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Gareth Gobulcoque posted:Sulfate aerosol injection is cheap as hell. Cost won't be the determining factor. No, there are just a pile of other reasons not to do it, including the potential for reduced precipitation, reduced solar radiation for solar power, and the fact that you'd get a sudden and massive spike in warming if we ever stopped doing it. That's not even mentioning the fact that you'd never actually be able to reach any kind of international agreement on how much is enough. Sulfate aerosol injection won't happen either.
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Jan 4, 2017 09:23
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If this thread's position is now that there's nothing to be done about climate change, there's nothing you can do that will have any effect, and there's no political action that will do anything, then why have this discussion at all? I think this thread's motto is now climate change: after us, the flood
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Jan 4, 2017 09:44
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The fact that the vast majority of current geoengineering proposals are unrealistic doesn't mean that nothing can be done. The damage of climate change can and probably will be mitigated through political action, the only real question is how much damage will be done before action is taken.
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Jan 4, 2017 09:59
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I am probably late and this was already discussed, but what about this proposed method of geoengineering? http://www.pnas.org/content/113/52/14910.abstract How realistic and effective it could be (if there was willingness to try it)?
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Jan 4, 2017 13:49
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Debate & Discussion › Climate Change: Die, die, die!
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Jan 4, 2017 14:11
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Paradoxish posted:No, there are just a pile of other reasons not to do it, including the potential for reduced precipitation, reduced solar radiation for solar power, and the fact that you'd get a sudden and massive spike in warming if we ever stopped doing it. That's not even mentioning the fact that you'd never actually be able to reach any kind of international agreement on how much is enough. Sulfate aerosol injection won't happen either. As I said previously, I don't see how those objections would actually stop people. It's very much a thing that any old government can unilaterally decide to try, so who's gonna stop that?
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Jan 4, 2017 14:58
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Fangz posted:As I said previously, I don't see how those objections would actually stop people. It's very much a thing that any old government can unilaterally decide to try, so who's gonna stop that? Any other country that isn't happy with the plan? Aerosol injection requires a huge number of very regular, high altitude flights ideally at either equatorial latitudes or over a wide area at high altitudes. And it has to be done year after year. There's no way you could pull off a meaningful injection program in secret or over only your own airspace.
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Jan 4, 2017 15:37
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pidan posted:If this thread's position is now that there's nothing to be done about climate change, there's nothing you can do that will have any effect, and there's no political action that will do anything, then why have this discussion at all? It's easy to be overly cynical about the political response to climate change, but it's worth pointing out that progress is slowly being made. Stuff is in fact "being done", carbon taxes, cap and trade systems and subsidization of renewable energy are all things being implemented in various jurisdictions through normal political processes (not so much at the US federal level hah). If we had 100 years to get our act together before we started to cause dangerous warming it could likely be avoided entirely even with the existing political framework. It's not that eliminating greenhouse emissions via political reform is impossible, it's just not happening nearly fast enough (like, nowhere near fast enough). Given the current political situation the best we can do is to try to minimize the damage and cross our fingers that we aren't on the threshold of triggering huge positive feedback loops. In the context of US politics I do wonder how the Democrats can win back all those disaffected rust-belt voters while promoting a serious climate mitigation agenda. The angry coal miners are right, Democrats who care about climate change gaining power would likely cost them their jobs. I did appreciate how St. Bernard of Sanders singled out climate change as the single greatest threat to national security during the Democrat primary.
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Jan 4, 2017 15:42
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Paradoxish posted:Any other country that isn't happy with the plan? Aerosol injection requires a huge number of very regular, high altitude flights ideally at either equatorial latitudes or over a wide area at high altitudes. And it has to be done year after year. There's no way you could pull off a meaningful injection program in secret or over only your own airspace. So your theory is that some countries would invade, say, China, because they were doing sulphate injection flights? Sure, some countries will not like geoengineering, but that's a long way short of saying that it would be regarded obviously as an act of war, and it's further doubtful that there would be sufficiently unified opposition to oppose or even sufficiently deter any significant power. To my knowledge there's been basically no act of industrial pollution that has led to international military conflict, so if countries won't go to war because another country is demonstrably poisoning your kids to make more $$$, why would they for something more morally ambiguous and far less easy to attribute blame to? Fangz fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Jan 4, 2017 |
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Jan 4, 2017 15:53
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Fangz posted:So your theory is that some countries would invade, say, China, because they were doing sulphate injection flights? You need worldwide consensus to reduce emissions and if countries are acting unilaterally to the detriment of others that kind of consensus would be impossible to achieve.
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Jan 4, 2017 16:35
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It could easily be regarded as a hostile act because there's no way any country trusts any other country to not also stuff a whole bunch of surveillance or military equipment into the planes injecting the aerosols. Nations are very particular about their air space in a world where a bomb that can destroy a city can be dropped from a plane.
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Jan 4, 2017 16:36
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If we must talk about climate change mitigation via geoengineering, I seriously question whether geoengineering projects can be sustained in a democracy given that the effects will be diffused internationally and not immediate. It's the same basic political problem that makes agitating for climate mitigation so difficult, as there's no direct payoff to geoengineering/reducing carbon emissions, the benefits are ambiguous / only apply to future people, other nations will free-ride on your efforts without paying etc etc. To be more explicit will the people of Bangladesh really allow their leaders to play around with climate sulfate cooling while the water's rising above their ankles? What's their incentive?
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Jan 4, 2017 16:47
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Fangz posted:So your theory is that some countries would invade, say, China, because they were doing sulphate injection flights? No, my theory is that a country like China which is likely to suffer from changes in rainfall patterns and potential famine risk would be the one threatening war. One of the risks of sulfate aerosol injection is a loss of precipitation over Asia and Africa. The US could probably get away with doing it, but I'm not sure that anyone else could. quote:To my knowledge there's been basically no act of industrial pollution that has led to international military conflict, so if countries won't go to war because another country is demonstrably poisoning your kids to make more $$$, why would they for something more morally ambiguous and far less easy to attribute blame to? This is far more blatant than industrial pollution. Large scale injection of sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere would have drastic effects on the climate over a very short time period. Nations that stand to be directly affected by that would potentially be moved to act out of pure self preservation. We're not talking about something that's going to have subtle impacts on the climate here, we're talking about a country unilaterally deciding to blow up its own Pinatubo continuously.
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Jan 4, 2017 16:53
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Paradoxish posted:No, my theory is that a country like China which is likely to suffer from changes in rainfall patterns and potential famine risk would be the one threatening war. One of the risks of sulfate aerosol injection is a loss of precipitation over Asia and Africa. The US could probably get away with doing it, but I'm not sure that anyone else could. Nocturtle posted:If we must talk about climate change mitigation via geoengineering, I seriously question whether geoengineering projects can be sustained in a democracy given that the effects will be diffused internationally and not immediate. It's the same basic political problem that makes agitating for climate mitigation so difficult, as there's no direct payoff to geoengineering/reducing carbon emissions, the benefits are ambiguous / only apply to future people, other nations will free-ride on your efforts without paying etc etc.
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Jan 4, 2017 16:58
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Just another reminder that the Earth isn't going to wait for us to figure this out: Total ice volume on the planet ended the year a full 15% below the previous record low (23.25 vs 27.5). Quite literally, it's happening GIF.
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Jan 4, 2017 17:44
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A Buttery Pastry posted:It's probably more relevant for a country like India, which isn't going to be flooded, but instead suffer massive droughts. Pretty sure you could convince people that preventing droughts was a worthy effort, if the politicians became convinced this type of geoengineering was the answer. I'm not an expert, but I don't think the Indian federal govt has the ability to convince the Indian public about much of anything. Also given the crushing poverty in much of India any geoengineering project would be a big political target, it wouldn't be hard to characterize as a futile boondoggle. This was my point, unless the geoengineering leads to an immediate and undeniable decrease in the effects of climate change (it won't) it would be hard for a cash-strapped developing democracy to maintain political support to continue it for the required amount of time. You can also be certain that any freak weather would be blamed on the projects, and good luck everyone if Pakistan happens to experience a drought after India starts pumping aerosols into the stratosphere. Developed countries have scientific and environmental institutions that would prevent such a project from getting off the ground. Maybe China could do it, but I suspect CPC leadership already understands that it would be a bad idea to try it unilaterally. Nocturtle fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Jan 4, 2017 |
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Jan 4, 2017 17:58
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Dwesa posted:I am probably late and this was already discussed, but what about this proposed method of geoengineering? http://www.pnas.org/content/113/52/14910.abstract If Nature isn't a good enough journal for this thread, I doubt Papers Not Accepted to Science will be good enough either. (For the record, they're both better sources than what usually gets cited in this thread.)
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Jan 4, 2017 18:19
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Trabisnikof posted:If Nature isn't a good enough journal for this thread, I doubt Papers Not Accepted to Science will be good enough either. These two quotes from researchers involved in this study are a good summary of why it's extremely premature to get excited over these kinds of things: quote:“Stratospheric chemistry is complicated and we don’t understand everything about it,” Keith said. “There are ways that this approach could increase global ozone but at the same time, because of the climate dynamics in the polar regions, increase the ozone hole.” quote:“Geoengineering is like taking painkillers,” said Keutsch. “When things are really bad, painkillers can help but they don’t address the cause of a disease and they may cause more harm than good. We really don’t know the effects of geoengineering, but that is why we’re doing this research.” It's absolutely a good thing that we're looking at every possibility, but solving the ozone depletion problem still wouldn't address the major issues that come from any kind of stratospheric injection plan. Hell, Alan Robock, one of the authors of the aerosol geoengineering study that pushed this idea into the public consciousness, also wrote a 20 point list on why we shouldn't consider solar geoengineering a real option.
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Jan 4, 2017 19:28
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Would aerosols even stop the WAIS collapsing if released after it already started?
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Jan 4, 2017 19:40
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I'm not sure anybody can say for sure, but I would imagine that if the ice shelves are gone it won't be possible to prevent the glaciers from flowing into the ocean. I guess if that starts happening soon we'll probably find out.
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Jan 4, 2017 19:50
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Mozi posted:I'm not sure anybody can say for sure, but I would imagine that if the ice shelves are gone it won't be possible to prevent the glaciers from flowing into the ocean. Indeed. So how abruptly can thing change...? Turns out, a whole gently caress of a lot faster than anticipated - here's some nightmare fuel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siWCXOypJh4
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Jan 4, 2017 23:25
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This is insane. Hopefully that dude is one those lying cheating scientists I keep hearing about the world is so hosed
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Jan 5, 2017 00:50
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If anyone's interested in the technical aspects of satellite monitoring of Antarctic and Arctic sea ice, check out the latest episode of the Omega Tau podcast. Basically a two hour fairly technical interview with this fellow from NASA. Quite interesting.
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Jan 5, 2017 01:24
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This is a good channel, here's another sobering one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLk8Uy2-Lsk  Atlantic warming currents are already showing signs of shutting down.
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Jan 5, 2017 01:26
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"I'm just not myself lately. Everything seems so meaningless and empty....Sometimes, I just want to close my eyes and pretend it's not happening." -Bill Nye https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmrsbY3MCZs First 59 seconds  [Edit - The rest is light on substance, but jesus the first minute]
Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 03:38
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Potato Salad posted:"I'm just not myself lately. Everything seems so meaningless and empty....Sometimes, I just want to close my eyes and pretend it's not happening." -Bill Nye It's what I do, or, just try not to think about it.
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Jan 5, 2017 04:04
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Minge Binge posted:This is insane. Hopefully that dude is one those lying cheating scientists I keep hearing about I honestly think one of the best things you can do is to, whenever you happen to be talking to people about this subject, stop talking about future generations, what you expect to happen thirty years out, or how badly the third world is going to be hosed. Pretty much all of that comes from conservative views of the climate that probably aren't even accurate anymore. It's time to start making it clear to people that this is an issue for our generation that's meaningfully going to impact those of us living in the first world while we're still relatively young. Like yeah, obviously just talking to people isn't going to do much either way, but it helps me to feel at least a little bit less powerless when I can actually break through to people and the most success I've had with that is by making it clear that there are too many uncertainties to pretend that everything will be fine for us. I don't know, maybe that's not all that helpful, but I think finding ways to have honest conversations with people is at least more productive than just giving in to despair or retreating into an unrealistic bubble of optimism. Spread that despair around a little bit and maybe people will stop pretending that we can keep kicking this can down the road forever.
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Jan 5, 2017 05:25
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Minge Binge posted:This is insane. Hopefully that dude is one those lying cheating scientists I keep hearing about Who is potentially a lot closer to the truth than he really knew... I mean seriously, watch that video folks... er unless you're AceOfFlames - you shouldn't watch it. They found evidence of warming a hundred times faster than current warming. 1 degree Celsius a year for five years straight. How about them apples?
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Jan 5, 2017 06:00
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Evil_Greven posted:They found evidence of warming a hundred times faster than current warming. 1 degree Celsius a year for five years straight. How about them apples? I would like to point out that this isn't actually new information, the first major paper on the subject (I think) is this one. https://notendur.hi.is/~oi/AG-326%202006%20readings/Ice%20sheets%20and%20glacial%20cycles/Dansgaard_NATURE93.pdf From 1993. Perhaps it was dismissed by being alarmist or some such or needed additional validating before being taking seriously, I don't know. From ice cores they identified 25 "abrupt changes" to the climate, of the type that was described in the video. They are referred to as Dansgaard–Oeschger events. There's a wiki page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dansgaard%E2%80%93Oeschger_event As a species we are truly loving stupid.
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Jan 5, 2017 06:17
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While still very serious, it's worth pointing out that D-O events are mostly specific to Greenland and do not reflect a global temperature trend. They certainly have massive implications for Europe, though.
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Jan 5, 2017 06:55
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BattleMoose posted:I would like to point out that this isn't actually new information, the first major paper on the subject (I think) is this one. Has their ever been a smart species? We should be responsible for the consequences of ignoring our best and brightest, and yet Oh heck we will, happy happy joy joy
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Jan 5, 2017 07:27
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Humans are a smart species, but misanthropic statements are loving stupid. The problem is money. If coal and oil tycoons thought they could get richer by getting involved in nuclear power and electrification, they'd have done it a long time ago.
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Jan 5, 2017 13:12
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Evil_Greven posted:Sadly, he's no McPherson. McPherson's made some adjustments to his time frame of 2030 and gives us now about 10 years or less. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqIt93dDG1M
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Jan 5, 2017 15:33
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Evil_Greven posted:Sadly, he's no McPherson.
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Jan 5, 2017 15:43
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A Buttery Pastry posted:This is actually good news, as it will make make the transition to a hot and wet equitable climate much faster. Instead of having to linger in some intermediate warm and dry climate for centuries, we'll rip off the band-aid and move on. Get the gently caress out.
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Jan 5, 2017 16:12
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A buttery pastry seems to accurately describe the condition of your brain, hth
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Jan 5, 2017 16:16
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You're going to be detained in Gitmo for 15 years. You'll get out faster if you agree to take 1.5 decades of waterboarding in 3 years. You: Sure, gently caress, bring on 5x session frequency. Normal human: maybe can we fix the issue of detention? You've yet to seem to make the small logical leap from admitting "yeah I just made that fanfic up" to "I'll drop the idea we are moving to a better climate after the transition because I based the destination off my own linear extrapolation of a single run hottest outlier of a low resolution model project that expressly describes its own limitations and a focus that actually has less to do with modeling the future than getting a low-cost match to a past era then musing with caution about a battery of 100 futures. I then post this online with barely two sentences about my methodology when asked and deflect with 'It was a long time ago," so I realize that what I have done really is a fanfic shipping of warm-fuzzy-future-for-humanity x worst-case-climate-disaster OTP and won't insult myself by referring to it again."
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Jan 5, 2017 16:26
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Go do some reading on actual precipitation projections. It's horrifying, generally even in the distant steady state. Edit: inb4 "Well I'd take 3 years of 5x ultra intense gitmo over 15 years" wilful metaphor misinterpretation Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 16:29
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A Buttery Pastry posted:This is actually good news, as it will make make the transition to a hot and wet equitable climate much faster. Instead of having to linger in some intermediate warm and dry climate for centuries, we'll rip off the band-aid and move on. Lmao is this a gimmick
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Jan 5, 2017 16:40
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As a fan of algae, I can't see any problems with this scenario.
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Jan 5, 2017 17:03
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