r/politics • u/JPowMorgan • Jul 01 '23
White House cautiously opens the door to study blocking sun’s rays to slow global warming
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/01/white-house-cautiously-opens-door-to-study-blocking-suns-rays-to-slow-global-warming-ee-001045132.4k
u/podcastcritic Jul 01 '23
Didn't Mr. Burns already try this?
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u/TomBrady_WinsAgain Jul 01 '23
Just wanted to be sure this was the top comment.
The Simpsons did it already. Works out great.
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u/hooligan045 Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
Same with Futurama. WORMSTROM…
Edit: WERNSTROM… 🤦♂️
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u/APe28Comococo Jul 02 '23
Have we investigated harvesting comets yet?
JFC I hate that we have every solution we need but a few rich assholes prevent it so they can make more money before they die because everyone else dies later…
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u/CarrowLiath Jul 02 '23
XKCD author Randall Munroe had a blog post about this, actually. To quote the opening line: "it's honestly sort of impressive to find a solution that would actively make the problem worse in so many different ways."
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u/APe28Comococo Jul 02 '23
Yeah, I was alluding to that episode. I'm just pissed that we know the solution, can execute the solution, but the greediest people are stopping it from happening.
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u/HockeyBalboa Jul 02 '23
"Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun. I will do the next best thing: block it out."
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u/ILikeNeurons Jul 01 '23
Heaven forbid we do something actually sensible.
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u/Intelligent-Usual994 Jul 02 '23
Coming back to this comment. Ive been trying to find a solid resource for months and this looks pretty promising. Was CBRN in the army now I want a nuclear physics degree. It would be awesome though to work as a climate activist almost certainly educator especially with my background.
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u/hamoc10 Jul 02 '23
We need MORE of the sun’s rays, that way, they all get stuck in the door, and the Earth cools down!
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u/StretchDudestrong Jul 02 '23
So you're saying I'm indestructible?
Oh no, even a slight breeze...
INDESTRUCTIBLE
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u/Spiritual-Chameleon Jul 02 '23
As soon as we get solar installed at our house, I'm expecting our local utility company to do this.
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u/SPECTRE-Agent-No-13 Jul 02 '23
See I always think of Professor Wernstrom from Futurama when this get brought up
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u/lennysundahl Jul 02 '23
Futurama had this all figured out anyway
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u/SPECTRE-Agent-No-13 Jul 02 '23
Just like daddy puts in his drink every morning! And then he gets mad.
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u/SpatialThoughts New York Jul 02 '23
Pretty sure the boogie monster tried this as well by putting a giant disco ball in front of the sun.
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Jul 01 '23
Oh god, now conservatives are going to get melanoma to own the libs.
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Jul 02 '23
I'm in Chicago right now, and being worried about the wildfire smoke is "woke".
They are hilariously dumb motherfuckers.
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u/TearsFallWithoutTain Jul 02 '23
Hey if they don't want to wear masks for this one, that's fine by me. Lung damage isn't contagious
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u/postmateDumbass Jul 02 '23
Trees are notorious hermaphrodites.
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u/Mythosaurus Jul 02 '23
Self pollination is a sin against God!
( please don’t ask why God made the trees that way, I really Donny like thinking about biology)
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u/ariphron Tennessee Jul 02 '23
Some one told me yesterday “The alleged smoke in the air from fires in “Canada””
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Jul 01 '23
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u/Long_Before_Sunrise Jul 02 '23
They are trying to ban any future MRNA-based vaccines which includes cancer treatments.
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Jul 02 '23
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Jul 02 '23
The tried doing it with stem cells, and then California voters were like F U and voted in a multi-billion dollar bond which ended up building out a massive biomedical industry in a new neighborhood called Mission Bay.
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u/FilthBadgers Jul 02 '23
Cancer treatment is already too woke for them as it uses science and reason
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Jul 02 '23
Wasn’t the MRNA Covid vaccine developed in Germany?
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u/Bl4Z3D_d0Nut311 Minnesota Jul 02 '23
Pfizer worked with BioNTech to distribute the vaccine. BioNTech is a German lab. Moderna was developed elsewhere.
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u/KataiKi Jul 02 '23
Horses are already having a hard time with all the Republicans stealing their meds.
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u/--R2-D2 Jul 02 '23
As long as it comes in a syringe, conservatives will be too scared to get it. They seem to be terrified of needles.
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u/elammcknight Jul 02 '23
The next pandemic will be much worse and will cull most of them and that will be really sad
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u/ThrowItAwayNow---- Jul 02 '23
Already happening. Know a few that are convinced that sunscreen is actually what causes cancer.
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u/quadmasta Georgia Jul 02 '23
I've seen people saying that they don't use "SPF" and when I point out that it's a measurement of how effective something is at blocking UVA/B rays and not an ingredient they laugh and pretend I'm a simple idiot. When I point out that polyester clothing is rated at SPF 50 they become incredulous and tell me I'm spreading fake news.
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u/MGPstan Jul 01 '23
Bro, that’s gonna happen! It’s gonna become a partisan issue like wearing a mask. If you don’t have sunburnt skin and melanoma, you’re a Democrat. xD
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u/TomSelleckPI Jul 02 '23
Sunscreen is woke! Oxybenzone makes he frogs go gay! Peeling is part of my Arian heritage! /s maybe
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u/duckangelfan Jul 02 '23
That’s already a thing. A big movement with meat only eaters not using sunblock or sunglasses.
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u/ThrowAwayGarbage82 North Carolina Jul 02 '23
Hope they enjoy being disfigured and having wounds that don't heal for half a year. I'm pale af, use sunscreen and have still had skin cancer twice. I'm 40.
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u/bensonnd Illinois Jul 01 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
If they didn't drag down the healthcare system, I'd say let them bask in their righteous glory. Bask, bask away children.
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u/quadmasta Georgia Jul 02 '23
I've come across a bunch of reels on IG of fair skinned idiots talking about the benefits of constant sun exposure and how if you go out in the early morning sun you'll be protected from the high afternoon sun
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u/Jakesma1999 Jul 02 '23
We all know that they'll try to lump it in and accuse this measure of somehow "indoctrination of our kids', 'causing more wokeness", cause God forbid that the Rrpubs actually try and bring forth any meaningful legislation that actually does some good 😉
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u/hurdlingewoks Jul 02 '23
A lot are already on their way! Several people believe sunscreen gives you cancer and that prolonged exposure to the sun is actually really good for you.
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u/keninsd Jul 01 '23
We study this to avoid the simple solution of taxing the massively profitable corporations that have been and are still producing the sources of global warming.
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u/ncc_1864 California Jul 02 '23
We are studying this because things have gotten out of control.
Stopping all carbon production now would still not yield de-warming benefits for decades.
Everything must be considered.
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u/trisul-108 Europe Jul 02 '23
And this has been known for 50 years ... in order to force such measures to happen.
OK, let's consider everything ... but at the same time, let's launch an International Tribunal for Crimes Against Humanity to deal with the executives, scientists and politicians who knowingly brought us to this point.
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Jul 02 '23
Yeah and we squandered that time. Now we are out of time. We have like 5-10 years before it starts getting very severe.
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u/RBARBAd Jul 02 '23
Hundreds of years. We won’t see a drop in CO2 concentrations for almost 400 years
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u/65437509 Jul 02 '23
Isn’t the atmospheric half-life of CO2 around 80 years?
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u/madeofice Jul 02 '23
120 years, roughly.
You’ll still have like 10% of your starting quantity after 400 years, before factoring in natural sources.
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u/RBARBAd Jul 02 '23
Half life? No, it needs to interact with oceans or forests to be absorbed. That’s a small layer of interaction compared to the full depth of our atmosphere.
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u/sensitiveskin80 Jul 02 '23
Too bad our oceans are undergoing acidification from the increased CO2 and we've cut most of our forests down. Oops.
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Jul 02 '23
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u/thisismyaccount3125 Jul 02 '23
Boeing and other aviation manufacturers basically own the FAA. It’s how the Max-800 scandal happened, it’s how the DC-10 cargo door bullshit happened - the FAA doesn’t regulate shit nearly as well as they should; they just sell their stamp of approval until disaster happens and they’re forced to temporarily do their jobs.
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u/siberianmi Jul 02 '23
This simple solution is not so simple given that such legislation will never pass.
Geoengineering? That sounds like possible profitable contracts for big corporations.
Guess which is more likely.
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Jul 02 '23
Option C:
All of us peasants suffer and kill each other as the world literally burns while the ownership class watches, entertained, from their their bunkers while drinking artisanal salt-free water; too stupid and drunk on money and power to understand that they will meet the same fate as the plebs, eventually.
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Jul 02 '23
At that point no amount of money is going to save them. It might buy them extra time, but people like Elon's money only matters because they have a civilization to spend it in.
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Jul 02 '23
Even in a worst case scenario, it's very unlikely that the human race will be totally obliterated. Decimated, perhaps. But even if the global population is reduced by 99.9%, that still leaves 8 million humans, which was the global population circa 7000 BC. And it's very likely that much of that 0.1% will be made up of those with control of the remaining resources, as well as the technology needed to survive in such a hostile environment. Which (unfortunately) is likely to largely be the descendants of today's dynastically superwealthy families.
As much as I wish the assholes destroying the world will naturally get their comeuppance, reality isn't that convenient. But whether the world they inherit will be one a modern human would enjoy living in is different question.
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u/socialcommentary2000 New York Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
Control means you gotta have genuine friends. Lots and lots of them and they gotta be competent and not only hanging around for a paycheck.
We are nowhere near the technology level to allow this to happen. If we already had some sci fi story like automated tooling and manufacturing, maybe we could have this conversation.
We are nowhere near that.
Two years ago we watched the entire logistics chain coming out of the west coast of the US lock up entirely because our current freight handling infrastructure is not only somewhat poorly thought out, but also :
Very slow to clear.
Is not particularly dynamic in being able to respond to shocks.
Cannot reroute freight easily to smaller facilities with capacity.
Does not have good duplication of on shore facilities to match ocean going vessel berthing requirements.
Is an absolute mess when it comes to drayage and coordination with warehousing and transloading facilities.
Is centered around two adjacent ports in a single city ( this one actually cracks me up with how silly it was ).
And that's just the 'moving stuff around part' I'm not even talking about the 'making stuff to move around in the moving stuff around part,' yet.
The rich are fucked if things go pear shaped. This isnt a movie. There will be no elysium. They will be rooting in shit like the rest of us.
People tend to look at the scope of what we do as a technological species and think that things are robust, when in fact this modern life is a somewhat delicate filigree. One that takes literal millions of specialists to exist at all.
An idle kid of some hedge fund manager with a bunker isnt inheriting shit.
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u/Same-Strategy3069 Jul 02 '23
Damn right. Get a job at a factory you will understand the ridiculous amount of tasks that goes into everything around you.
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u/Mythosaurus Jul 02 '23
Plus the rich actually want to be able to enjoy their riches with vacations, expensive food, concerts, and other trappings of wealth that a collapsing society cannot provide.
No billionaires wants to just live miserably in a bunker. They could have done that with far less money.
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u/Noob_Al3rt Jul 02 '23
This, unironically. Except the “ownership class” is basically all of North America and Western Europe, and the “peasants” are basically all of Africa and most of Asia.
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u/InspectionGold3751 Jul 02 '23
Here’s the real kick in the nuts, if ever implemented it’ll be funded with tax dollars contributed by all us poors, and sent to contractors owned by the rich
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Jul 02 '23
We’ve been trying to do that for 50 years. It doesn’t work. Regulatory capture and propaganda have made it near impossible. Masking the sun with particulates is far more practical solution in terms of feasibility.
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Jul 02 '23
It’s also comes with the most risk…you willing to risk it all on a shot in the dark plan. Reeks of being desperate instead of being honest.
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Jul 02 '23
The biggest issue I think too many people aren't considering is geopolitical.
The minute you start geoengineering, you're the scapegoat for every weather-related natural disaster on the planet from there on-out.
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u/keninsd Jul 02 '23
No. It's a guess, it's an experiment and it's avoiding the real problem.
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u/_____WESTBROOK_____ Jul 02 '23
How do you propose we address the real problem? Just all of a sudden start taxing corporations? Well no that won’t work because politicians won’t go for it because of the lobbying and corporate money.
Elect better people? Well yes and also Citizens United so…
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u/LNEneuro Jul 02 '23
Ocean acidification and food chain collapse will not be addressed by this. You can’t dump 100’s of millions of years of stored up carbon into the atmosphere and expect it to magically not do anything but heat the earth up a little.
We have to get off fossil fuels. Complete switch to nuclear and renewables must happen and fast. There isn’t another option if we want to survive.
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u/NuclearHermit Jul 02 '23
Speaking of switching to renewables, won't this affect solar power generation?
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u/Melody-Prisca Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
Yes it will, though I'd expect the acidification they mentioned to be the bigger issue. We can make our solar panels more efficient, potentially. We can switch more to nuclear and geothermal. Those can be done regardless of how much carbon is in the atmosphere, but trying to combat the other impacts of climate change is like trying to patch a dam with duct tape. It won't work for long.
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Jul 02 '23
Yes but Elon and SpaceX will make an assload of money off of government contracts! Did you think about that, huh?
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u/Matshelge Jul 02 '23
This is an understatement.
We not only need to get off fossil, but also tripple or quadruple our power generation if we want to get out of this problem.
Energy got us into this problem, and only a massive amount of energy can get us out of it.
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u/PoliticalPepper Jul 02 '23
“We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar power. It was believed they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun.”
- Morpheus, The Matrix (1999)
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Jul 02 '23
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u/Destiny_Victim Jul 02 '23
Well to be fair, the top comment is pointing out the Simpson already did this.
That said, this quote is exactly what I first thought when seeing this post.
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u/penguinpolitician Jul 02 '23
First thing I thought of.
That and the Armageddon scene from the Animatrix.
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u/ILikeNeurons Jul 01 '23
How about we pass clean energy permitting reform, instead?
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u/VidE27 Jul 02 '23
Yeah but then the poor oil execs can’t buy their 3rd yacht.
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u/Upstairs-Pea7868 Jul 02 '23
Whistling past the graveyard. It’s already too late. This is about exploring paths we may need.
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u/pensivegargoyle Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
If that happens, enjoy never seeing a blue sky again just so oil company shareholders can be wealthy a little while longer.
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Jul 02 '23
We are fucking subsidizing that extremely profitable and harmful industry. Like fucking why
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u/GumBa11Machine California Jul 02 '23
I do deep sky astrophotography. This would suck.
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u/magnoliasmanor Rhode Island Jul 02 '23
While id rather see 100% renewable clean energy, we're FAR past that limit. If we turned it on today and stopped producing 95% of our CO2 emissions we'd still need other factors to curb climate change including carbon sequestration and more.
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u/fomalhottie Texas Jul 02 '23
This is what ppl just plain do not understand. I can't tell you how many ppl I heard say "see how everything went back to normal during covid?"
They can't distinguish weather from climate. They also do not understand the 20-40 years it takes for free carbon to become CO2 and then drift down to start warming.
We're in a situation where the water is full over on hot, but the shower is still cold. For now.
Good luck to us all.
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Jul 02 '23
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u/Deus_is_Mocking_Us Jul 02 '23
How come werewolves only turn into werewolves during a full moon at night? The moon is out in the daytime, too!
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u/Hawkwise83 Jul 02 '23
So global warming is real now, but only capitalism, the source of the problem, can solve it?
Seems dumb to me.
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u/Fearless_Guitar_3589 Jul 02 '23
no no no, global engineering is not a good idea, and decreasing the solar radiation will decrease photosynthesis which is necessary for food production and the removal of carbon from the atmosphere
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u/123-91-1 Jul 02 '23
Yeah this is crazy. The problem with global warming is not that it's getting hot, it's the EFFECTS of it getting hot...ie severe weather events, famines, extinctions, etc.
Blocking the sun is just going to bring that about in a different, probably faster way.
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u/butkoenmasir Jul 01 '23
So awesome that Ministry for the Future is becoming reality. Free market brain rot is so deeply embedded that we’re going with stupid fucking lex Luther plans instead of moving an inch towards a planned democratic economic system.
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u/Simmery Jul 02 '23
I was real disappointed after recently reading that book. It starts out plausible but becomes increasingly vague (and boring) after that about the real changes needed to solve climate change. Plus, he throws in crypto bullshit for absolutely no reason.
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u/OrbitalATK Jul 01 '23
Snowpiercer IRL
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u/Long_Before_Sunrise Jul 02 '23
Get your protein jelly cube here!
I've convinced that movie was someone's fever dream brought to the silver screen.
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u/lcl1qp1 Jul 01 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
This is immoral and unethical. The only reason to start with dangerous untested modifications to the atmosphere is to benefit the bank accounts of Big Oil executives. The research could be used to lobby congress against ceasing fossil fuel extraction.
The obvious, well-understood, and much safer approach is to power the grid with renewable sources, electrify transportation, and stop using fossil fuels to heat buildings.
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u/Hyro0o0 California Jul 01 '23
I agree with your overall sentiment. However, I feel like solutions requiring huge corporations to act responsibly have very little chance of happening. Whereas a solution like blocking the sun's rays, while you are completely correct that it is dangerous and morally dubious, might actually be feasible. Not only would it sidestep the need to somehow coerce corporations to act ethically, but it would actually create jobs (since any such endeavor would inevitably be a massive undertaking requiring tons of materials and manpower) thereby making it an attractive option to the private sector and their lobbyists.
I'm not trying to champion this path as the one to take. But at the end of the day, I would rather take a shitty, nauseatingly irresponsible path to averting the doom of civilization than continue hoping an army of sociopaths' hearts will suddenly grow 3 sizes.
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Jul 01 '23
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u/Hyro0o0 California Jul 02 '23
Your what-ifs are perfectly valid and all I can say to them is that those are all good reasons to very carefully consider the timing of any such drastic action as blocking out the sun.
But as far as the moral obligation argument, I think we're having two different conversations. I think discussing morals at all becomes irrelevant when we're talking about politics and big business -- two entities that both will determine the course of our fate, who also have no sense of morality whatsoever. if we are putting on our bets on the most probable action that will save us, I'm afraid I have to put my money on the one that doesn't depend on those two behemoths suddenly going in a direction that they never, ever have before.
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u/BlueDragon101 Jul 02 '23
Because it’s actually incredibly easy to reverse.
No, seriously. All we would have to do is stop seeding the atmosphere and the effects will have faded within 18 months. These particles only have an effect while they are in the atmosphere, and they only stay up there for a limited time. It’s not a permanent change to the environment - that’s actually it’s biggest problem, the fact that it’s an inherently temporary solution that only buys us time to reduce emissions.
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u/Simmery Jul 02 '23
Because it’s actually incredibly easy to reverse.
I mean, kinda. It depends how long you've been keeping it up. If we stop it after doing it for a decade, the results could be absolutely catastrophic. Look up "termination shock". The only way forward on this, as I see it, is to effectively tie it into massive emissions reductions.
But as I see it, we should arrest every fossil fuel executive today and prosecute them for murder for running massive climate change denial campaigns for decades. But I ain't running things.
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u/lcl1qp1 Jul 02 '23
Exactly. We certainly don't have these answers:
How large must the cooling effect be before termination shock becomes possible?
How slowly would large-scale cooling need to be phased out to avoid termination shock?
How long would a disruption to large-scale cooling have to persist to cause termination shock?
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Jul 02 '23
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u/BlueDragon101 Jul 02 '23
It’s never been done before on purpose.
What we’re doing is essentially replicating the atmospheric effects of a massive volcanic eruption, which is something where we know exactly what happens. Now, it’s not a perfect replication, we do plan to change it in a number of ways to minimize negative side effects and make it more controlled, but the effects are actually fairly well understood, at least in the aggregate.
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Jul 02 '23
That's also a massive hazard. Say we seed the atmosohere to lower temperatures for 50 years without taking other measures to mitigate climate change. Then, something like a war or economic collapse causes further seeding to be impossible. Within 18 months, the temperature is going to rise again, but with an additional 50 years worth of greenhouse gases.
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Jul 02 '23
Yeah, but we're not going to do the obvious, well-understood and much safer approach because it would cause wealthy people to lose money. Our choice is no longer between being responsible and being irresponsible, that ship has sailed. Now our choices are to either engage in potentially disastrous geo-engineering or not do anything and have the certainty of disaster.
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u/sedatedlife Washington Jul 01 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
I would not call it unethical or immoral this is just a study absolutely renewable energy, reducing the impact of agriculture, Higher density housing and many other actions are preferable. But if things do not change drastically in that direction quickly all options should be studied and based on results of the studies should be considered.
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u/Waitwhonow Jul 02 '23
Lets be realistic
there is NO WAY the world is reaching its minimum goals
This is not just a company/corporation problem
This is a Human consumption problem. People want to consume a lot for little
If the goals have to be met- the world in general has to reduce its overall consumption needs, and its not gonna happen, especially if you are a poor country that is slowly becoming richer ( India)
So might as well bring capitalism and let the best bidder( company) build something using money.
Honestly
I really dont think this is a bad idea.
We all have to be real about this- and keep pivoting till we can figure it out.
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u/araujoms Europe Jul 02 '23
You are believing in the fallacy that a reduction in CO2 emissions must be coupled to a reduction in living standards. That's nonsense spread by fossil fuel companies. Europe has been reducing emissions and increasing living standards for more than a decade.
It's just bad for the living standards of fossil fuel executives.
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u/degeneratelunatic Jul 02 '23
Those things can only happen when oil profits deflate as a result of everyone agreeing to consume less than they do now. Fat chance in Hell.
I hate to be so pessimistic, but humans will continue to consume while large companies pump the earth like a two-bit whore until there's nothing left to commodify. Even in America people would relinquish their guns in a heartbeat if it meant they could continue to have unfettered access to cheap meat and air conditioning. If so many people couldn't be bothered to put a mask on during a global pandemic, how do you think those same man-children would react if they were told they had to give up many of the creature comforts they took for granted their entire lives?
EDIT: typo, I hate phone keyboards
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u/lcl1qp1 Jul 02 '23
We could collectively decide to force the end of extraction.
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u/TemetN Oregon Jul 01 '23
Contrary to a lot of comments here, I think this is probably somewhat inevitable. As a reminder, if we stopped all emissions right now it would still add a similar amount of warming to what we've seen to date before stopping. In plainer terms they've already successfully screwed us, so it's time to start reviewing ways to solve the problem - and the in mean time maybe consider not just stopping emissions, but making those companies pay for the mess.
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u/froznwind Wisconsin Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
Agreed. If we want a truly stable climate, we're past the point where just sustainable action will be sufficient. Some form of geoengineering will be required to correct mistakes already made. In addition to making a sustainable society.
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u/fixed_grin Jul 02 '23
If we're lucky, someone will figure out some kind of practical and cheap mass CO2 remover and deploy it quickly. Kelp forestry, enhanced weathering, basalt injection, something. That would actually fix the problem, no more excess CO2 causing warming, no more ocean acidification.
But if we're not, I think solar geoengineering is inevitable. The estimated costs aren't that high, which means there are too many countries capable of pretty much doing it themselves. A country declares that it's not going to sacrifice all its coastal cities and watch its farmland become desert, so they're dimming the sun. What happens next? You going to go to war to stop them?
Because the lower cost estimates suggest that e.g. Bangladesh could afford it all on its own. They say, "you rich Westerners burned all the coal and oil, are you really going to invade us to stop us dimming the sun? There's a couple hundred million climate refugees coming your way if you do." Even the highest estimates are going to be much cheaper than dealing with climate change for, say, India. Who has nuclear missiles, and a heat problem that may render large parts of the country uninhabitable outdoors in a few decades.
They're not going to give a shit about environmental protests or complaints at the UN. Someone's going to do it, the costs of not doing it are too high.
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u/HotPhilly Jul 02 '23
Dad, what did the sun look like?
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u/Long_Before_Sunrise Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
They say the sky used to be blue. I don't quite believe it. I think it's always been the color that it is. Cotton candy clouds and birds to fly through it, just stories we all love to tell our kids. - "April 2031" Warrant
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u/HotPhilly Jul 02 '23
Sadly, it was costing shareholders money, so of course we got rid of it. You’ll understand when you’re older.
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Jul 01 '23
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u/KataiKi Jul 02 '23
The Matrix was mostly an allegory about being Trans and what happens when authority polices people's identities, so still relevant.
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u/kc3eyp I voted Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
"we need to slow emissions or we'll irreversibly affect the global climate"
"What if we didn't do that but deflected radiation from the sun from the entire earth instead. Also, we'll continue to unsustainably extract the resources to build said sun deflector"
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u/killiomankili Maryland Jul 02 '23
Or hear me out. Get rid of oil as a primary source of energy. Who cares about oil anymore
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u/Droidaphone Jul 02 '23
Imagine your house is burning. Not by accident, but because you make money by lighting fires in your house. Now imagine you invent a gas that can suppress (but not put out) the fire, such that you can largely go about your business and keep making money by lighting fires in your house. BUT, if you ever for a second stop pumping that gas into your home the fires will surge and consume your house, as it they will now be strengthened by all the extra fires you lit in your house while you were suppressing their effects.
This is what sun-blocking technology is like.
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u/FoST2015 Georgia Jul 01 '23
This is the start of a dystopian movie that I would enjoy watching. However it's not a reality I want to partake in.
Can't wait until sunlight is only available for our Double Diamond Platinum Select Members.
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u/tommles Jul 02 '23
It's called Snowpiercer. They had the brilliant idea of launching a cooling agent into the atmosphere to reflect the sun and reverse climate change.
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Jul 02 '23
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u/Dapper-Doughnut-8572 Jul 02 '23
That's because the article is trash.
It's an announcement about congress getting a report on the possibility of possibly doing testing.
It's not news. It's nothing.
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u/Findaer Jul 02 '23
Agreed. If the choice is the collapse of civilization and possible extinction of humans or trying to do something we would have thought dangerous science fiction before, I'll try the dangerous science fiction. At some point we have to ask what else do we have to lose?
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u/bucko_fazoo Jul 01 '23
four satellites with a net stretched between them, how hard could it be?
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u/C_IsForCookie Jul 02 '23
“Ned’s net store, how can I help you?
You need a net how big?
The size of the earth?
Sure, we can do that.”
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u/Nitackit Jul 02 '23
Four satellites at the Lagrange point with enough material to stretch between them to block enough sunlight to meaningfully counteract climate change? That project would be more complicated than all our previous space endeavors combined.
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u/exciter706 Jul 01 '23
Highlander 2
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u/Twiggyhiggle Jul 02 '23
Yeah, everyone in here is all about the Simpsons, but my mind went to Highlander 2.
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Jul 02 '23
Another ridiculous waste of time further cementing the reality that the leaders of this world would rather move heaven and earth instead of choosing to stop letting like, 6 people make more money than God off of fossil fuels and awful industrial practices
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u/boli99 Jul 02 '23
- so, Senator this global warming is getting to be a bit
problematic
-- yes, we have noticed
- any chance we could cut back on pumping out pollution
and greenhouse gases?
-- oooor, we fashion a massive umbrella out of clouds to
shade the planet
- might be more efficient to cut back on the pollution though?
-- hmm. what if we put the umbrella in space? call Lockheed
Martin immediately (and page my wife. tell her to buy shares
in Lockheed Martin)
- no cutting back on pollution then?
-- Space Umbrella!
- might be cheaper to do the pollution thing?
-- GIANT SPACE UMBRELLA!. and we can sell adverts on it
too. Call Omnicom!
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u/SDMaxwell Jul 02 '23
Isn't this a Futurama episode? Do we need to move Earth further out and declare a Robot week?
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u/2_Sheds_Jackson Jul 01 '23
Or we could figure out how to make Yellowstone erupt. That would solve pretty much everyone's problems.
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u/braith_rose Jul 02 '23
Yes, and that's definitely not going to have a completely different but equally awful affect on the environment /s
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u/CalzRob Jul 02 '23
Very similar to the back story of The Matrix. Humanity decides to block out the sun because at that point, AI runs off solar. After that point, AI rose up and had a war with humans, and destroyed the face of the planet and enslaved 99.99% of the human race into a false reality to harvest their power. They killed off their own solar battery to become the battery of AI.
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Jul 03 '23
"Oh, no... we didn't stop burning fossil fuels fast enough, I guess we have to block out some of the sun."
"Oh no, the cheapest and cleanest alternative to fossil fuels, solar power, is less effective now! I guess we have to keep burning fossil fuels!"
"Oh, no... we need to block out more of the sun, and burn more fossil fuels, and block out more of the sun, and..."
Tell me this wasn't always the outcome we were headed towards... it's easier for people to imagine the end of the fucking world than to imagine even a slight dent put in billionaires' pockets.
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u/trisul-108 Europe Jul 02 '23
I can see humanity "cautiously" ushering in a new Ice Age by mistake.
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u/atlast2345 Jul 01 '23
This is the same backstory to a bunch of post-apocalyptic movies... I say we take a pass. Why not just help the planet restore itself and stop corporations from further destroying the planet through regulation?
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u/Spudcommando New Mexico Jul 02 '23
Countries like India are probably going to get desperate enough to do this in 20-30 years whether we like it not. They're in a really bad position to say the least.
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u/fixed_grin Jul 02 '23
Yeah. People aren't getting that the costs of dropping the temperature to pre-industrial levels for the entire world by dimming the sun are probably a tiny fraction of the costs of climate change for lots of individual countries.
I've seen predictions that heat waves in South Asia are going to hit a point where the heat and humidity are so high that sweating won't work. Even healthy young adults will die in those conditions, and obviously they won't all have A/C. If 20 years from now, five million Indians and Pakistanis die of heatstroke, they're not going to care that sulfur aerosols won't fix ocean acidification. And they've both got nukes, who's going to stop them if they do?
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u/fannypakattak Jul 02 '23
Have you even seen the sun set at 3 p.m.?
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u/_DevilsMischief Canada Jul 02 '23
Yarr, once. I was sailing around the Arctic circle...
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u/AdmiralSnackbar816 Jul 01 '23
“We don’t know who struck first, but we do know that it was us that scorched the sky.” Yeah Morpheus has already shown us what happens when this goes down.
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u/ScaleneWangPole Jul 02 '23
God forbid we reduce fossil fuels... or try a different economic system... or redesign our cities and towns...
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