[HN Gopher] Iron Salt Aerosol for Climate Control ___________________________________________________________________ Iron Salt Aerosol for Climate Control Author : dr_dshiv Score : 28 points Date : 2022-04-29 20:50 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (ironsaltaerosol.com) (TXT) w3m dump (ironsaltaerosol.com) | nickelas wrote: | Would this help ocean acidification? | DennisP wrote: | I think it would, since they say it would remove CO2 from the | oceans. | oofbey wrote: | Proposals like this seem promising but are hard to take seriously | when they refuse to acknowledge potential risks. Merely stating | the risk is "very low" does nothing to persuade people's | legitimate concerns about climate engineering. | | That said I'm all for climate engineering. Being scared of it is | like telling somebody obese that they should stick to sugary soda | because nutrasweet could have unknown health side effects. Or | teaching abstinence instead of safe sex education. | | I know all sorts of buttons are being pushed with these | analogies. But we obviously have a massive problem on our hands. | There is a path out (reducing fossil everything) that we know is | extremely difficult to implement, and by all current measures not | going to work. So rationally we absolutely should try | alternatives - at least TRY. And not assume they are bad while | continuing to yell at the world that they need to be more | virtuous. | foobarian wrote: | These sorts of schemes always remind me of this part in the intro | of localroger's "Passages in the Void" series hosted on his | personal site [1]. The whole thing is some of the most amazing SF | I've ever read! | | "Then, about six thousand years after we were invented, it became | clear that the Earth was entering one of its periodic Ice Ages. | Left to its own devices this would not have been much of a | problem, but it was a nuisance both we and the humans felt we | could avoid. We built enormous sun-mirrors and seeded the | atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and easily reversed the | temperature dip. In fact, we succeeded much too well. Within a | hundred years it became obvious that we had overshot our goal. | But our efforts to cool the planet were not as successful as our | efforts to warm it. Both ice caps melted, the sea level rose | sixty meters, and vast land areas became sea floor. | | This was a different nuisance, but it was not the final | catastrophe. | | The Antarctic continent had been crushed for millions of years | beneath its three kilometer thick shield of ice; like a ship | relieved of a heavy cargo it now wanted to rise, its lighter | rocks buoyed up by the denser material of the Earth's mantle. And | that lifting did not occur evenly. Great fault lines opened up | into ranges of volcanoes as long-trapped magma suddenly found | paths to the surface. New mountain ranges added their weight to | the strain on the ancient continental plate as Antarctica | regained its equilibrium. All the while a dense soot cloud | blanketed the Earth and the brief summer of warming darkened into | a cruel permanent winter. | | The ice caps returned, but the southern snow accumulation did not | stop the volcanoes. Glaciers raced toward the Equator, and after | they met the oceans began to freeze. Later the atmosphere's | carbon dioxide began to collect as snow on the poles. We had long | since given up on saving our creators and worked instead to | record their accomplishments and understand their biology before | they were gone." | | [1] http://localroger.com/ | unsupp0rted wrote: | That was a fun read, thanks! | dr_dshiv wrote: | It would have been a boring SF story if they had been | successful with climate control, right? That's the dystopian | bias. It's hard to make _positive future visions_ emotionally | interesting, so we revert to the more entertaining visions of | catastrophe. | DennisP wrote: | So this idea is what makes you think of that story, and not the | century we've spent actually seeding the atmosphere with | greenhouse gases? | | Maybe we should put some thought into reversing this massive | artificial change we've made, before we suffer the sort of | consequences described in the story. | verisimi wrote: | Why anyone thinks that its ok to attempt to alter the climate, is | beyond me. How can this be ok? How can someone else (a | government) decide what weather I can have!?? | | What happens if oil companies lobby for extra coldness and cloud | cover, as they know they will more than make up the expense in | additional fuel costs? What if other vested interests get | involved in what is bound to become a political scam? Is it | possible that a slightly warmer climate will be of benefit to | most people? | | The chutzpah that the governance structure has in believing | themselves righteous in determining not just the level of fines, | or of the required licensing you need, or taxation, but now even | the weather is unbelievable! Who gave them the right? Does say | the US have the right to determine the weather for other | countries? The whole concept would surely be illegal, if law was | even based morality.. which its not. | bastardoperator wrote: | What do you think we've been doing for the last 100 years? | verisimi wrote: | Corporations, working with governments, have done whatever | they like. So it's not 'we' it's those elites that own | companies. Get it straight. | | Now they want to change things, and they want to 'socialise' | their tab. They think it would be great if you and I pay for | their bad decisions. They just need to do really good public | relations to make you want the bill. | | If they do it right, they will make money off the | environmental issues too. | | The upshot will be that government and corporations will be | stronger, while the citizen/consumer will be weaker. | DennisP wrote: | One way or another, we're all going to be footing the bill. | The method here would make that bill way smaller than | anything else I've seen. | s1artibartfast wrote: | We already alter the climate with every action we take, or | every action we don't take. | | It is less dangerous to take deliberate actions with intent | than take actions without intent. | | Every government on the planet is ALREADY determining what | weather you and others have. Countries that burn large amounts | of coal have an impact, as do countries that ban coal! | verisimi wrote: | > Every government on the planet is ALREADY determining what | weather you and others have. | | I agree that they are determining the weather already, and I | don't like it. I don't want government to force cold weather | on me. Do I get a choice on that? No. Neither do you. | | All we get is the governance structure attempting to convince | us of the validity and righteousness of their actions. If | they do a good job, you will agree with what they say. That | is propaganda. | | I do not recognise that government can be righteous. All I | see is forcible fine extraction from the citizens it purports | to help. Climate change + technology will be an excuse to | take away more freedoms (of travel, life style), levy more | fines and licenses, while also justifying government | intrusion and micro-management (how much water, electrity, | travel credits). Greater gifts and power to those that | already have power. Its a wheeze. The trick is to make you | think you want it. | DennisP wrote: | How can it be ok that people get to make massive changes to | everybody's climate, as a side effect of making a personal | profit? That's what's happening today. | netfl0 wrote: | Please don't do this. | dr_dshiv wrote: | If you are curious, here are 3 other technologies for climate | change mitigation posted today. | | 1. Rock dust carbon sequestration on farm land: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31199271 | | 2. Algae tech to amplify photosynthetic carbon capture | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178435 | | 3. "High Hopes": using airships to capture carbon ice in the | upper atmosphere (stoners!) | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178667 | | And yes, let's be curious! After all, many scientists are seeking | to _ban science_ in this area. Hard to believe. | https://climateandcapitalism.com/2022/01/17/climate-scientis... | Koffiepoeder wrote: | Makes me think of the last time we shot metals through our | exhausts. Do we really know all the consequences of algae growth | and iron particle rain this time around? Or are we going to have | a leaded gasoline, chapter 2? | yabones wrote: | They knew that leaded gas was a bad idea before it even hit the | market. The inventor himself suffered from lead poisoning mere | weeks before a major product announcement. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.#Leaded_gaso... | sacred_numbers wrote: | According to the source, "Current man-made and natural ISA | emissions total over 100,000 tonnes and have many beneficial | climate effects". They are not advocating for doing anything | particularly new, just scaling up those (partially natural) | emissions by a factor of 2. Of course, that doesn't necessarily | mean it's a good idea. Forest fires are natural, but we would | need to study very carefully before we attempted to double the | amount of forest fires by artificial means. | | In my opinion, though, it would take some pretty strong | evidence that this would be actively harmful to dissuade me | from wanting to run large scale experiments. Shoot, if leaded | gasoline had the potential to slow down climate change it might | even be worth bringing it back, considering the damage that | climate change has already begun to cause and is projected to | cause. | dr_dshiv wrote: | I feel like this is a logical fallacy. Do we know all the | consequences of trying to solve other problems? Of course not. | Imagine if we stopped trying to solve any problem due to a | "precautionary principle." | Koffiepoeder wrote: | Very valid point. I think for me an important distinction | here is the problem size and complexity. The larger your | problem, the more certainty you need that your solution | works. This is also why we write thousands of tests for large | software projects, while just a couple might suffice for a | hobby project. | | Does this mean that we should not explore new science and | innovative solutions? Certainly not. | | But before you start engaging in macro-ecological | interventions, you better be damn sure that what you are | doing is safe, now and tomorrow, both in first, second and | nth order effects. | DennisP wrote: | If only that sort of testing had been done before we added | two and a half trillion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. | | Sadly, now we don't have a choice between making a massive | change or making no change. We just have a choice between | leaving one change in place that we know is massively | harmful, or using another method to reverse that change. | dr_dshiv wrote: | Agree! If the only way to test these technologies was at a | massive scale, I'd be worried. But they can all be tested | at a small scale. That's the other logical fallacy: e.g., | just because the intention is large scale deployment | doesn't mean the testing requires large scale deployment. | | So, to your point, we really need to be investing in | testing these different possibilities. Meanwhile, many | scientists are trying to ban research in the area. I don't | get it. | https://climateandcapitalism.com/2022/01/17/climate- | scientis... | willis936 wrote: | I wouldn't worry about it getting too much traction. Even | stratospheric injection of sulfiric acid (something that | volcanoes do) is blackballed from even being researched, let | alone considered. | DennisP wrote: | This idea actually seems safer to me, since rather than just | blocking the sun, it actually takes our excess CO2 emissions | back out of the atmosphere. | | And also methane. It's the first idea I've seen for doing | that. | tambourine_man wrote: | And doesn't produce acid rain, like sulfur does. | dr_dshiv wrote: | Acid rain resulted from the 30+ million tons of sulfur | dioxide released into the lower atmosphere. To cut global | warming in half, 25,000 tons of sulfur dioxide would be | needed in the upper atmosphere. So, 3 orders of magnitude | less SO2. Meaning, mitigating global warming with SO2 | would not meaningfully increase acid rain. | | Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/02/08/84239 | /a-cheap-an... | castratikron wrote: | Why was their Twitter account suspended? | captainbland wrote: | When you're in a hole you want to get out of, it's usually a good | idea to stop digging. The "spewing even more manufactured crap | into the atmosphere" solution to climate change doesn't really | pass the smell test. | ResNet wrote: | Solutions like these seem like they very well may do a good job | in slowing global warming with relatively little effort/cost | invested, but for political reasons won't see the light of day | until they become a last resort, far too late in the game. | | I can imagine humans a century from now wishing we had deployed | them sooner and prevented so much unnecessary destruction. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-29 23:01 UTC)