think Home Depot scale).
What works well in a smallish environment (a room, submarine, space station) quickly fails at larger scales. In the end, you cannot create a clean room by filtering the enclosed volume. That's not how it is done except for very specific applications (spacecraft, submarine, space station and that's it). The only way is to inject clean air and create positive pressure such that nothing is able to come in from the outside. Scrubber systems in the corner-case applications where this isn't an option are incredibly expensive and complex. They do not scale well at all.
Of course this isn't to suggest that we can bring in clean air into our atmosphere. My point is that the idea of filtering our entire atmosphere (or a substantial enough portion of it) only works on paper, research grant applications and proposals for funding by politicians eager to continue the narrative that drives unthinking masses to vote for them. Who wants to vote for someone who says "The emperor has no clothes"? Nobody. Far easier for the machinery to convince everyone that the naked man in front of them is wearing the finest garments every conceived. Sadly, that book [0] covers climate change with great accuracy.
Look, the scenario today is no different from what it has been for the last, 50 years or more. This articles [1] is an interesting compilation of predictions over time. All crazy nonsense. Yet, at the time, taken seriously and used to set policy and more.
Who would dare go against the likes of Nobel Prize winners, Ted Turner, Al Gore and other merchants of FUD? From a career standpoint, as academics, media or politicians, it would have been suicidal. Anyone can understand this. And yet, all of these and many others were selling pure unrefined bullshit. I mean, crap like this, quoting:
"A senior UN environmental official (Noel Brown) says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000."
(1970) "Air pollution may obliterate the sun and cause a new ice age in the first third of the next century if population continues to grow and earth’s resources are consumed at the present rate…"
"Harvard biologist and Nobel Prize winner George Wald, speaking at the University of Rhode Island in November 1970: “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”"
"In April 2008, media mogul Ted Turner provided far more detail than either Gore or Pachauri, emphasizing the consequences of climate inaction. “Not doing it will be catastrophic. We’ll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not 10 but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals. Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state like Somalia or Sudan, and living conditions will be intolerable. The droughts will be so bad there’ll be no more corn growing.”
(2019, AOC) "The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change"
When I say that this domain has become a sad joke, a religion, an incredible farce supported by those seeking political and financial gain, rather than real science, well, there's ample evidence to support this statement going back over 50 years. In other words, it is far more likely that this is all a big smelly pile of bullshit than otherwise.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes
[1] https://www.agweb.com/opinion/doomsday-addiction-celebrating...