/sci/ - Science & Math

I am pretty sure we would break out the geoengineering methods to cockblock the warming if things actually got that bad. Stuff like marine cloud brightening or stratospheric sulfur aerosol injection are estimated to be able to completely halt global warming for less than $20 billion a year. Granted these are by no means perfect fixes, but would certainly prevent any doomsday scenario.

There are various geoengineering methods we could try, if whatever warming effect starts actually causing problems. It looks like both sulfur aerosols & marine cloud brightening could block any plausible warming effect for less than $10 billion a year. Of course, that doesn't fix ocean acidification and would cause some minor weather shifts, but overall if global warming is half as bad as the pundits say, we should consider these as options to allow humanity to switch to CO2 neutral energy in a more gradual manner.

That said, I am skeptical that global warming will be anywhere near as bad as the doomsayers say - back when I went to high school in the late 1990s the text books & media were full of predictions on how global warming was going to cause all sorts of disasters by 2015-2020; that whole "boy who called wolf" problem is probably what makes it hard for some people to take seriously.

>>10204341
This here - in addition there are plenty of other methods of fighting climate change that can be used to minimize the negative effects of climate change to a tolerable level for relatively cheap. The cost estimates for both sulfur aerosols & marine cloud brightening are in the $10 to $20 billion a year to completely block any plausible warming effect.

Look up geoengineering, OP; there are a variety of proposed methods that should be able to blunt the impact of global warming, at fairly low costs. Both stratospheric aerosol injection & marine cloud brightening are estimated to be able block any plausible warming over the next century for only $10 billion a year or so. That is a level that single countries can pull off solo, which is a huge advantage compared to trying to get every major country to cut CO2 production by the required amounts. I imagine that the Chinese would be perfectly willing to do this if their coastal cities were threatened.

There are all sorts of geoengineering methods that should be able to blunt the impact of global warming for a relatively cheap price. For example, the estimated cost of using Marine Cloud Brightening to block any plausible warming effect is only $9 billion a year, well within the range of even developing countries like Indonesia or Brazil to afford. Not a perfect solution of course, but better than doing nothing, and certainly will be used to prevent any 'doomsday' scenarios the fear-mongers try and push.

We will probably break out the geoengineering solutions to prevent any "game over" scenarios. Not a perfect solution by any means, but a good enough band-aid to allow us to switch away from fossil fuels at a reasonable pace. Note that some of these methods are surprisingly cheap; the cloud seeding/marine cloud brightening is estimated to cost $9 billion a year to block all expected warming through 2100. That is the level where countries like Brazil or Indonesia could afford it.

>>9963966
This here. There are numerous geoengineering methods that could blunt the impact of global warming, allowing humanity to transition away from fossil fuels at leisurely pace while not stifling economic growth. And once CO2 production has been diminished to a sufficiently low level, stuff like the iron seeding can pull the excess CO2 out of the atmosphere fairly quickly, so the other methods can be rolled back.

The marine cloud brightening looks particularly interesting. The price estimate is quite low, as little as $9 billion a year to stop the estimated heating effect over the next century. It uses only benign sea salt to cause its effects, and is easily reversible.

Something else to consider is that cutting back CO2 production by the amounts needed to actually be useful requires large scale international cooperation over decades long time scales, something that humans are just bad at. Especially with those pesky elections changing who is running things all the time. Many of the geoengineering projects could be done unilaterally by a single nation. Even Indonesia or Brazil could afford the cloud brightening method I mentioned above.

So which geoengineering exercise do you support /sci/ ?

I personally think that space mirror is the only one that is foolproof and don't have a lot of complex unforseeable consequences

Why do we only hear about reducing CO2 and almost nothing on geo engineering?