This Scientist Wants to Block the Sun to Cool the Earth

www.nytimes.com This Scientist Wants to Block the Sun to Cool the Earth

David Keith has an audacious plan to slow down global warming. Critics say it poses grave risks.

In addition to actual reporting, the NYT creates newslike ads for the fossil fuels industry. This results in disproportionate attention on high-risk approaches that involve anything other than phasing out fossil fuel use.

New York Times gift articles @sopuli.xyz This Scientist Wants to Block the Sun to Cool the Earth

43 comments

It is easier to think about blocking the sun than to overcome capitalism that is destroying the planet

Capitalist Realism in its essence

We're doomed

38
This type of geoengineering feels real ripe for the law of unintended consequences.

37
- I don't doubt that. However, mobilizing a truly sufficient "mundane" response may fail. If it does, the end result may indtead be a global response in the form of drastic geoengineering when the consequences of climate change are truly starting to have an effect.
  
  The fact that these sorts of solutions exist is also why I really don't vibe with doomers. Climate change is not going to be the "end of the world", or even the end of civilization. Humanity will prevail, the real question is how. Climate change is a (relatively) slow catastrophy, and the worst case isn't everybody dead, but rather a miserable existence where where global standard of living is thrown back maybe a hundred years with the added bonus of our enviroment being generally miserable to live in.
  
  7
Wouldn't cutting down emissions be less precarious, easier to implement gradually, less unpredictable, more economically feasible in the long run, and less risky to fall on our heads?

21
- All of those except that it means less profits for the people who own big oil.
  
  12
- Global warming is not something that would have been prevented by not industrializing. It would have instead been slower and more gradual, but inevitable all the same. What is fucking the planet is not the fact it's happening, it's the rate at which it's happening. If all human-created global emissions were to cease immediately today, disasters would still happen regardless. This is why some scientists are proposing geoengineering solutions: to prevent the inevitability regardless of CO2 release.
  
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- If we eliminated all CO₂ emissions tomorrow, we would still be stuck with all the CO₂ we've already released. A lot of the CO₂ we've released has been taken up by the oceans. We have to find a way to sequester that C0₂ "back in the ground" in order to back to levels we had years ago in order to head off/reverse global climate change.
  
  2
This petro puppet proposes perverse pseudoscientific prattle

19
- That's a really neat alliteration! And also very true!
  
  4
Hey, I've seen this one

17
- Me too!
  
  12
- Tell me, does it fail catastrophically?
  
  4
  
  There are a bunch of issues:
  
  It requires maintaining technical infrastructure for longer than civilizations last
  
  It changes the pole-to-equator temperature gradient, altering weather patterns worldwide
  
  It changes rainfall distribution in ways that we're not clear on yet, potentially risking agriculture
  
  If we keep on burning fossil fuels but limiting temperature increase with a scheme like this, we still end up with ocean acidification, killing off pretty much everything with hard body parts in the oceans
  
  24
  
  If you let a sabretooth tiger loose into a playground full of unsuspecting children in order to catch the rats that are eating all the shrubs, does it fail catastrophically? Or was it just catastrophic to begin with?
  
  In the struggle against human-caused climate change, this is a completely new avenue for humans to change the climate.
  
  1
- Say the line Bart!
  
  Sigh Simpsons did it
  
  YAAAAAAAAY!
  
  1
14
Blocking the sun is not a practical solution. Putting something up in the atmosphere is untested and super dangerous. It could cause all life on Earth to die out like the Matrix.

Physically blocking the sun is also practically impossible. It requires that we put an object in space in a Lagrange point (gravitationally stable points around Earth) which is very far away and the sun shield would have to be approximately the size of Brazil. Launching that much material into space and getting it into position, and then unfurling it would be a HUUUUUUGE undertaking the likes of which we have never seen. Plus, launching all those rockets, mining the materials, etc, would emit so many tonnes of green house gasses that by the time we actually did it we might be in an even worse position.

11
- couldn't we like nuke the Moon or something?
  
  4
  
  If we were speed running the extinction of humanity, then yes!
  
  2
This is the plot for Snowpiercer. So we should also start building a train that will circle the frozen planet

10
- And Matrix, and Simpsons episode
  
  2
Far safer to bump earth's orbit a notch or two further out.

And while we're at it, adjust the axis tilt a bit.

Let Musk handle it.

<covers mouth>

10
I have a great idea on how to block the sun!

They're called trees.

9
- Oh they help, but at scale, they help by removing CO2 from the atmosphere. You just can't actually increase the forested area by enough to fully offset the damage we're doing
  
  4
  
  We should focus on planting trees in downtown areas with sprawling pavement acting as giant radiators.
  
  4
Delusional, just insane.

Technology will not save us, but guillotines will.

9
- Guillotines are technology, laser guillotines are what we should be developing.
  
  6
- ?
  
  Global warming is nothing but a math equation at the end of the day. Change the input value, change the result.
  
  The real problem is what you do with all the snakes after they eat the mice.
  
  4
  
  Earth isnt a machine, we cant just fix it like a broken machine. Earth is a body with a fever due to CO2 intoxication. We need to let Earth lash itself back into wellbeing, without our invasive engripments.
  
  3
  
  It's a bit more than a math equation; things like how much ice there is are meaningfully path dependent. Just dropping CO2 concentrations won't get us back the world we had.
  
  1
The Simpsons did it already.

9
This is MUCH EASIER then just not giving CEOS Taxpayer Dollars to Continue Polluting and Killing Us!

5
Blocking the sun and letting the AI overthrow us? Sounds like a plan.

5
Someone check if the scientist is a vampire or part of the thrall.

4
Picture looks like he came up with the idea in time-out corner.

2
Isn't that what an umbrella is for?

1
- At an individual level, yes.
  
  1
  
  Then we need umbrellas for all to solve climate change /s
  
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Permanently Deleted

-3
- In this case, it hasn't been happening intentionally at a meaningful scale; you'd be able to look up and see the thin haze from it, and use a spectrometer to figure out that it's not water vapor.
  
  What has happened is that ordinary sulphur mixed with fossil fuels has produced particulates lower in the atmosphere. These turn into sulfuric acid when in contact with water, resulting in acid rain. Policies to sharply lower sulfate particle emissions have resulted in that becoming far less of a problem, but also accelerated warming in recent years.
  
  5
- what's, with, all, the, extra, commas?
  
  3
  
  Sorry.
  
  1