Why should we geoengineer?
Because I don’t like the idea of dying in a 120-degree heat wave and degrowth means the worst depression in the history of industrial civilization. Next question?
I don’t think we have enough data to know that this is safe.
Nobody seemed to care very much about the potential consequences when we suddenly phased out sulfur emissions in shipping. Here’s what we’ve seen since then:
Crisscrossing clouds known as ship tracks can be seen off the coast of Spain in this 2003 satellite image
Were “stakeholders” consulted? No, we just went ahead and did it.
So we shouldn’t have phased out sulfur emissions in shipping?
I’m saying that tradeoffs exist for any policy action taken, and pausing/reversing global warming is no exception. Geoengineering will have side effects. Institutional paralysis (i.e., hand-wringing about the potential side effects of geoengineering until we’re at 2C above preindustrial levels and have no choice) will have worse side effects.
(There are, of course, reasonable concerns about the correct approach that we’ll look at later in this white paper. My point is that I’m not interested in engaging with people whose answer to every problem is to drown potential solutions in paperwork and “community input” meetings.)
This doesn’t abolish capitalism.
And thank goodness.
My two previous main post series, on Anki use and hydrogen generation, started from the basics and worked their way up to the solution. The results were pretty long-winded, so I'm going to do the reverse for this white paper by presenting a solution and then dissecting it. The solution is this:
Global warming, though not ocean acidification, is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles (with an average radius in the ~90nm range) into the stratosphere, using a propeller-based system to prevent particle clumping. The particles should be carried up by hydrogen balloons, and very preferably released over the tropics. The total amount needed will be on the order of several hundred kilotons yearly, and the total cost should be somewhere between $1B and $5B yearly.Let's go through this piece by piece.
Global warming is quickly and cheaply reversed by ejecting calcite nanoparticles into the stratosphere.
This is an approach known as stratospheric aerososol injection, or SAI. Essentially, the Earth is absorbing too much electromagnetic radiation from the sun due to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide and other gases (which you knew). One way to fix this (which we'll need to do long-term) is to sequester atmospheric CO₂ somewhere other than the air (I wrote a long article for Works in Progress on my preferred approach, which involves grinding and milling silicate rocks into silt and dumping them in ocean water). But sequestering enough CO₂ to make a serious dent in the amount we've added since 1750 is an expensive, long-term project (on the order of trillions, over several decades), and until we can get that up and running, we'll need to keep a lid on global temperature rise.
So in the immediate term, rather than drawing down carbon to decrease the amount of energy absorbed, we'll need to decrease the amount of energy that hits the atmosphere in the first place. That's where SAI comes in: use particles of a highly reflective substance to bounce light back into space.
Why calcite, and why an average radius of 90 nanometers?
Calcite is the most common form of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), which you may recognize from the white cliffs of Dover or a pack of sidewalk chalk.
by Nephew Jonathan | Read more:
Images and sources: NOAA; Acques Descloitres/Modis Land Rapid Response Team; Mark Gray/Modus; Astral Codex Ten[ed. So, I guess this goes on... forever? Then what, something else? Will AI eventually come up with better predictive modeling for mitigating unanticipated collateral impacts? IBG/YBG. See also: ‘We’re changing the clouds.’ An unintended test of geoengineering is fueling record ocean warmth (Science).]
