I did a two-year post-doc in a climate modeling lab at a major research university studying exactly this proposal. I have peer-reviewed publications on it. I cannot overstate what a bad idea it is. It would kill–at minimum–tens of millions of people, and set off the worst refugee crisis the world has ever seen as global precipitation patterns shifted–and those are the effects we know about. Once we start it, we will have to run it indefinitely or incur absolutely apocalyptic snap-back temperature increases.
Still, I will be absolutely flabbergasted if we don’t implement this sometime in the next 15 years. It’s cheap, effective at controlling temperature increases, and will let us continue to kick the can down the road for meaningful climate action.
Ah but have you considered I still want my funkopops delivered with same day amazon delivery
Still, I will be absolutely flabbergasted if we don’t implement this sometime in the next 15 years
It would kill–at minimum–tens of millions of people
What is the mechanism for this?
Primarily precipitation pattern shifts. Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is highly likely to result in less precipitation falling globally overall, but it’s really the distribution that’s worrying. Our natural model for this–the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the 1990s–caused an almost perfect inversion of global precipitation patterns: places that usually get a lot of rain turned dry, and places that are usually dry got a lot of rain. The effect was detectable for more than two years, and appeared and disappeared right along with the temperature reduction signal.
Here’s the precipitation anomaly and Palmer Drought Severity index data for 1991 and 1992, immediately after the eruption. Warmer colors mean less water:
Computational modeling of SAI has indicated that this was not a fluke, and that the degree of change will likely increase with more aerosols in the stratosphere. Both elements of the switch are bad: if you’re used to dry conditions, excess precipitation brings flash flooding, erosion, and mudslides. If you’re used to rainy conditions, a lack of precipitation brings drought, famine, and fire. SE Asia–and other places that rely on a stable seasonal monsoon–are likely to be especially hard hit, and we have every indication that the shift would be permanent for as long as we kept up SAI. That’s why I said it would set off the worst refugee crisis in the world’s history.
Ah that’s horrifying, I never appreciated this aspect of geo-engineering
Do you have sources to read about this? I’m very curious about it having seen it bought up over and over again. Always thought that it was gonna blowback on us bad even if it bought some time
Yeah, I’ll put together an effort post tomorrow.
👏
Would it be rude to ask for am article to read about this? Or an effort post if that works better for you. I knew this was considered to be a bad idea but I never saw any hard details
I’d prefer not to dox myself directly, but I can certainly put together an effort post tomorrow.
Pah, scientists. Always so pessimistic. Do you remember what they said about Corona and masking? And it wasn’t so bad at all, barely a cold. Few million old, poor people died but look at the economy!
Who needs blue skies
I suppose if I was this much of a ghoul, I’d also be deathly scared of socialism because there’s no way someone who’s ready to gas the whole planet is only a Nazi about this one specific thing.
I think I see a negative externality on the wall over there. Maybe he should go and get a closer look.
Looks like he’s at least into nazi facial hair…dude has a Hitler mustache going on idk
By the way, Ive been saying for years that they are 100% going to do this shit. They are going to keep the pedal to the floor on carbon emissions until it becomes impossibility to ignore any longer and then sell this as a magical technocratic solution. This is going to be a liberal consensus position in like ten years
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Note that the “negative externalities” are implied and not listed.
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Not the treats
Its pretty clear what they are: freeze peach no iphone vuvuzela
But of course, can’t have Imperialists living like subjects of Empire.
yeah, we should totally reduce and disrupt the constant source of clean, pure energy streaming into the earth which drives the biosphere’s staggering complexity, so we can keep burning the concentrated, dirty pockets of stored and buried sunlight from millions of years ago that is overheating the place and polluting our bodies, air, land, and water.
In tech
Are you sure you and your lot aren’t just trying to sell us something? I think people forgot there’s other smart people in the world other than folks in the tech industry.
The tech sector seems to have a high concentration of people who believe that because they understand one complex thing, they must inherently understand other complex things
“I can program well in 5 languages therefore my opinions on economics are valuable”
Doesn’t China produce more new solar capacity than the rest of the world has like every year?
Yeah but why wouldn’t they want to spend a bunch of money to make their solar panels 1% less effective for the benefit of the US imperial order? Just makes sense really.
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can I help you push the button
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no author is as synonymous with tech bros having bad ideas as ayn rand
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Oh, I know… I’ve actually read the entire thing. AMA. :P
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I actually did not interact with the community whatsoever, I just read it because I was fascinated by how overwhelmingly cringe it was, sorry.
A highlight of the story for me was when the self-insert character used logic and reason to teach the racist white boy that racism is bad unless you have a sound logical, rational basis for your racism.
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which left has nukes?!? I know they’re not talking about DPRK
global socialist government here, open up!
This is a whole ass type of guy all by himself.
“Negative externalities” jfc.
Especially when talking about air pollution, the literal textbook case of negative externalities. Just throwing bad sounding terms at things you don’t like.
They genuinely think some bazinga movie plot involving aerosols and asteroid mining is a more realistic way of fighting climate change than overcoming capitalism
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We don’t know who struck first—Us, or Them—but we know that it was Us that scorched the sky.
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The capitalists are conspiring to block the sun like they’re Mr. Burns 😭
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I said it before and I’ll say it again: Aren’t techbros supposed to be smart?
Learning coding and engineering is no joke, so I’ll give them that. But seriously how are people that smart but still so much of them can be so foolish? I’m guessing self-interest is just one hell of a drug.
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this has been the one uniting trait for every engineer I’ve ever met
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CS is not hard it’s just tedious. It’s the only stem field where you can get away with being wordcel.
I work in tech. The average tech bro is of average intelligence.
Negative externalities as opposed to a catastrophe that would kill countless people.
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Some thinking they will preserve the light of consciousness like altered carbon as if a copy of their personality is them. And burn down a couple of forrests bringing death to overcompensate for their fear of… Uh… Death
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Like that show upload. The guy had another copy running around. Similar memory all that but it wasn’t him. That reminds me of this startup where apparently preserve your brain but you have to be euthanized. Not exactly the same thing but it made me chuckle. https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/03/13/144721/a-startup-is-pitching-a-mind-uploading-service-that-is-100-percent-fatal/
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Blue skies? A sacrifice this guy and his friends in tech are apparently willing to make -, for all of us
Tech people don’t go outside so they think they’ll be fine
Oh you want blue skies? There’s a VR-based software solution for that
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It’ll be a software as a service subscription-based racket, possibly with micro transactions
This is just robotic engagement farming, right?
Like, who actually goes on Twitter to write about what they care about? Honestly why does it exist lol
Not only that but every reply is either a Trump ad or a chatgpt bot
Maybe this is below criticism, but saying “all the smart people I talk to in tech” has no clear difference from “all the people I agree with who I talk to in tech” when you’re making an argument like this.
i am smart (for proof, please see my tweet and note my use of the word ‘conversely’). therefore, anyone who disagrees with me is stupid. anyone who agrees with me is smart.
