Oct 10, 2018 02:43 AM
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/10/geoengi...nevitable/
EXCERPT: . . . We have been having the same conversation about geoengineering for at least a decade. It was “a bad idea whose time has come” in 2010. Scientists were “nervous” about it in 2015. They called it “terrifying” in 2014. And those are just from the first few pages of a Google news search.
We have this same conversation about intentional, large-scale tinkering with the climate to counteract our ongoing, less-intentional tinkering with the climate because climate change is scary, and it is dangerous, and because we are paralyzed. But the dark not-really-a-secret of solar radiation management, as the primary idea is known, is that it is absurdly cheap.
[...The reluctance...] will be forgotten when entire countries start disappearing beneath the waves, or the food shortages and famines kick into high gear. The planes may be American, or Chinese, or Indian, or they might belong to rogue state with an axe to grind. Or maybe some of the world’s poorest countries will pool their resources to get it started. But the planes will fly, bearing one flag or another. Technofixing our way out of the woods will prove far too tempting to pass up.
[...] I hate to borrow from a fictional version of Mark Zuckerberg, but if we were going to solve climate change, we would have solved climate change. Once that reality settles in, geoengineering will transition from “dangerous concept” to “dangerous reality” essentially overnight.
[...] Some day in the distant future, whatever is left of humanity will spend countless hours trying to figure out how we let the climate crisis happen. We had all the knowledge necessary to stop it, and failed. I’m betting, though, that there will be very little guesswork around that particular moment in history when the sulphate aerosols began their reflective dance through the stratosphere. After all, entire countries were starting to disappear, famine was spreading as quickly as the refugees, and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets were on the verge of collapse. The only question might be: What took so long?
MORE: http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/10/geoengi...nevitable/
EXCERPT: . . . We have been having the same conversation about geoengineering for at least a decade. It was “a bad idea whose time has come” in 2010. Scientists were “nervous” about it in 2015. They called it “terrifying” in 2014. And those are just from the first few pages of a Google news search.
We have this same conversation about intentional, large-scale tinkering with the climate to counteract our ongoing, less-intentional tinkering with the climate because climate change is scary, and it is dangerous, and because we are paralyzed. But the dark not-really-a-secret of solar radiation management, as the primary idea is known, is that it is absurdly cheap.
[...The reluctance...] will be forgotten when entire countries start disappearing beneath the waves, or the food shortages and famines kick into high gear. The planes may be American, or Chinese, or Indian, or they might belong to rogue state with an axe to grind. Or maybe some of the world’s poorest countries will pool their resources to get it started. But the planes will fly, bearing one flag or another. Technofixing our way out of the woods will prove far too tempting to pass up.
[...] I hate to borrow from a fictional version of Mark Zuckerberg, but if we were going to solve climate change, we would have solved climate change. Once that reality settles in, geoengineering will transition from “dangerous concept” to “dangerous reality” essentially overnight.
[...] Some day in the distant future, whatever is left of humanity will spend countless hours trying to figure out how we let the climate crisis happen. We had all the knowledge necessary to stop it, and failed. I’m betting, though, that there will be very little guesswork around that particular moment in history when the sulphate aerosols began their reflective dance through the stratosphere. After all, entire countries were starting to disappear, famine was spreading as quickly as the refugees, and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets were on the verge of collapse. The only question might be: What took so long?
MORE: http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/10/geoengi...nevitable/