Solar Geoengineering - Good or Bad or Somewhere in Between?

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   My Esotericposted 2 years ago

   A way to combat climate change which is new to me is Solar Geoengineering - reducing the amount of the sun's energy from warming the planet.
   
   Some see it as a panacea for what we are doing to ourselves while others see it as the end of the world.
   
   " When Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, the sulfur dioxide it expelled high into the atmosphere had the effect of temporarily cooling the planet by 0.5 degrees Celsius (nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit)."
   
   There are three main ways to accomplish what I will call the Pinatubo effect.
   1. Put controlled releases of Sulfur Dioxide (or similar substance) into the air to reflect sunlight.
   
   2.  Coat the tops of large areas of low-lying clouds to reflect sunlight back up.
   
   3.  Thin the cirrus layer high in the sky to allow heat to pass through rather than reflecting it back to earth.
   
   There is a fourth way mentioned that is out of this world - blowing moon dust back at the earth to reflect sunlight away. Sorta iffy, if you ask me.
   
   Now, there are some people who have their eyes closed to the catastrophe that is upon us who will think this is a terrible idea and we should close our minds to even thinking about it.
   
   There are others who know the earth's climate is spinning out of control who feel this solution is so dangerous that it might wipe out humankind even before climate change does. Therefore, they also believe we should close our minds to even thinking about it.
   
   Then there are the rest of us who would at least consider the idea.  Naysayers in this group have plenty of good reasons on why this might be a bad idea, but ought to be researched nevertheless.
   
   I think I fall on the side of carefully trying it, once the near-term dangers are dealt with, to at least extend the time before our pollution kills us.  Remember, the world didn't die when Pinatubo blew its cork. Nor did it when a much worse eruptions took place such as Vesuvius in 79 BCE or Krakatoa in 1883 or the several dozen in the 132 million years before that. So, can it be done? In my opinion, yes it can IF we are careful.
   
   https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/12/world/so … index.html

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      wildernessposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      I would disagree that it can be done.
      
      First, at least one of these (SO2) is dangerous - it produces acid rain.  If we put sufficient amounts into the atmosphere, and keep adding as it dissipates, won't we be doing great harm?
      
      Second, all of them require continual work to keep the effect going.  We are not in a position to do that (IMO) as the resources needed are too great.  It seems that we would need several Pinatubo sized efforts each year to make any real difference - something the species cannot do, let alone a single nation.
      
      "Sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) released into the air by fossil-fuel power plants, vehicles and oil refineries are the biggest cause of acid rain today"  This seems counterproductive; we are already causing great harm doing what we do to increase global warming.
      
      https://www.livescience.com/63065-acid-rain.html

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         My Esotericposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Very well could be. I thought roughly the same about SO2.  But it might depend on how it is disbursed and where it drifts.  The test they referred to seemed to be way above where rain is formed.
         
         In any case, I strongly disagree with those who say don't even try. I say research it and see what comes of it.

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            wildernessposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            I'm good with looking into it.  I am NOT good with spending billions (trillions?) of dollars because a hare brained scheme with almost no chance of working fits the current political agenda.
            
            That the cry is to do something is insufficient to do things that we cannot afford with virtually zero chance of being effective.

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               My Esotericposted 2 years agoin reply to this

               That is why we look. To determine feasibility and then effectiveness.  If it is effective, then you determine the cost and the probability of success.
               
               Then you take a look at the baseline of doing nothing other than what we are doing now.  Figure out the cost of doing nothing and the probability of various disaster scenarios if we do nothing.
               
               Then with those numbers. plus the time value of money, you multiply the probability of success with the alternative times its cost taking into account the time period we are talking about and adjust the cash stream by the time value discount rate to get an answer.
               
               Then you do the same thing with the baseline scenario that you choose and compare the two results.  The cheaper one is the one we go with.
               
               Obviously, this kind of analysis ends up being very complex because of the myriad of factors that go into the cost calculations, but it can be done if you are systematic and thorough and have well established ground rules and assumptions.
               
               It's called economic analysis and I taught it for a while as an Air Force civilian.  I also used it in the acquisition of planes and buildings.

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                  wildernessposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                  "Then you take a look at the baseline of doing nothing other than what we are doing now."
                  
                  And that's one of the major problems.  So far we have all our coastal cities under water (according to predictions).  We have all the coral dead.  We have an unlivable equatorial zone.  All according to what we have been told would already have happened. 
                  
                  For the future we have all life extinguished, the earth a lifeless ball.  Or we have all people moving away from the equator.  Either way we have storms the size of Neptune's, burying deserts in rain and creating new deserts world wide.
                  
                  Which all means that either the scientists (and or politicians) are flat out lying or they are not able to truly predict the costs of either doing something or doing nothing.
                  
                  But you didn't teach economic analysis using a changing climate (with a dozen different scenarios) as the base for change.  Before we can do that analysis (and I believe we could come up with something not too far from reality) we have to have accurate climate predictions.  And we do not.

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                     My Esotericposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                     One of these days you will stop repeating far-right sound bites.  (I don't say conservative in this instance because I believe most conservatives believe differently than you and understand disaster is approaching.)
                     
                     I thought you knew Economic Analysis is a process and as nothing to do with the subject of the analysis. I guess not.
                     
                     And no, you do not need the kind of accuracy you desire, that is why we use probability outcomes.  Also, you seem to be living 20 years ago when we knew a lot less and therefore the predictions were less accurate.  That is not true today.

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                        wildernessposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                        That's right - I'm going back 20 years to the predictions that were made then. 
                        
                        Now, you can claim that we're more accurate now...but you won't know for another 50 years, so the claim is without value.

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                           My Esotericposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                           If you say so.

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                              wildernessposted 2 years agoin reply to this

                              I do.  Do you disagree?  Can you reliably state that we know current models are correct without ever testing them?  (We knew older ones were, too, until it turned out they were not.)

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