I’m no subject matter expert, but I imagine, if there was scientific consensus as to what’s a sensible geoengineering change to make, then we would be on that immediately. Oil companies could invest a fortune into that and it would still be beneficial for them.
You’re right, and there is no consensus. Companies, and even current governments, are ill-equipped for solving long-term problems. Especially a problem that won’t be a net harm for like 60 years.
My point was that all that money could’ve gone to a real long-term solution which requires a lot of research (and which humanity will need to finance eventually anyways). Reminds me of people who spend more money on car repairs than what the car is worth. They see a mechanic bill of $400 and think it’s cheaper than buying another vehicle. It gets it running for another 4 months. Then a dozen bills later…
“Another 4 months” for current climate change policies is like “another 50 years”… being generous.
Reducing carbon emissions is a temporary solution, buying a couple thousand more years. Taken to its most extreme, it requires human industry to ultimately cease and thus make it even more difficult to solve the problem permanently.
Personally, I don’t think that more research will particularly change our outlook on that. Anything “geo-” is incredibly political.
Even if we find a solution that genuinely just reverses the effects of climate change, there’s gonna be some regions that see short-term disadvantages from that. Or even regions that merely imagine some catastrophic weather events were caused by making the planet cooler, even if they would’ve been hit by worse on a warmer planet.
Those regions may go against all reason to stop the geoengineering from happening.
It also has to be said that the CO2 in the atmosphere isn’t just pumping up the temperature, it’s also causing ocean acidification. Corals get dissolved by the sea water getting less alkaline. And corals are the basis for a whole lot of life on Earth.
Which is again one of those points, where I just don’t see research finding much better of a solution than algae and trees. You can hardly beat or improve the efficiency of just letting nature happen.
I guess, we could start pouring lye into the ocean instead, but we’d need quite a lot of it. So, I’m also not particularly convinced that it’s more cost-effective than letting nature happen, even leaving aside the problems we could cause with lye build-ups.
I’m no subject matter expert, but I imagine, if there was scientific consensus as to what’s a sensible geoengineering change to make, then we would be on that immediately. Oil companies could invest a fortune into that and it would still be beneficial for them.
You’re right, and there is no consensus. Companies, and even current governments, are ill-equipped for solving long-term problems. Especially a problem that won’t be a net harm for like 60 years.
My point was that all that money could’ve gone to a real long-term solution which requires a lot of research (and which humanity will need to finance eventually anyways). Reminds me of people who spend more money on car repairs than what the car is worth. They see a mechanic bill of $400 and think it’s cheaper than buying another vehicle. It gets it running for another 4 months. Then a dozen bills later…
“Another 4 months” for current climate change policies is like “another 50 years”… being generous.
Reducing carbon emissions is a temporary solution, buying a couple thousand more years. Taken to its most extreme, it requires human industry to ultimately cease and thus make it even more difficult to solve the problem permanently.
Personally, I don’t think that more research will particularly change our outlook on that. Anything “geo-” is incredibly political.
Even if we find a solution that genuinely just reverses the effects of climate change, there’s gonna be some regions that see short-term disadvantages from that. Or even regions that merely imagine some catastrophic weather events were caused by making the planet cooler, even if they would’ve been hit by worse on a warmer planet.
Those regions may go against all reason to stop the geoengineering from happening.
It also has to be said that the CO2 in the atmosphere isn’t just pumping up the temperature, it’s also causing ocean acidification. Corals get dissolved by the sea water getting less alkaline. And corals are the basis for a whole lot of life on Earth.
Which is again one of those points, where I just don’t see research finding much better of a solution than algae and trees. You can hardly beat or improve the efficiency of just letting nature happen.
I guess, we could start pouring lye into the ocean instead, but we’d need quite a lot of it. So, I’m also not particularly convinced that it’s more cost-effective than letting nature happen, even leaving aside the problems we could cause with lye build-ups.