White House is Pushing Ahead Research To Cool Earth By Reflecting Back Sunlight (cnbc.com) 104
The White House is coordinating a five-year research plan to study ways of modifying the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth to temper the effects of global warming, a process sometimes called solar geoengineering or sunlight reflection. From a report: The research plan will assess climate interventions, including spraying aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, and should include goals for research, what's necessary to analyze the atmosphere, and what impact these kinds of climate interventions may have on Earth, according to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy. Congress directed the research plan be produced in its spending plan for 2022, which President Joe Biden signed in March.
Some of the techniques, such as spraying sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, are known to have harmful effects on the environment and human health. But scientists and climate leaders who are concerned that humanity will overshoot its emissions targets say research is important to figure out how best to balance these risks against a possibly catastrophic rise in the Earth's temperature. Getting ready to research a topic is a very preliminary step, but it's notable the White House is formally engaging with what has largely been seen as the stuff of dystopian fantasy. In Kim Stanley Robinson's science fiction novel, "The Ministry for the Future," a heat wave in India kills 20 million people and out of desperation, India decides to implement its own strategy of limiting the sunlight that gets to Earth. Chris Sacca, the founder of climate tech investment fund Lowercarbon Capital, said it's prudent for the White House to be spearheading the research effort.
Some of the techniques, such as spraying sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, are known to have harmful effects on the environment and human health. But scientists and climate leaders who are concerned that humanity will overshoot its emissions targets say research is important to figure out how best to balance these risks against a possibly catastrophic rise in the Earth's temperature. Getting ready to research a topic is a very preliminary step, but it's notable the White House is formally engaging with what has largely been seen as the stuff of dystopian fantasy. In Kim Stanley Robinson's science fiction novel, "The Ministry for the Future," a heat wave in India kills 20 million people and out of desperation, India decides to implement its own strategy of limiting the sunlight that gets to Earth. Chris Sacca, the founder of climate tech investment fund Lowercarbon Capital, said it's prudent for the White House to be spearheading the research effort.
simpsons did it (Score:5, Funny)
Simpsons did it
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Kyatto Ninden Teyandee did it first. With those japanese fans made of wood and paper. In space. Too bad I can't find a single illustration or video clip.
Here, have the OP for the show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I actually quite like the show. But I don't like the idea of meddling with nature like shown in these shows.. blocking the sun.. reflecting it back... ugh.
These politicians, they will be the death of us.
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"Kyatto Ninden Teyandee did it first."
So hail to thee, oh Pizza Cats!
Please ring your little bell
Although you may be pen and ink
We know you'll fight like--PIZZA CATS!
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Haven't seen that one yet. I read somewhere when they dubbed it they didn't have the japanese script -- on purpose -- and came up with their own story. I will watch it one day.. I hear they tried to make it into something akin to animaniacs. o.O
Re: simpsons did it (Score:2)
addiction (Score:2)
If we start aerosol injection before the Earth reaches zero carbon emissions, there is a strong probability that we become addicted to the reflection of sunlight. Carbon keeps going up and we keep injecting more and more aerosol. You can't stop the aerosol because CO2 is so high that without aerosol reflection, we would immediately burn up. (Yes, this scenario is mentioned in Ministry for the Future). The only responsible route is to stop all CO2 emissions and then, if we still need aerosol, we can consi
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So far people by and large and firmly in the middle aren't doing much to pressure companies to do better
Nope. There's plenty of people in the middle demanding change. The politicians just won't hear their demands because of the bribes from the murderers.
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So, your fear of man screwing things up has already been realized.
Let's hope we don't make matters worse!
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Ha! Great job. That was my first thought, and I didn't find the SP clip, but I found the Simpsons one :)
E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Power Companies: "Oh, you wanted your solar panels to work? LOL. Sorry, there will be a small unblocking upcharge. Muahhaahhaha!"
Makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)
These measures get a good bit of pushback from the environmentalist crowd though. They are worried it might negate the need to stop burning fossil fuel or at least reduce the urgency to adopt their "electric (or no car), heat pump & wind/solar" mantra.
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
These measures will reduce the need to stop greenhouse gas emissions in exactly the same way that tracheotomies reduce the need to cut back on smoking.
But (Score:2)
Yes but the science from this should become public so that when some large nation unilaterally does something because they have tons of dying people pressing them to act while the less harmed nations wait it'll be less dangerous.
Last thing we need is a brash USA unilaterally doing something that harms much of the Earth. again. Better to have science out there so it's less of a disaster when somebody else does it -- because projections show the USA is relatively ok far longer than many other nations. They wo
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Last thing we need is a brash USA unilaterally doing something that harms much of the Earth. again. Better to have science out there so it's less of a disaster when somebody else does it
The days of a "brash USA" are long past. We have become ,so wimpy about applying tech to large-scale problems that such problems threaten to fester out of control.
Why not conduct some small-scale blasts of sulfur into the upper atmosphere or seeding of an area of ocean just to test the response of the natural environment, starting with an amount less than has been released by recent volcanic eruptions? If there is a positive effect, we can slowly work up to amounts that can significantly cut into the greenh
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Why not conduct some small-scale blasts of sulfur into the upper atmosphere or seeding of an area of ocean just to test the response of the natural environment
And from the story:
The White House is coordinating a five-year research plan to study ways of modifying the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth to temper the effects of global warming, a process sometimes called solar geoengineering or sunlight reflection.
The research plan will assess climate interventions, including spraying aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, and should include goals for research, what's necessary to analyze the atmosphere, and what impact these kinds of climate interventions may have on Earth, according to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy. Congress directed the research plan be produced in its spending plan for 2022, which President Joe Biden signed in March.
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Plants growing isn't much of an obstacle (Score:2)
Okay, this can get a bit complicated (it involves biology). My excuse is that I went to high school in Nebraska, the Corn state, and as a result they went into corn biology a little much. As a little nerd, I vacuumed it up.
Anyways, done intelligently, this wouldn't affect plant growth one bit. It might affect it some insignificant amount otherwise.
Reasons:
1. Not all of the Earth is covered with plant life. We could cover like 99% of roofs, excepting the oddball "live roof" with actual plants on it, wit
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
They are worried it might negate the need to stop burning fossil fuel or at least reduce the urgency to adopt their "electric (or no car), heat pump & wind/solar" mantra.
I see this as a potential positive. OTOH, the potential negative is they have no idea what they are doing and will fuck things up even more. And the latter is probably more likely.
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Stop the heat from arriving in the first place rather than dealing with it after.
It will also make it *much* safer for Trump to stare directly at the Sun w/o eye protection. :-)
The President Who Looked at the Sun [theatlantic.com]
"Despite warnings, Trump gazed directly at the eclipse."
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These measures get a good bit of pushback from the environmentalist crowd though. They are worried it might negate the need to stop burning fossil fuel or at least reduce the urgency to adopt their "electric (or no car), heat pump & wind/solar" mantra.
With good reason, this is basically treating a symptom of polluting the biosphere with fossil carbon, which could reduce any incentive to treat the disease. All the SRM in the world won't prevent an oceanic mass extinction from ocean acidification for example.
Added bonus of killing all those pesky plants. (Score:2)
You want sunshine, plant? Well fuck you!
BTW, anyone remember that story about the death of plankton? [youtube.com]
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You want sunshine, plant? Well fuck you!
What if there are numbers in between 0% and 100%?
What then?! I'll bet you didn't think of that, did you?
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You kill only between 0% and 100% of plants. Duh! Not as efficient as burning them, but then again you can't really burn those plankton bastards.
But hey, the goal is to reduce those pesky photo-syntho chemicals, that are slowly poisoning babies but the MSM won't tell you THAT, by a similar percentage and every percentage point counts.
On the other hand, what's a couple of percentages here and there?
Global warming will raise temperature, water scarcity, sea levels, food insecurity, move natural disease barrie
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The actual problem is not energy radiated in. It is not enough energy radiated _out_. Hence this idea is addressing the wrong problem and that usually comes with very bad risks.
Re: Makes sense (Score:1)
You still have to deal with ocean acidification and other effects. The biosphere is a huge interconnected system. Better to ramp down the one variable you already jacked up than introduce a bunch of unknowns by fiddling with other variables.
Besides, even if you magically knew how to do it safely, who is going to support this? It's going to be super-contentious. And do you think the $N billion it costs won't disappear into defense contractor's pockets?
I didn't really think of myself as being opposed to geoen
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"Activists that the media chooses to quote" and "Environmentalists" are sets with little overlap, though.
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Stop the heat from arriving in the first place rather than dealing with it after.
By restricting the sunlight that makes plants grow (so expect a reduced food supply) and take up carbon. Real genius.
Meanwhile, you'd be directly interfering with a delicate energy balance that defines wind and water streams. Real genius
I couldn't have imagined a more moronic plan to reduce the problems that we are actively causing because we just don't feel like solving them at the root.
And you mentioning 'dealing with it after' is just the result of our collective inaction. We could be dealing with it rig
Wally Broecker (Score:3)
Wally Broecker [wikipedia.org] proposed deploying a shade in space between the sun and earth, several decades ago - which seems like a better idea than messing with the atmosphere.
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I can find no evidence he suggested such a thing.
However it's definitely the case that he advocated putting stuff into the atmosphere to reflect back sunlight, including sulfur dioxide.
=Smidge=
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I was at a talk and heard him say it first-hand.
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How about we just slow down the orbit of the moon so more of the earth's surface is in an eclipse shadow more often? /s
--
If the Earth was Flat, Cats Would Have Pushed Everything Off of It By Now -- Unknown
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Randomly posting Futurama quotes on Slashdot since 2003
Dammit, this is your job. [youtube.com]
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Both ideas are magnificently stupid.
The astronomers will be pleased (Score:2)
So will the military and planetary defense set. After all, if you can't see the killer asteroids, they may as well not be there...
We know it was us who scorched the sky (Score:1, Insightful)
I think this is an excellent idea. I think playing with the lives of billions of people on earth at once is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing. As we know, the science is completely settled because every single one of the predicted climate catastrophes have come true over the past 50 years. Every one! Also, the models are in complete agreement with one another! And there's no chance at all that scientists are just trolling for dollars, because as we all know, they would never, ever do that.
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At some point you have to accept there are some subjects you just don't research, because YOU aren't going to be the guy controlling the tech, once it's out it's out and the lowliest most narcissistic and sociopathic power-hungry fuck is the guy who's going to be using it.
You must be talking about the police. Oh man, as soon as they find out the sky turns black at night we are fucked.
Re:We know it was us who scorched the sky (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is an excellent idea. I think playing with the lives of billions of people on earth at once is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing.
They're calling for research. That hardly equates to "playing with the lives of billions or people".
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They're calling for research. That hardly equates to "playing with the lives of billions or people".
When you see science as the enemy, it does.
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They're calling for research. That hardly equates to "playing with the lives of billions or people".
When you see science as the enemy, it does.
Sadly, you're right. When future historians look back on this period in time, they should refer to it as The Disenlightenment.
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Better to continue the centuries-long unplanned climate modification experiment that is fossil energy then? It's not like there's been any tangible damage right? We tried simply stopping it to treat the root cause but asshats like you didn't want to, so now we may have to try to treat the symptoms with another (at least planned and intentional) experiment on another variable...
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Let's talk about what predictions scientists have actually made over the last 50 years (not what denialist pundits claim they did) and how those predictions have held up in the real world.
In 1981, James Hansen (a very famous climate scientist, director of NASA GISS for many years) published a paper with predictions about climate change. Here's a 2012 article [phys.org] looking back at it from 30 years later. Check out the graph of predicted global temperatures and how they matched up to actual ones. The agreement i
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Thank you. With such wonderful predictive powers, we know exactly what will happen when we tweak the climate. Carry on, no research needed.
Skip the study, just burn more coal (Score:2)
From the article:
"There’s also a precedent in factories that burn fossil fuels, especially coal. Coal has some sulfur that oxidizes when burned, creating sulfur dioxide. That sulfur dioxide goes through other chemical reactions and eventually falls to the earth as sulfuric acid in rain. But during the time that the sulfur pollution sits in the air, it does serve as a kind of insulation from the heat of the sun.
Ironically, as the world reduces coal burning to curb the carbon dioxide emissions that caus
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AKA Global Dimming. there was a brief scandal long ago on this as it initially appeared to contradict global warming but like all scientific contradiction, it was just ignorance that was resolved by further study.
The dimming is not enough of to counter the net impact as the poster and article said "masking...half of the heating" right in there.
Jump first, look later? (Score:2)
Skip the study, just burn more coal
Well this is a stupid hot take. There are far more options than sulfur dioxide and ignoring them is beyond stupid. What if we could simply put a cloud in the L1 point made of inert molecules that wouldn't do any damage to the environment when solar wind finally pushes them back to Earth? Something like this would give us the time we need, be temporary, and would not damage the ecosystem when they are pushed into the atmosphere.
But hey, Mr. Just-Burn-More-Coal here is telling us to not bother studying such
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We already reduced sulfur dioxide emissions long ago through increased regulation, because acid rain was melting the nose off the Statue of LIberty or some such. There was big outcry in the late 80s about this.
La compagnie des glaces (Score:1)
That is exactly how it happened in the book serie. I don't want to die in a post-apocalyptical railroad society.
Highlander Four: The Climating (Score:2)
Re:Highlander 2 (Score:2)
and it felt like an differnt movie with the Highlander stuff tacked on.
It may of been an better movie with out any Highlander stuff in it.
Re: Highlander Four: The Climating (Score:2)
This season on Snowpiercer (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure we've already seen a documentary on what happens when you try to change to atmosphere to block out heat.
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There was also a movie in 2007 called Sunshine that set the Earth in an ice age by methods like these.
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Nope.
Sunshine was about the sun's output reducing, and then sending a really big "solar bomb" to fix it. Then there's a docking of ships because this is actually the second attempt and they find the first ship, with some disfigured somehow-still-alive insane crew member on board to try to fuck the new crew and billions of people on Earth a second time. Hijinks ensue.
And the Matrix (Score:1)
Even the Matrix to some degree was about this (it was us that burnt the sky to prevent the machines from using solar power).
So few people seem to realize what it would mean to go into another idea age, can't we lean into the global warming just a bit as salvation from a much worse doom?
Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
The major concern is, it will work so well, people will want to stop reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Wouldn't a volcano of sufficient magnitude do this (Score:4, Interesting)
Wouldn't a volcano eruption of suffficient magnitude do this?
Or an asteroid impact?
Oh wait, both have happened, and the results were ice ages, no?
As much as I am for harnessing the power of the stars (fusion, preferably, but I'll take fission for now).. I don't think we should dabble in this. Call it a hunch but nature has provided cautionary tales on this.
Re:Wouldn't a volcano of sufficient magnitude do t (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't a volcano eruption of suffficient magnitude do this?
First they will pump stuff into the atmosphere to mitigate global warming. Then we will have a large, unplanned eruption which will compound the effect. Sadness will ensue.
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Wouldn't a volcano eruption of suffficient magnitude do this?
That's exactly why they're proposing this. We have data from volcano eruptions to predict what will happen. There is prior data.
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The way things are going between US an Russia, we will have that sooner than this project will come to fruition. Also blowing up north stream pipeline did not help any with global warming, releasing huge amounts of methane. An before you say "putin did it", remember that not every one is an idiot on this planet.
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I don't think Russia blew up the pipeline, because of two things: (1) Putin is completely capable of cutting off the gas by using other lame-ass excuses. (2) After the pipeline was damaged, Putin started offering that Russia was still willing to sell gas, and saying there were other ways to provide the gas. i.e. He was trying to work around the problem. Russia needs the money, and does not profit at all f
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But yeah, he's not right in the head.
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Putin could have put forward the Turkey pipeline even without Nord Stream being damaged, though. But yeah, he's not right in the head.
Nord Stream 1 or 2 was never going to pump any significant amount of Russian gas ever again. Making that even more obvious can only help his desperate desire to send gas anywhere else that will have such low standards as to take it. He still actually believes he can market it in Europe too without Germany in the way. On the bright side he will die believing that.
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The problem is that this will, if it works at all, need a lot of control and fine-adjustment. And that fine-adjustment has to be kept up over centuries. That by a human race that cannot even use known and reliable renewable energy sources competently....
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go for it, we're ALL-IN on Simon (Score:2)
Self defeating (Score:4, Interesting)
If you block sunlight you also block the ability of plants to photosynthesise as effectively and reduce the amount of CO2 they can take up. This is a Hollywood movie solution, not a real world one.
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Thinking past the immediate, to the downstream consequences, is not something politicians are good at. Not democratically-elected politicians, not kings, not presidents-for-life. This is why we limit the power of government. Sure we don't get to play SimCity IRL with the taxpayer's dollars, but we also don't run the risk of invading our neighbors, locking down anyone with the sniffles in perpetuity, or engaging in transparently foolish weather control schemes.
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If you block sunlight you also block the ability of plants to photosynthesise as effectively and reduce the amount of CO2 they can take up. This is a Hollywood movie solution, not a real world one.
Another person who can't comprehend the existence of anything but 0 and 1, all or nothing.
They're starting studies. Studies that will answer these questions.
But instead of doing science, they should just ask you, right? You can just pop the answer off your cuff!
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So you think the laws of physics will change or maybe plants will find another energy source for photosynthesis after they've done their study?
Moron.
paint (Score:5, Funny)
Convert to energy instead (Score:3, Interesting)
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Complexity. Reflection needs thin layer of some carrier with some metal silvering on top. Solar panels are to that like a dirt-track is to a modern highway....
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Reflection needs thin layer of some carrier with some metal silvering on top. Solar panels are to that like a dirt-track is to a modern highway....
...Only in the US of A.
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Because boosting a couple million tons of PV solar panels into a lagrange point and keeping it there is a far more complex problem than a mylar film parasol that we perfected with SkyLab in the 70s.
Also, how do you expect to get all that electricity back to Earth? A really long extension cord with one hell of a swivel?
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Why not make massive solar panels and cpnver the sunlight to electricity?? Why reflect
It would mean supporting China by buying the solar panels that they make.
But... (Score:2)
Why are you opposed to research? (Score:2)
A lot of people here just admitted that they don't know the difference between "research" and "proceed without research".
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The fears expressed here come from the assumption that the US is basically preparing for the coming reality of not giving enough of a shit to solve the problems it continues to cause and is therefore looking for a Hollywood escape plan.
What about the space mirrors/bubbles? (Score:2)
I scanned TFA and found no mention of using space mirrors, or more recently "space bubbles," to reflect some percentage of sunlight away from Earth. This has been proposed a number of times over the years, and it just seems like the safest possible approach to geo-engineering. I mean, if you inject massive amounts of chemicals into the oceans or into the atmosphere, and then something goes wrong, something doesn't work out the way the simulations indicated, it could be very hard to reverse. With space bu
The Moon! (Score:1)
They've been doing this for at least a decade (Score:1)
The ambulance chasers will love this! (Score:1)
Idiots (Score:2)
It's amazing what you can convince morons of.
Keep Surprising Me (Score:2)
This bunch in DC keeps surprising me by doing the right thing. Can't remember what it was, but a week or 2 ago the administration actually did something right. I was shocked.
Am shocked again. This should be pursued because there is still the possibility, maybe even probability, that the global warming bruhaha is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind, and is just using a natural phenomenon to attempt to throttle western economies and prosperity by getting them to spend insane amounts of money to
My opinion (Score:1)
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thank you for that relevant comment