And you're going to do this for the rest of the forseeable future? Way more than anything else it sounds like a cop out to avoid dealing with the long term consequences of what we put out there now and to keep pumping oil
And you're going to do this for the rest of the forseeable future? Way more than anything else it sounds like a cop out to avoid dealing with the long term consequences of what we put out there now and to keep pumping oil
Yes, I think it will be taking place for the remainder of our lifetimes.
Solar growth is likely to remain exponential for the next decade or so, which will create a number of new opportunities. Other energy sources will also come online. But fossil fuels are unlikely to be regulated away, globally. We are also likely past some serious tipping points— so I prefer to figure out ASAP whether stratospheric aerosol injections are a viable tactic for preventing the melting of permafrost, for instance.
nice em dash -- how do I generate that in the text box?
but you're burying the lede: "We are also likely past some serious tipping points—" == we're doomed, just slowly, and we desperately need to be doing something to slow down or stop this metaphorical bus before it falls off a cliff
On *nix, <Compose> <-> <-> <-> (or install a Mac-like layout and AltGr+Shift+<->).
I see the replies to the literal question, but I think the parent was pointing out the possibility of the grandparent post being AI generated. The em dash is one of the common indicators.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1fx12q1/is_an_em_d...
And all of the replies to the literal question are reasons not to take that as a sign of an AI-generated post.
On iOS: long press the “-“ keyboard button to access variants of longer lengths like “–“ and “—“ (and also a “•”).
On macOS, you can do alt+shift+hyphen to get one: —.
ALT+0151
It seems pretty wild that we would even think about deliberate climate engineering. We're dealing with an incredibly complex system, the only place we have to live, and one where "harmless" actions before have had devastating unforeseen effects decades later. The lesson we should have learned we need to stop pumping stuff into the atmosphere and oceans until something bad happens, not "let's pump more stuff into the atmosphere."
Some random small group of people get to take these risks for all humanity? No thanks.
It just seems collectively insane to NOT be researching the hell out of the possibility that we could regulate our global heat balance issues for a cost of a few tens of billions of dollars a year.
Especially when the alternative solution to global warming is… degrowth. Which is just not going to work functionally as a political policy in a competitive world.
Fossil fuel use will decrease significantly… eventually.
Btw, did you know that if the USA replaced farmland currently growing biofuels with solar, that land area would produce 4x the current total electricity use of the entire nation?
We need to buy time — we can’t let the permafrost melt because “stupid humans deserve it”
>Some random small group of people
Like, say, petroleum exporters?
everything we do is climate engineering, just not the deliberate kind
Thing is we're not stopping. So given the fact that we are not stopping and won't stop, climate engineering starts to look like a decent Sr ond choice. I mean it doesn't take much for it to be better than nothing.
> sounds like a cop out to avoid dealing with the long term consequences of what we put out there now and to keep pumping oil
Any practical solution will consist of a wide array of approaches executed in parallel.
Talking about suddenly getting the whole world to stop using oil is a hypothetical thought exercise. It’s not going to happen. We have to be looking at all of the approaches together, including some lessening of fossil fuel use.
I think we need to do this until we develop large scale underground CO₂ sequestration.
Unfortunately even if/when we completely stop producing CO₂, it takes at least several centuries until levels go fully back down to natural levels by themselves.
Pumping SO₂ into the stratosphere should be able to regulate global temperatures to reasonable levels while we develop effective CO₂ sequestration.
Unfortunately SO₂ injection is incredibly controversial, as it triggers the "don't mess with nature" taboo, especially among people who have seen Jurassic Park, and affects the whole planet, including those who don't want it.
We do actually know that SO₂ breaks down in the stratosphere in 1-2 years, because we've studied when volcanoes injects it. It also doesn't cause acid rain because it's above the rain cycle.
But these facts are very hard to get across to people.
I think the idea is to do it as a stop gap while we catch up on renewable energy production/integration.
Equatorial countries probably should do it regardless of whether we reach net zero tomorrow. About 1.4C warming is a lot.