This Scientist Has a Risky Plan to Cool Earth - solar geoengineering. There's Growing Interest.

[Bundbuster]

David Keith wants to spray a pollutant into the sky to block some sunlight. He says the benefits would outweigh the danger.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/climate/david-keith-solar-geoengineering.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AE4.y4hQ.EHn4G1aJnzi5&smid=url-share

David Keith was a graduate student in 1991 when a volcano erupted in the Philippines, sending a cloud of ash toward the edge of space. Seventeen million tons of sulfur dioxide released from Mount Pinatubo spread across the stratosphere, reflecting some of the sun’s energy away from Earth. The result was a drop in average temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere by roughly one degree Fahrenheit in the year that followed. Today, Dr. Keith cites that event as validation of an idea that has become his life’s work: He believes that by intentionally releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, it would be possible to lower temperatures worldwide, blunting global warming.

Proponents see it as a relatively cheap and fast way to reduce temperatures well before the world has stopped burning fossil fuels. Harvard University has a solar geoengineering program that has received grants from the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. It’s being studied by the Environmental Defense Fund along with the World Climate Research Program, an international scientific effort. The European Union last year called for a thorough analysis of the risks of geoengineering and said countries should discuss how to regulate an eventual deployment of the technology. But many scientists and environmentalists fear that it could result in unpredictable calamities.

Because it would be used in the stratosphere and not limited to a particular area, solar geoengineering could affect the whole world, possibly scrambling natural systems, like creating rain in one arid region while drying out the monsoon season elsewhere. Opponents worry it would distract from the urgent work of transitioning away from fossil fuels. They object to intentionally releasing sulfur dioxide, a pollutant that would eventually move from the stratosphere to ground level, where it can irritate the skin, eyes, nose and throat and can cause respiratory problems. And they fear that once begun, a solar geoengineering program would be difficult to stop.

“The whole notion of spraying sulfur compounds to reflect sunlight is arrogant and simplistic,” the Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki said. “There are unintended consequences of powerful technologies like these, and we have no idea what they will be.” Raymond Pierrehumbert, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Oxford, said he considered solar geoengineering a grave threat to human civilization. In a series of interviews, Dr. Keith, a professor in the University of Chicago’s department of geophysical sciences, countered that the risks posed by solar geoengineering are well understood, not as severe as portrayed by critics and dwarfed by the potential benefits.

Much, much more at link - should be no paywall.

[EYESORE 9001]

1. I once read about a plan

that involved flying aircraft at high altitude and releasing aerosolized sulfuric acid to create compounds that destroy the worst greenhouse gases, like refrigerants. Thing is, I obey the law of unintended consequences.

[GPV]

2. I remember acid rain, and what a fight it was to clean it up.

[keithbvadu2]

3. After all, what could go wrong? Think of the movie Snowpiercer.

[Caribbeans]

4. "There are unintended consequences of powerful technologies like these"

The United States of Unintended Consequences

The "Unintended Consequences" of literally subsidizing billion dollar fossil fuel companies

The "Unintended Consequences" of wasting a few trillion dollars on global hegemony for ~30 f'n years now.

- who could have guessed?

[2naSalit]

5. So...

Instead of curbing their gluttony, they'll just kill us all because, they are sure that they know better.

[RandomNumbers]

6. The entire fossil fuel era has been one long geoengineering experiment.

How's that going for us?

I'm running out of swear words for the people who come up with this sh*t.

Stop the consumption race, people. Humanity can survive what we've done so far - maybe not without pain, but we can survive, if we start DEALING WITH IT sensibly.

But it seems like some of these folks want to play craps with the whole planet. Don't they know the house always wins? Hint: humanity ain't the house in this case.

[IbogaProject]

7. We have to try this ASAP

Things are getting serious we have to try this. The warm water flow to the Arctic is about to collapse. There are two ways the current warming resolves, one an ice age begins or two warming accelerates further and feedback loops kick in and things go run away. Things could basically become inhospitale to human life. Or even worse our water could evaporate and exit our atmosphere. Read here if you wish to get an idea of how outrageously dangerous this is. https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/?m=1

[mopinko]

8. we have tons of data. we've studied ash clouds from volcanos.

i’ve thought for a long time that volcanic ash bombs are feasible and well understood.
buy some time. we’ve come a long way in clean energy production. we’ll get farther still in the next decade.
ppl r getting cooked rn. it’s an emergency, and this wd help.
i’m for it.

[caraher]

9. The worst case scenario is probably having this work

This kind of geoengineering is basically an irreversible decision, because if you ever stop, all the elements of runaway greenhouse warming are still in place, and the effects on life will be even more catastrophic than doing nothing (because the rate of heating will be even greater).

[CoopersDad]

10. Ten or so years ago, a documentary explained "Global Dimming"...

...that particulates were somehow shading the atmosphere and keeping is cooler than if we only had GHG emissions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_trans.shtml

[orthoclad]

11. Like so-called carbon capture,

Last edited Tue Aug 6, 2024, 11:00 AM - Edit history (1)

which is actually being used to force oil out of rock, large-scale geoengineering projects like this will be used to facilitate fossil burning if conducted by First World capitalism.
"Hey, there's a reprieve, go fill up your bloatmobiles".

It's an old idea. There's a good treatment of this strategy in Robinson's The Ministry For The Future.

We may well need to use large-scale geoengineering, but the better solution is "leave it in the ground".

edit: damn, this old fool can't type

[hunter]

13. "Termination Shock" by Neal Stephenson is another exploration of this idea.

Plucky Heroes of Dystopia is not my favorite sort of fiction, but there it is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_Shock_%28novel%29

[calimary]

12. I feel like I should keep this. On solar-geoengineering.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

14. Quick, everybody run outside, aim an electric fan at the sky and throw dirt into the airstream!

Alternately, we could set off nuclear warheads at the tops of inconvenient mountains, thus reducing solar heating by way of the little bit of dust kicked up and creating some (future) parking lots and bowl-shaped lakes. How's that not a win-win?