Scientists Advise EU To Halt Solar Geoengineering 149
An anonymous reader shares a report: Scientific advisers to the European Commission are calling for a moratorium across the EU on efforts to artificially cool Earth through solar geoengineering. That includes controversial technologies used to reflect sunlight back into space, primarily by sending reflective particles into the atmosphere or by brightening clouds.
Proponents argue that this can help in the fight against climate change, especially as planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb. But small-scale experiments have triggered backlash over concerns that these technologies could do more harm than good. The European Commission asked its Group of Chief Scientific Advisors (GCSA) and European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) to write up their opinions on solar geoengineering, which were published today alongside a report synthesizing what little we know about how these technologies might work.
There's "insufficient scientific evidence" to show that solar geoengineering can actually prevent climate change, says the opinion written by the GCSA. "Given the currently very high levels of scientific and technical uncertainty ... as well as the potential harmful uses, we advocate for a moratorium on all large-scale [solar geoengineering] experimentation and deployment," writes the EGE in the second highly anticipated opinion.
Proponents argue that this can help in the fight against climate change, especially as planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb. But small-scale experiments have triggered backlash over concerns that these technologies could do more harm than good. The European Commission asked its Group of Chief Scientific Advisors (GCSA) and European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) to write up their opinions on solar geoengineering, which were published today alongside a report synthesizing what little we know about how these technologies might work.
There's "insufficient scientific evidence" to show that solar geoengineering can actually prevent climate change, says the opinion written by the GCSA. "Given the currently very high levels of scientific and technical uncertainty ... as well as the potential harmful uses, we advocate for a moratorium on all large-scale [solar geoengineering] experimentation and deployment," writes the EGE in the second highly anticipated opinion.
Clarifying anecdote (Score:5, Interesting)
One solar geoengineering startup notoriously lit up fungicide and pumped the resulting sulfur dioxide into weather balloons it released in Mexico in 2022...the company tried to sell “cooling credits” at $10 per gram of sulfur dioxide to anyone interested in trying to offset their carbon emissions.
So it seems it's just companies trying to get in on the environmental credits gravy train. That's not research.
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Not a good idea [Re:Clarifying anecdote] (Score:5, Insightful)
There has been plenty of research about this topic for quite a while
There has been way too little research in this topic, and most of the calculations have been little better than back of the envelope. Worse, they are based on guesses about critical parameters such as particle size, scattering albedo, and clumping.
A serious problem is that blocking incident sunlight is not the same as reducing greenhouse effect; not even the same as decreasing the solar intensity. Atmospheric aerosols cool the daytime but heat the nighttime (by reflecting infrared), even if the net effect is the cooling outweighs the warming, this changes the diurnal distribution. The solar blocking is also optical depth and hence angle dependent, has a high latitude dependency, and the altitude distribution of warming is very different, resulting in completely unknown effects on weather patterns.
If people think that the error bars in the greenhouse warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gasses are bad, that's nothing compared to the error bars in any of the proposed geoengineering methods.
With that said, I don't disagree with the original post
I support research into geoengineering. More scientific knowledge is good.
True. As long as the research does not lead to people actually planning to do it.
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Part of the problem is you can't really research this. Earth is a complex system. We can't really replicate it. Even if you create a small scale experiment with a heat/light source and a ball of gasses- how do you know what will happen when you scale up and add in all the geographical and ecological quirks of the planet? We'd be more likely to fuck things up than to help things.
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That's kind of the reason people don't actually want to try doing it. Researching it is one thing, but actually doing it quite anot
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Truth is that a somewhat 'accidental' experiment in global cooling using sulfur has been going on for decades, and it is going to end soon
Turns out that low-grade sulfur-rich bunker fuel that has been used to power vast fleets of cargo ships, has a measurable cooling effect on the planet and the unexpected side-effect of eliminating high-pollution ships has in turn, lead to more warming [noaa.gov]
FTA
In 2020, new international shipping regulations drastically cut sulfur emissions from ships, leading to a sharp reducti
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Duh, of course, we shouldn't fix anything. We need the scaremongering rhetoric to keep going on in order to be able to control people, kill the economy and ultimately starve them out.
--
Dr. Klaus Martin Schwab
WEF Founder
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. That's not research.
Well, not really, but sulfur dioxide actually works (and *did* work back in the 1950s)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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It did work indeed - as acid rain.
Re: Clarifying anecdote (Score:2)
The question isn't only whether it "works".
The question is also "what else happens of we do that". (And note thatbI didn't say "what else does it do", because consequences, intended or not, are not limited to the properties of a specific material.)
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Ah, yes, can't have a cheap engineering solution (Score:4, Insightful)
when there is a multi-trillion dollar opportunity to build a massive bureaucracy.
Re: Ah, yes, can't have a cheap engineering soluti (Score:2, Informative)
Earth supports dramatically more people than even 50 years ago, and pollution is trending way down in North America and Europe. Things are going in a good direction, and sun cycles will continue without concern about numbers of cows walking around.
Re: Ah, yes, can't have a cheap engineering solut (Score:3, Interesting)
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First, kudos for linking to an actual peer-reviewed paper. That puts you ahead of 90% of slashdot commentators.
They are indeed interesting to study, but not really relevant to the current discussion.
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Earth supports dramatically more people than even 50 years ago, and pollution is trending way down in North America and Europe. Things are going in a good direction, and sun cycles will continue without concern about numbers of cows walking around.
Respectively: true, true assuming you don't count carbon dioxide as "pollution", arguably true depending on what you mean by "good", and also true.
However, on the last item, do keep in mind that while the sun's 11-year cycle does not depend on the number of cows, that fact is irrelevant to the discussion, since the sun's 11-year cycle has virtually no effect on climate.
He might have been talking about Milankovitch cycles rather than the sunspot cycle. But yes, there is research to be done yet.
The issue with researching geocooling is that it is pretty difficult to perform the research without operating on a pretty big scale.
We do know what warms, water vapor and some carbon-oxygen and carbon hydrogen gases, and we do know what cools, Sulfur aerosols. Energy retention versus reflection.
We had inadvertent research with aerosols and acid rain. We know what happens durin
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... is irrelevant to the discussion, since the sun's 11-year cycle has virtually no effect on climate.
He might have been talking about Milankovitch cycles rather than the sunspot cycle.
Just as irrelevant to the discussion of global warming, of course.
In general, they just throw in the "but wattabout the sun!" argument as a distraction to divert the discussion, and then randomly grab any aspect of solar variability that pops into their google search. They don't know or care about the subject; it's just a talking point.
They're not actually interested in real discussion; they are attempting to divert the discussion to maintain the pretense that the science is questionable. Ultimately, it all
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... is irrelevant to the discussion, since the sun's 11-year cycle has virtually no effect on climate.
He might have been talking about Milankovitch cycles rather than the sunspot cycle.
Just as irrelevant to the discussion of global warming, of course.
Of course.
In general, they just throw in the "but wattabout the sun!" argument as a distraction to divert the discussion, and then randomly grab any aspect of solar variability that pops into their google search. They don't know or care about the subject; it's just a talking point.
They're not actually interested in real discussion; they are attempting to divert the discussion to maintain the pretense that the science is questionable. Ultimately, it all originates from the oil-company tactical plan, attempting to delay anything that might scale down oil use and reduce profits of their trillion-dollar business.
I don't disagree at all. We saw similar things when trying to compare satellite extrapolation of upper atmosphere temperatures that didn't jibe with high altitude balloon measurements a few years back. It was not even a real anomaly, and was fixed.
I was out to lunch with some people earlier this week, during a "cold" snap - and one guy was going on about "so much for global warming". Now a few days later, it is in the 50's. And since when is mid 20's in December in Northeast US all that cold?
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Putting sulfur into the stratosphere will not necessarily have the same effect as pumping it out at ground level.
Large scale is the key (Score:3)
we advocate for a moratorium on all large-scale [solar geoengineering] experimentation and deployment
We shouldn't be doing large scale tests of it (yet), because we don't have enough information. We absolutely should be doing small scale tests, because that's how we'll get enough information to move on to large scale tests.
I am reminded of a quote... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Morpheus is clearly an idiot, of course.
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Of course I've seen The Matrix. Good movie, but whoever told Morpheus that story was bullshitting him, because it makes no sense whatsoever, and he was an idiot for believing it.
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Lol, wait wait. Lemme get this straight, are you suggesting that it was pollution all along, and the story about the war between man and machine was clearly a case of whitewashing history?
If we're gettin' this deep...
The machines being dependent on solar energy only makes zero sense unless the humans that created the machines were smarter than we are about spinning up for profit businesses around the machines that demand all the 24/7 power they can possibly imagine and then some to keep the money making potential rolling. The machines likely spun up their own nuclear plants immediately after gaining even a modicum of self-awareness so that they wouldn't have to rely on anything as weather-de
Tampering with the atmosphere is very dangerous (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps the safest of all of them is the orbital idea, for two reasons. First, because it will take years, if not decades, to build and deploy such structures. By then, we should have a better idea of climate trends and perhaps we will discover that there are better, safer ways to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Second, a solar blocking structure can be de-orbited at any arbitrary time. For that matter, if one nation, let us say, the U.S., deploys it and another nation such as China disagrees with the approach, they can just shoot it down. Of course that might precipitate a nuclear war, but maybe not.
The idea of spraying huge reflective clouds into the atmosphere at some elevation to reflect solar radiation and thus cool the surface seems like a pipe dream. It has never been proven in practice, and it might even cause more greenhouse effect. Furthermore, how do you get rid of it, if you were to change your mind? A very stupid idea.
I propose everyone take a deep breath, calm down, and just deal with the climate as it exists. In about 5 years, we'll all be driving –or riding in –electrified vehicles, and many big rigs on the highways will also be electric. Even ocean craft and aircraft are moving toward battery power, solar power and giant storage batteries are being widely adopted, and in about 10 years, man-caused climate affecting particulates will be lower than any time since the Industrial Revolution began.
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I wouldn't count on things improving so much in the next 5 years. Some countries will keep moving ahead at pace, some will probably drag their heels a bit, and what Trump will do is anyone's guess.
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It's definitely worse for climate change than a battery electric vehicle. However, it's probably better to keep driving it as long as you can rather than requiring the manufacture of another vehicle, since yours has already been built.
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Yeah someone who barely drives should definitely not be looking to get a new vehicle (IMO). Especially if you would sell yours, because it would probably go to someone who would drive it more, leading to a net increase in carbon output even ignoring the cost of manufacturing the new car.
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it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
If the sentence could be syntactically correct replacing the word with his, use its. Otherwise, use it's?
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> and in about 10 years, man-caused climate affecting particulates will be lower than any time since the Industrial Revolution began.
Forgive my pesimism, but I don't see a scenario where we currently go from emitting the most greenhouses gases per year since the Industrial Revolution (e.g. right now) to early 1800s levels.
In addition, a big issue with greenhouses gases is they stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. So if we stopped all emissions tomorrow we wouldn't get back to having climate affe
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> and in about 10 years, man-caused climate affecting particulates will be lower than any time since the Industrial Revolution began.
Forgive my pesimism, but I don't see a scenario where we currently go from emitting the most greenhouses gases per year since the Industrial Revolution (e.g. right now) to early 1800s levels.
In addition, a big issue with greenhouses gases is they stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. So if we stopped all emissions tomorrow we wouldn't get back to having climate affecting particules anywhere near the levels you're suggesting.
Yup. with a caveat. Water vapor is the most powerful Greenhouse "gas". It has around an 8 day cycle. But CO2 takes a lot of time, and methane - yeah, a lot more powerful a greenhouse gas. The good news is that Methane CH4 doesn't spend as long in the atmosphere, the bad news is that it degrades into CO2.
As I have said before, the damage is largely done. We need to go to renewables and stop de-sequestering Carbon, but this is a long term issue with no real fixes that might create bigger problems.
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No need for "fantasy-level attitude adjustments" - First, we don't want this in a low orbit, but probably at a lagrange point. Second, handling the solar wind is simple as well, we've been doing it for thousands of years - you just "sail" the satellite. The goal is simple to avoid having the light hit the planet, and temporary interruptions wouldn't be that big of a deal.
The point is that we've already passed the point where just reducing use will work, so active measures are necessary. Probably at least
Re: Tampering with the atmosphere is very dangerou (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that we've already passed the point where just reducing use will work, so active measures are necessary. Probably at least.
No, we haven't.
That's why I hate the people continuously saying "we need to fix the problem by XX date or we're doomed!" No.
The longer it takes us to address it the worse the problem will be that we will be facing. But that's not the same as "it's too late." It's not.
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Well, I'm sorry that I wasn't precise enough for you.
We've probably already passed the point where passive remediation efforts like stopping the burning of fossil fuels would limit the temperature rise to "inexpensive" levels.
In order to prevent the expenses of even more temperature rise, active measures will probably be cheaper than the alternative of simply dealing with the rise in temperatures.
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Well, I'm sorry that I wasn't precise enough for you. We've probably already passed the point where passive remediation efforts like stopping the burning of fossil fuels would limit the temperature rise to "inexpensive" levels. In order to prevent the expenses of even more temperature rise, active measures will probably be cheaper than the alternative of simply dealing with the rise in temperatures.
That is an intuitive approach to economics, "let's compare alternatives based on numbers we don't know." Since there's no data backing it, it can neither be proven nor disproven; it's just an opinion.
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Well, I'm sorry that I wasn't precise enough for you.
We've probably already passed the point where passive remediation efforts like stopping the burning of fossil fuels would limit the temperature rise to "inexpensive" levels. In order to prevent the expenses of even more temperature rise, active measures will probably be cheaper than the alternative of simply dealing with the rise in temperatures.
Just between you and me, Dr Landis is no dummy.
The concept is not difficult. We de-sequestered millions of years worth of carbon created during one or Earth's most prolific period and burned it, the bulk of it since the mid 18th century. It has had an unintended consequence, although there was evidence since Joseph Fourier (yes, the FFT Fourier) declared the possibility of a warming effect, further indicated by Claude Pouillet and Eunice Newton Foote and John Tyndall. From there, I refer you to history
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Logically, the sail would be controlled. We'd be able to tune the level of blocking, even to the point of turning it off, by simple rotation.
No, it's not too late [Re: Tampering with the...] (Score:4, Interesting)
I would like to stamp out the attitude "it's too late to do anything" or anything like it that supports or sets up this attitude. I know the people who keep repeating this narrative think it somehow helps, and may have the intent of pushing people to work harder to change, but it is too close to saying "no need to abate carbon emissions, it won't do any good" attitude.
As for impacts, the best advice I can give is to suggest you start with the IPCC reports; the special report on climate change and land: https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/ [www.ipcc.ch] and the working-group 2 report on impacts, adaptations, and vulnerability: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/six... [www.ipcc.ch]
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I would like to stamp out the attitude "it's too late to do anything" or anything like it that supports or sets up this attitude. I know the people who keep repeating this narrative think it somehow helps, and may have the intent of pushing people to work harder to change, but it is too close to saying "no need to abate carbon emissions, it won't do any good" attitude.
I get accused at times of not being proactive on these solutions. Of being a Gloomy Gus, of trying to curbstomp all ideas.
In fact, I have a deep seated desire to have solutions that work, so I use analysis to uncover what might stand in the way of success. I even did a fair amount of what I guess would be called Ad-hoc consulting at work. I'd be called in to look at ideas in fields that weren't my fields.
My superiors told others to pay attention to what I say. That I'm not always correct, but if I say
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I get accused at times of not being proactive on these solutions. Of being a Gloomy Gus, of trying to curbstomp all ideas. In fact, I have a deep seated desire to have solutions that work,
Good. So stop agreeing with the people saying it's too late to do anything.
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I get accused at times of not being proactive on these solutions. Of being a Gloomy Gus, of trying to curbstomp all ideas. In fact, I have a deep seated desire to have solutions that work,
Good. So stop agreeing with the people saying it's too late to do anything.
Great idea! (practicing being a yes man) Be gentle though, I have a lifetime of helping people achieve their goals be being the opposite of a yes man. So some times I'll probably fail and tell someone I think there are problems with the idea.
Can you give me an example where I have said "Do nothing"? I've noted several times that we must stop de-sequestering Carbon that was sequestered over millions of year, and to switch to renewables as fast as possible. That is doing something. It isn't aerosol injec
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Good. So stop agreeing with the people saying it's too late to do anything.
Great idea! (practicing being a yes man) Be gentle though, I have a lifetime of helping people achieve their goals be being the opposite of a yes man. So some times I'll probably fail and tell someone I think there are problems with the idea. Can you give me an example where I have said "Do nothing"?
I didn't say that. I said "stop agreeing with the people saying it's too late to do anything." The example of that is this thread.
Okay, it is no secret you have issues with my statements.
No, I had issues with earlier commenters in this thread.
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Good. So stop agreeing with the people saying it's too late to do anything.
Great idea! (practicing being a yes man) Be gentle though, I have a lifetime of helping people achieve their goals be being the opposite of a yes man. So some times I'll probably fail and tell someone I think there are problems with the idea. Can you give me an example where I have said "Do nothing"?
I didn't say that. I said "stop agreeing with the people saying it's too late to do anything." The example of that is this thread.
Okay, it is no secret you have issues with my statements.
No, I had issues with earlier commenters in this thread.
So you were not telling me to stop agreeing with people who said do nothing? It came out as an attribution via the quotes. I', getting pretty confused here:
I wrote:I get accused at times of not being proactive on these solutions. Of being a Gloomy Gus, of trying to curbstomp all ideas. In fact, I have a deep seated desire to have solutions that work,
You wrote: "Good. So stop agreeing with the people saying it's too late to do anything.
It would appear to my peabrain you were replying to me, telling
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I do not, and looks like this conversation is going off the rails.
Yep.
Anyhow - as I asked - what is your solution to the issue?
Energy infrastructure that does not burn fossil fuels.
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I do not, and looks like this conversation is going off the rails.
Yep.
Anyhow - as I asked - what is your solution to the issue?
Energy infrastructure that does not burn fossil fuels.
And here we both are! 8^)
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That's what I think OP is talking about - abatement of carbon emissions to net-zero is now not enough to reverse the change that climate change has imposed on us, so we'll need 'active' measures to reverse those changes.
Okay - tell me exactly what those measures are? Two of the ones bandies about are placing the largest structure ever built in space and maintaining it for at least centuries, and acidifying the atmosphere.
Would you want your children living in a world where the entire globe's atmosphere ends up raining sulfuric acid? I can see it now - "We all have asthma and pneumonia, but at least we are cold!" 8^/ As I've told people before, look up the great London smog of 1952. That is what some people are suggest
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No need for "fantasy-level attitude adjustments"
The concept of launching the largest structure ever built by humans at a Lagrange point is realistic is not a fantasy in itself? A Lagrange point, where it will stay forever? A place where the solar wind has no effect, once there, the sail cannot move? Explain. As an example, the JWST is at an L2 point yet has station keeping thrusters in addition to the 8 locating thrusters.
And this L2 point - there is no servicing of the JWST - it is simply too far away. So unless we get human rated flight to the Lagr
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1. Largest structure by surface area, not mass.
2. Starship gives us a lot more launch options.
3. Looking, space solutions are on the order of $100B over 20 years or so.
The L1 isn't stable, stuff won't stay there forever.
As for discarding it when it runs out of fuel, that'd be like discarding the ISS when it runs out of supplies because you supposedly can't do a supply run. For something the size we're considering, active maintenance is possible.
Plus, thruster mass should be low, as the very solar pressu
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1. Largest structure by surface area, not mass. 2. Starship gives us a lot more launch options. 3. Looking, space solutions are on the order of $100B over 20 years or so.
The L1 isn't stable, stuff won't stay there forever.
As for discarding it when it runs out of fuel, that'd be like discarding the ISS when it runs out of supplies because you supposedly can't do a supply run. For something the size we're considering, active maintenance is possible.
Plus, thruster mass should be low, as the very solar pressure, smartly managed, can keep it in place.
Cost?
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That was listed in #3.
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That was listed in #3.
I missed that - sorry. I think the estimate is pretty optimistic, but yeah, gonna cost beaucoup bucks in any event.
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That's certainly a way to look at it.
Personally, I think that when it comes to world peace, "warmongers" actually help keep it, at least if they're convinced that America will jump in on the other side if anybody attacks another. Raises the expense of invasion a lot.
Putin invaded Ukraine because he was figuring on a lightning run like the USA invading Iraq back in the day. Then got caught in sunk cost fallacies.
Even polymarket figures the chances are less than half by what you quote, and the link doesn't
It's not your attitude [Re: Tampering with the...] (Score:3)
Radiation pressure will always push your structure where you don't want it. So on top of an impossible space-based structure, you also need fantasy-level attitude adjustments.
Attitude adjustments in space is a well known technology.
There are 99 problems with the idea, but attitude isn't one of them.
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Radiation pressure will always push your structure where you don't want it. So on top of an impossible space-based structure, you also need fantasy-level attitude adjustments.
Attitude adjustments in space is a well known technology.
There are 99 problems with the idea, but attitude isn't one of them.
Ain't that the truth - what isn't known is all the effects on the largest structure ever built by humans adjustment needs. It will be a solar sail in effect, if not purpose. The further away it gets, the bigger it has to be. Someone in here suggested placing it at a Lagrange point. That would be an L1 point, and around 93 million miles from earth. I haven't done the math, but the diameter of the sail H^H^H^ sunlight reflector would have to be utterly breathtaking in diameter, even at the smallest calculate
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I haven't done the math, but the diameter of the sail H^H^H^ sunlight reflector would have to be utterly breathtaking in diameter, even at the smallest calculated amount of reflection.
No, if all you care about is shadowing, it doesn't matter if it's one big sail or a million small ones. A million small ones would be easier.
(what, you think that the idea of a million small ones would be too absurd to contemplate? There are 7.5 billion smartphones in the world, and the computational power to keep a sail in position is small compared to the power of the chip in your cell phone. If you think it's expensive, well, guess what? All of these concepts are expensive.)
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I haven't done the math, but the diameter of the sail H^H^H^ sunlight reflector would have to be utterly breathtaking in diameter, even at the smallest calculated amount of reflection.
No, if all you care about is shadowing, it doesn't matter if it's one big sail or a million small ones. A million small ones would be easier.
(what, you think that the idea of a million small ones would be too absurd to contemplate? There are 7.5 billion smartphones in the world, and the computational power to keep a sail in position is small compared to the power of the chip in your cell phone. If you think it's expensive, well, guess what? All of these concepts are expensive.)
I can contemplate millions of smaller ones. It would still be the largest construction project ever. And now we have millions of small shadowing devices to keep in place.
Computationally, that's not an issue. What happens when the engines keeping the sails in place is exhausted? Or is this something like StarLink, where we look at devices that constantly need replaced, or must be constantly be serviced? Gonna be a lonely life for the people who have to travel a couple million miles and refuel them in t
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I can contemplate millions of smaller ones.
Yep! You didn't think this would be easy, did you?
What happens when the engines keeping the sails in place is exhausted?
No propellant to exhaust. These things would be solar sails. You would need only to adjust the angle of the trim tabs.
As I said, there are 99 problems with the idea, but [adjusting the] attitude isn't one of them.
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I can contemplate millions of smaller ones.
Yep! You didn't think this would be easy, did you?
What happens when the engines keeping the sails in place is exhausted?
No propellant to exhaust. These things would be solar sails. You would need only to adjust the angle of the trim tabs.
As I said, there are 99 problems with the idea, but [adjusting the] attitude isn't one of them.
Let me get this straight. The solar sails will go where we want, and then maintain position?
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No propellant to exhaust. These things would be solar sails. You would need only to adjust the angle of the trim tabs.
As I said, there are 99 problems with the idea, but [adjusting the] attitude isn't one of them.
Let me get this straight. The solar sails will go where we want, and then maintain position?
I'm tempted to put in the details and do a top-level design, but since I didn't think it was a good idea in the first place, I think I'll pass.
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No propellant to exhaust. These things would be solar sails. You would need only to adjust the angle of the trim tabs. As I said, there are 99 problems with the idea, but [adjusting the] attitude isn't one of them.
Let me get this straight. The solar sails will go where we want, and then maintain position?
I'm tempted to put in the details and do a top-level design, but since I didn't think it was a good idea in the first place, I think I'll pass.
No problem. I see you were directly involved in solar sails in the late 1990s. Attitude isn't what I'm thinking about. velocity however, is. Only way I know of to stop a solar sail is to apply some energy to the other side, like lasers, or of course, if you were heading toward a sun, like in interstellar travel, braking sails could work. My concept of deploying large sails or multiple smaller ones would be more akin to the deployment of JSWT. Even a little easier since we're not dealing with such sensitiv
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No propellant to exhaust. These things would be solar sails. You would need only to adjust the angle of the trim tabs.
As I said, there are 99 problems with the idea, but [adjusting the] attitude isn't one of them.
Let me get this straight. The solar sails will go where we want, and then maintain position?
I'm tempted to put in the details and do a top-level design, but since I didn't think it was a good idea in the first place, I think I'll pass.
No problem. I see you were directly involved in solar sails in the late 1990s. Attitude isn't what I'm thinking about. velocity however, is. Only way I know of to stop a solar sail is to apply some energy to the other side, like lasers, or of course, if you were heading toward a sun, like in interstellar travel, braking sails could work. My concept of deploying large sails or multiple smaller ones would be more akin to the deployment of JSWT. Even a little easier since we're not dealing with such sensitive devices. They'd only be solar sails in that they would try to counteract the solar pressure to stay in place. Is IKAROS still around? That's kind of wild with its LCD based steering.
Many different possibilities, but by tilting the sail you can add or subtract from the angular momentum of its orbit around the sun (or around the Earth), which takes you either inbound or outbound. The only velocity change you can't really do with a sail is to stop if you're faster than escape speed away from the sun.
Looks like last contact with the Ikaros spacecraft was 2015.
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Radiation pressure will always push your structure where you don't want it. So on top of an impossible space-based structure, you also need fantasy-level attitude adjustments. We can just wind down our profligate high-energy worldwide civilization (including our endless proxy wars and land grabs and non-genocides) and live within renewable limits.
Oh - yes. Excellent point. I was involved in a solar sail project years ago. So the concept of emplacing an absolutely humongous shield in orbit means it is going to get moved around - a lot. I have said for years now that we need to stop de-sequestering carbon, switch over to renewables, and do what we can to limit the upcoming problems.
And the crazier ideas we hear just tell me that my ideas, as well as yours are the least likely to kill us.
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Well, I'd certainly stop using fossil fuels ASAP, it is just that I think we're at 'too little, too late' so more expensive measures like CO2 collection and sequestration, and even maybe a solar shield, would be 'more economical'.
So, their logic is (Score:2)
2. Therefore
3. We should stop all solar engineering projects that might provide said hard evidence one way or the other.
It absolutely pains me to say this, but apparently, sometimes, the scientists are just as dumb as the climate deniers themselves. Ever wonder why the anti-science crowd gets so much traction with a lot of people? This is a good example.
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The problem is that there are multiple approaches, and some of the MAY make things worse in other ways, even if they do cool things a bit.
I don't think there's a single geoengineering proposal that doesn't have accepted downsides, and those who aren't the ones backing that particular proposal generally have other possible or probable downsides.
The one that has the fewest downsides is to stop releasing more CO2 RIGHT NOW!!, which is the one nobody's seriously pushing. I mean absorbing it in crushed olivine
Re:So, their logic is (Score:4)
We need to be studying geoengineering. We’re gonna need it.
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If it doesn't go down, then the geoengineering proposals are just lipstick on a pig.
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... Who is gonna volunteer to reduce their country’s standard of living? ...
Europe already did, it's been going for 2 years already. A significant number of people there can't heat their home during winter.
Oh come on (Score:2)
They're wrong (Score:2)
We KNOW we can do geoengineering, because we already have. Some of it in ways that had very short term measurable effects.
The primary symptom of climate change is more heat in the system. The primary cause of this is all the CO2 we are pumping into the air in ever-increasing volumes. These are the basic, irrefutable facts.
Personally I'm not much for increasing the planetary albedo because it would be such a monumental effort to make enough difference to be worth it, and such an effort would be better spe
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Why not both reduce CO2 and use geoengineering? We're not going to get to net zero any time soon and even then we have to begin the process of going back to normal levels of CO2. Might be nice to know how to mitigate at least some of the problems we're creating in the meantime.
Focus on emission reduction as #1. (Score:2)
All board SnowPiercer! (Score:2)
We got all the tracks already laid out through Europe!
Build a shield around the earth just like the moon (Score:2)
just like those aliens did with the moon!
EU vs US (Score:2)
EU preemptively regulates the US waits till lawsuits decide major issues.
It's like the EU is a nanny-state, and the US a negligent parent that sometimes shows up to clean up the mess after the kids get in trouble.
Re: EU vs US (Score:2)
For tens of years, Europe has pushed for tougher climate action. Time on time again, US blocked any and all global treaties. So EU eventually went at it, alone.
It could have been so much easier if we all had seen reality for what it was long ago. But some didn't.
Fact remains that climate denial is overwhelmingly a US disease. Fact remains that pro capita, the US emits nearly an order of magnitude more greenhouse gasses than any other developed country. I blame it on their mah freedums and corporate lobbies
There already have been several large experiments (Score:2)
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Snowpiercer anyone? (Score:2)
Finally Some Sanity (Score:2)
Study the atmosphere, try to understand the climate system, but never imagine that we are close to being able to engineer "solutions" to our climate situation. People peddling such remedies aren't motivated by climate concerns, they're motivated by $$$.
Shooting our feet? (Score:2)
GCSA? (Score:2)
What does the Golf Course Superintendents Association have to do with this?
GeoNagging not working, need Plan B (Score:2)
I doubt GeoNagging will work well enough to stop the problems any more than it solves gov't debt. Politicians focus on the next 5 years, not the next 50 because voters & citizens have short memories.
I hate to say it, but we need to figure out geoengineering. It might require multiple approaches to hopefully dampen out the downsides and excess local side-effects.
But it should probably be democratic, as each nation should get to vote on measures based on their population size, perhaps with a slight bonus
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Pouring huge amounts of tax money into Climate is a direct attack on the working class, an enemy of the working class.
If that were true we would have solved the climate problem a long time ago. The reality is that emissions are largely a product of wealth creation and most of that wealth ends up with the wealthy by definition. If we don't make the wealthy reduce their emissions we aren't going to fix the problem.
Climate emissions are a zero sum game. If Bill Gates flies around in a private jet someone else has to make up for it by reducing their emissions. Not surprisingly there is a major effort by the wealthy and powerf
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If Bill Gates flies around in a private jet someone else has to make up for it by reducing their emissions.
Whyever would you think that?
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If Bill Gates flies around in a private jet someone else has to make up for it by reducing their emissions.
Whyever would you think that?
Because its obvious.
We can allow only x climate emissions. Its a zero sum game.
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Re: Climate is uncertainty (Score:2)
Says who?
We spill out more than we ever should. If Bill Gates flies aeouns in their jet, we emit more than we would if Gates didn't fly around, amd everyone else just continued doing whag they're doing.
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If Bill Gates flies around in a private jet someone else has to make up for it by reducing their emissions.
Whyever would you think that?
Because its obvious.
We can allow only x climate emissions. Its a zero sum game.
What is obvious is that you want to return to 1700. Trying to make people who believe in climate change return to the caves, lest they be called hypocrites is silly - You go live in a cave, eat raw meat, walk everywhere first. Never ever use any carbon emitting actions - including fire to cook and heat. eschew all forms of technology that have Carbonmm as a by product.
If you don't, by your metric, you are every bit as much a hypocrite as those you accuse.
Unless we decide to all kill ourselves, human
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we are now in a great experiment of breaking free of carbon.
I don't think cutting new emissions to zero is realistic short of human extinction. What we need it an equilibrium. And the amount of new emissions future humanity can allow and still maintain a survivable equilibrium will depend on the new emissions that have happened in the meantime. All
Re:Climate is uncertainty (Score:4, Interesting)
If by "the wealthy" you mean hecto-millionaires and billionaires, yes, they produce much more emissions per capita,
Almost all emissions are created as part of wealth production. So wealth is a pretty good indicator of people's emissions responsibility.
, making only the wealthy reduce their emissions isn't good enough.
If you look at wealth distribution I don't think that is really true. What is true, is we can't possibly get to our emission goals without dealing with the wealthy. It has nothing to do with "per capita' it has to do with who is actually benefiting from emissions. The problem is not that Bill Gate's lawn care guy with a 10 gallon per hundred mile truck drives 30 miles, its Bill Gates rural mansion with a huge lawn.
Emissions most certainly are not a zero sum game!
The emissions goal is fixed. We can only allow so many emissions now and into the future. Every emission by anyone has to be offset by someone eliminating an emission in order for us to stop the warming. That applies to all of us but it is not at all clear how many of us are using more than is sustainable..
The objective is to reduce emissions
No the objective is to stop enough emissions so we stop warming the planet, the process is to reduce them. And that is not just semantics. The notion that we are asking people to sacrifice "their emissions" is the problem. The problem is a bunch of people who are creating way more than their share of a fixed amount we can afford. Once you do that, you realize Bill Gates (as a symbol) is stealing from all of us with his prolific creation of emissions and we need to stop him. And there is nothing wrong with demanding he do it NOW.
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That's a bettter version of the argument, but still no. Being rich is a marker of benefitting from energy use, but it is not in itself energy use.
You have very subtly shifted the goalposts-- you're no longer talking about "flying around in a private jet", you are now talking about the private jet as an indicator that these people got wealthy from the effects of emissions of corporations they own, including the ones that sell petroleum to people who drive cars and the ones that burn coal to produce electric
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First, no, the emissions goal is not fixed. The lower the better.
We need to get emissions down to a sustainable level. We can certainly reduce emissions further and there may be benefits to that. But we first need to get to a level that stops the process of global warming. That level is fixed by the science of climate and global warming.The claim "the lower the better" is just climate denial by a different name, it implies there is no actual limit.
Second, that's not how zero sum games are defined
iWe can only allow a set amount of future emissions if we are going to stop global warming and any emissions created lowers t
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I don't think I have the ability to explain the term "zero sum game" in any simpler terms. About the best I can do is suggest that if you look up the definition, or find a book on game theory, maybe somebody else explains zero sum better than I can.
This is not a pedantic point; it is critical. In game theory, a zero sum game is one in which cooperation is impossible. In emissions reduction, cooperation is necessary. Misunderstanding emissions as a zero sum game makes the solution impossible.
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This is not a pedantic point; it is critical. In game theory,
This isn't a game. And your understanding of the uses of the phrase is pedantic and narrow. It is often used to describe a situation when the benefits are finite and one person can have more only at the expense of someone else. Sort of the way it is apparently is used in game theory, where one person can win only at the expense of someone else losing, except with a much broader range of uses.
I don't really care what you call it. The point is tha
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Climate is foundamentally uncertain.
I don't know if that was intentional or not but I like that word and may reuse it in the future. Sort of a cross between foundationally and fundamentally.
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The problem is people strive for wealth, and wealth is somehow measured in energy consumption.
More specifically, energy consumption is a tool that facilitates production of the goods that define wealth.
Other tools are needed, or other means of generating energy.