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Comments: 316 +- Science: UK Royal Society Claims Geo-Engineering Feasible on Thursday September 03, @02:26AM
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samzenpus
on Thursday September 03, @02:26AM
from the jury-rigging-the-planet dept.
from the jury-rigging-the-planet dept.
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krou writes "The BBC is reporting that a UK Royal Society report claims that geo-engineering proposals to combat the effects of climate change are 'technically possible.' Three of the plans considered showed the most promise: 'CO2 capture from ambient air'; enhancing 'natural reactions of CO2 from the air with rocks and minerals'; and 'Land use and afforestation'. They also noted that solar radiation management, while some climate models showed them to be ineffective, should not be ignored. Possible suggestions included: 'a giant mirror on the Moon; a space parasol made of superfine aluminum mesh; and a swarm of 10 trillion small mirrors launched into space one million at a time every minute for the next 30 years.'"
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next morning it was someone else.
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Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:4, Interesting)
I really like the way the article seems to indicate that geo-engineering is the short term solution and conservation is the long term solution.. I've always seen it as exactly the opposite. If we were to stop all greenhouse gas producing industry *right now* there would still be a global warming problem. If the problem is real then the only solution is global engineering. Hiding in the dark will only buy us time, the world needs a plan to use that time to find a solution.
Re:Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
It's much smarter to prune than mow. The pin in the map link is where I worked in the early eighties the policy was to cut individual trees (mountain ash [wikipedia.org]) marked by the parks authority. If you scoll north over the border where the rules were different you will see a giant bald patch created by woodchiping during the 70's. The last time I drove through the bald patch (1990's) it was covered with tree stumps standing a few feet high on a ball of roots because the soil had long since washed away.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Worsening water crisis? Water is a closed loop system. You don't "loose" water.
And in contradiction to yourself, trees are actually responsible for helping create water. Ever seen a desert with trees? Nope...
Trees, and vegetation create part of a water cycle where they will store and release water thus creating a moist climate. When you have no trees or vegetation then water has no cycle. You then get the desert torrential rains that come and go, but don't really help.
http://members.optusnet.com.au/benjamin [optusnet.com.au]
Re:Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Worsening water crisis?
The water crisis is not about total amount of water, it is the displacement of water from one point to another.
Water in the form of glacier ice in the Himalayas (providing drinking water for millions and millions down stream), that instead becomes rain in Australia , is a water crisis.
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Re:Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:5, Funny)
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Depends where you stand... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the point of view of Australia having water locked into glacier instead of raining down on our farmland is a crisis.
So if we all start geo-engineering rainfall on a global level what happens when one country wants water that other countries also want? What stops us geo-engineering our deserts to steal your rain? Who sets a quota describing how much rain we're allowed to have, and how will that be enforced?
There are some big technical problems with this plan, but there are also massive social and political problems to be overcome also.
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Re:Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:5, Funny)
And in contradiction to yourself, trees are actually responsible for helping create water. Ever seen a desert with trees? Nope...
Also, trees create wind. Notice how whenever it's windy, the trees are always flapping about?
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Re:Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Reducing emissions is the best way in the long run. Part from reducing the Co2 emissions it drives technology development towards more efficient use of energy, new products, new companies, new jobs etc etc.
We have to face the facts, quick fixes does not exists to this problem, we have to clean up our mess and take the consequences.
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Re:Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
You're really not listening.. to me or to the article.. geo-engineering is not a short term solution, nor a quick fix.. it's a required on-going effort that will last forever. Imagine you're in a spaceship, what do you need to maintain life? You need active management of your environmental systems or, in the long term, they will fail and you'll die. Well guess what, we are on a spaceship, and it's called Earth.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
You are aware that James Lovelock is a fucking kook who has been discredited more times than creationists in Kansas right?
No scientifically educated person thinks the commonly used term "Mother Earth" is anything more than a pleasant analogy. There's nothing written in the stars that says the Earth will be good to us if we're good to it. If we stopped all industry right now the majority of people on Earth would die, and the remaining would be overtaken and killed by "nature".
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A dark God! (Score:4, Insightful)
If Gaia existed it would be the most capricious and brutal god imaginable. Only the strong survive, unless a rock falls on them, or a supernova goes off too close. Nature isn't the default state, the safe state, that we should try to cower in. Nature is the ravening maw of a stochastic greedy optimization technique with an arbitrary value function, that wants to test each individual of our species every moment of every day until we mess up and get squished. Nature is the enemy and we aren't safe until we subjugate it.
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Re:Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:4, Interesting)
Instead of a quick example, how about you make a real argument.
There's only two possibilities:
1. we're fucked and only geo-engineering will save us
2. the problem is being vastly overblown and mere conservation will serfice.
For some reason everyone is saying that it is the first and yet also saying that geo-engineer is bad, m'kay.
Choose.
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Re:Reducing emissions does nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Acme mirrors to the rescue (Score:3, Funny)
Nice to see they consulted Wyle E. Cyote [wikipedia.org].
Seriously, how about a chalk farm? [wikipedia.org]
10 trillion mirrors? (Score:3, Insightful)
I make that 10,000 launches which over 30 years is nearly a launch a day. I was under the impression that rocket launches have a negative environmental impact not including the impact of actually building so many.
Re:10 trillion mirrors? (Score:4, Insightful)
However this does show just how desperate we are getting. Shooting 10,000 metal balls into space pretty much guarantees we wont be leaving this planet... Unless they are all going for lagrange points I suppose but then I question the value or our ability to aim so accurately.
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Re:10 trillion mirrors? (Score:5, Insightful)
I make that 10,000 launches which over 30 years is nearly a launch a day. I was under the impression that rocket launches have a negative environmental impact not including the impact of actually building so many.
The obvious solution here is to build an orbital cannon. The biggest built and successfully used was in the 60s by the U.S. Navy to launch atmospheric probes up to 100 miles into the atmosphere. Building a 50-100m long gun up the side of a mountain(or even underground in a mine shaft or silo) isn't that technically hard. Estimates for the gun itself run about 200 million to build. The idea is to have each payload have its own small positioning rocket and external case. Drop the mirrors in the case and lob into space - the small engine moves it out to the proper position. Since we're talking just scattering the mirrors, there's nothing else required here - just position and open it up. Once a day is trivial. 10,000 launches would cost a mere 1-2 billion dollars. Even if it required 10x that many launches, with it firing off every couple of hours, it would be simple enough to accomplish. With ten of them, this could be done in just 3-5 years.
2-3 billion for an array of ten of these. Problem solved in a new years.
http://www.tbfg.org/ [tbfg.org]
This is the latest company that is working on this. They will have a test-launch next year.
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reversable solutions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If they each have a tiny self destruct device onboard? What could possibly go wrong there?
Re:reversable solutions (Score:4, Insightful)
2. Entropy
3. Budget cuts/regime change.
Pick one.
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Space parasols (Score:3, Interesting)
Reminds me of Kim Stanley Robinson's terraforming conjectures in his trilogy beginning with Red Mars [amazon.com] , where an orbital lens first used to provide more sunlight for Mars is ultimately sent to Venus, turned around, and used to shield that hot planet from sunlight.
Terraforming begins at home (Score:3, Interesting)
You caught me on the reference to "terraforming". Looks like we need to start by terraforming our own planet to sustain its suitability for human life. Not so funny.
My suggestion along these lines would be a network of large controllable mirrors in orbit. The individual sections could be aimed, essentially by rotating them with gyroscopes. Some region is too hot? Adjust more mirrors to give it more shade and reduce its temperature. Another area is too cold? Add the appropriate amount of reflected sunlight a
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh yeah. I forgot one more obvious thing that may not be obvious enough. The obvious mirror technology would just be large wire loops with thin coated plastic films stretched across them. You want them very light so that they will be responsive to the rotating gyroscopes (located at the center of mass of each mirror), and of course you want them to be cheap since you'll need a lot of them. Actually, I think you would only have one gyroscope per mirror, but it has to be on gimbals so you can rotate in arbitr
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Neat (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's how the mirror plan would work. Nuclear fission plants (or solar arrays) would power an array of about 10 billion dollars worth of solid state lasers. (at current prices, available today). The lasers would probably use LEDs to pump doped fiber optics, producing very cheap laser energy.
The capsules containing the mirrors would be kicked into the air using a catapault and then the bottom of the capsule would be vaporized using the lasers to create thrust. The laser array alone would insert the mirror capsules into orbit...tehre would be minimal to no onboard thrusters needed.
That's how you'd launch one every minute (need several arrays) over a 30 year period.
not again (Score:3, Insightful)
The belief, that we humans can 'engineer' the earth and bend it to our expectations is exactly, what got us into this mess in the first place. How about re-engineering ourselves instead for the better?
Re:not again (Score:4, Interesting)
The belief, that we humans can 'engineer' the earth and bend it to our expectations is exactly, what got us into this mess in the first place. How about re-engineering ourselves instead for the better?
What, are you saying we tried to "engineer the earth" with the industrial revolution? Are you trying to "engineer the earth" when you drive your car? No, before now I don't think anyone (of consequence) has been trying to "engineer the earth" in the sence of the entire globe we live on.
Now, quite obviously, we have the capability to "engineer the earth" (in relatively minor ways) even though any such project would be huge (maybe Terra$'s). The problem is that we only have one system to test on and no Live CD with which to fix a misstake. But at some point we may very well find our selves in a situation where an option seems "safe enough" relative the consequences of inaction. Not researching these "options" because you're afraid of the consequences is just stupid.
"Engineering ourselves" on the other hand is something we have been doing since, well, I don't know - who first said "think what kind of children these two would have?"? And recently we are doing it more concretely to win basketball games. But in a larger sence than that no one has a clue what the heck "for the better" would be. Though I have my theories.
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The Original Report (Score:3, Informative)
Royal Society Press Release:
http://royalsociety.org/news.asp?id=8734
Which links to a 98-page pdf:
http://royalsociety.org/geoengineeringclimate/
As George Carlin Put It.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The planet's fine.The people are fucked.
Wouldn't mirrors make it worse... (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, so much depends on sunlight that limiting it seems like there's no way it ca possibly end well. This isn't countering global warming, this is throwing another massive climate change into the mix that may on average even out temperature changes. It's like treating an infected wound by setting a person's arm on fire.
I mean climate and plant life depend on sunlight. So how can you not expect to get famines, mass ecological changes, large scale climate changes and so on.
Or else ... (Score:5, Informative)
Which is what world leaders are tiptoeing around trying to avoid, pretending terrestrial biofuels were an option, pretending carbon sequestration is an option. All of this stuffing around to avoid some uncomfortable conversation about facts that both the politicians, the people and the companies know are true.
Must we be stupider as a species than our individual parts ?
Re:Or else ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or we could just have a brief and rather blunt conversation with our friends in the coal, oil and beef industries.
And all of their customers. You know there is a reason that the people in these industries have the power that they do. See, if you force the oil industry to take some action that costs them money, the price of fuel goes up. When the price of fuel goes up, the cost of producing things (such as food) goes up. The cost of getting things (such as food) to people goes up. People get upset and yell at the politicians, possibly vote them out of office in democracies, riot in the streets, etc.. Similar things happen in the coal and beef industries.
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We could do with a "Global Warming Hero" (Score:3, Insightful)
Slowly convert an Asteroid to dust shade (Score:3, Interesting)
How about taking a SMALL NEO asteroid, carefully put it into L1 (earth-sun) and then slowly grind it into dust (spraying the dust to form a slowly dispersing cloud). If the particles are small enough, an asteroid perhaps 100m cubed could block out perhaps 1% of the sun for a few decades. Not only would it lessen our global warming predicament (temporarily until the cloud disperses through radiation pressure completely, but that's a good thing we don't want a permanent fix!) but it would teach us very valuable lessons on how to move celestial objects around; first for our protection and later for resources.
Needed: a (probably nuclear powered) mass mover/ion drive (a gravity tractor is probably too slow for anything but gentle nudges). Then some sort of grinding machine (celestial snow blower?) which will be powered by said nuclear reactor (the dust cloud will make solar panels ineffectual).
* I really liked the idea of iron fertilization of the ocean "deserts" but I guess it was not proven effective and the possibility of creating huge amounts of jellyfish rather than tuna was not a good thing.
Geoengineering? Haven't we had enough of that? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have been doing that for the last couple hundred years with horrible effect. You know the funny thing about each of these recommendations is that they say these projects are feasible but don't talk about what could go wrong, how to fix them, and the cost of both. Ridiculous. In my mind we should of course reduce production of CO2 but we should also prepare for the inevitable fact that governments will move too slowly and we are going to need to mitigate a lot of the damage. Some of these mitigation strategies are going to take a long time to plan and we should start now.
Re:stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's how he knows.
Re:stupid (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, just another instance of the onion-type repair model. Once a problem has become obvious, create another layer to fix the problem. Reminds me of a code-comment like 'hack to circumvent the bug created by the fix
CC.
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Re:stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention that *most* of the CO2 hype is largely based on computer models... Models are useful tools, but while most scientists apparently agree that we have global warming, even more agree that you cannot accurately model climate yet. And some even suggest that it will likely never be possible.
Models are especially cool since climate is a 10-15 year deal, by the time you can measure the accuracy of your model, it's long forgotten and you already got your money and 15 minutes of media fame for saying the collective farting power of krill will cause the next ice age.
There is a lot of good climate science being done, don't get me wrong. But given how political the issue has become, there is also a giganormous load of bullshit being peddled as science too. And apparently, all you need is pictures of polar bears to disable most bullshit radars.
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Re:Global warming is a scam. (Score:5, Informative)
Global warming is a scam.
http://tinyurl.com/globalwarmingisascam
That site is loaded with pseudo-scientific data & outright lies. A few examples:
There is a difference between the FACTS of GW, and the solutions proposed. The only thing that I agree with that site you mentioned, is that some of the policies & the utilization for political ends of GW are questionable.
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Re:Global warming is a scam. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Swindle?/Scam?/Fraud? Perpetrated by who? For what purpose? Who (which golem "them") gains exactly what from preventing this "global warming/climate change" that "they" say is happening and you insist is not? What is their payoff? And why are you so dead-set against it?
2. Are you seriously denying that humanity has, since the start of the Industrial Age, pumped trillions of tons of carbon (we'll ignore the sulfides, the chlorine, etc.) back into the atmosphere that have been locked away as coal and oil for hundreds of millions of years? Really? That just didn't happen? Really? It couldn't possibly have an effect? Really? And you're certain of this, how?
3. What's it to you? Why does it bother you so that people are worried about this and want to do something about it? Why are you so determined to stop them doing so?
Facepalm.
Increased ocean temperatures == releases of methane hydrate == more atmospheric methane == increased ocean temperatures.
Have you heard of the notion of "tipping points"? Runaway positive feedback?
Can you name THREE? Reputable environmental scientists, climatologists, even (real) meteorologists? You know, scientists with expertise in the field we're talking about? Do they have any, what's that word, evidence? Because the glaciologists and geologists and oceanologists are pretty convinced that something pretty wildly out-of-scale for the time frames involved, (in the absence of any other environmental factors: supervolcanos, large meteor strikes) is going on. Do these reputable environmental scientists really think that climate change isn't a real and worrisome threat, that mankind's stewardship of the planet hasn't been incredibly shocking irresponsible?
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Re:Global warming is a scam. (Score:4, Interesting)
Increased ocean temperatures == releases of methane hydrate == more atmospheric methane == increased ocean temperatures.
Who knows, maybe this is the reason for the Fermi paradox. Civilized race starts burning sequestered hydrocarbons and ends up broiling themselves when they accidentally turn their planet into something like Venus.
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Re:Global warming is a scam. (Score:5, Informative)
You believe what you want.
No, I believe the facts. My personal desires are irrelevant.
You don't need to be a scientist to realize which side is correct.
Yes, you do. AFAIK, climatology is a science.
The nasa article in the link speaks for itself.
Which essentially means you didn't even bother to verify it by going to the NASA site I mentioned. Looks like it is YOU who believe what YOU want.
I don't care who John Coleman is what he says makes sense.
He doesn't make sense. Weather is distinct from climate. He is not qualified .
The court case involving the gw swindle ended in a decision that the content was essentially true.
Ofcom, the UK media regulator has ruled that The Great Global Warming Swindle was unfair to the IPCC, David King, and Carl Wunsch and breached a requirement of impartiality about global warming policy.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/ofcom_rules_that_the_great_glo.php [scienceblogs.com]
Excess CO2 has nothing to do with global warming in fact rising CO2 is an effect of increased global temps not a cause. The US senate means nothing. The hundreds of scientists that disagree with the climate change fraud do. Think for yourself for a minute. CO2 is what we exhale and what plants inhale. A good case can be made for the good caused by a warming planet. The facts indicate that there has not been any warming. Studies have shown that incorrect measurements taken in hot heat island city environments can account for the change.
You're repeating the same old already disproved fallacies over. Go to the NASA site I mentioned earlier & try your best at looking at the facts.
Natural variation makes a lot more sense than the idiocy of the global warming "proof".
Natural variation has been disproved by NASA.
Go on and believe the few "experts" ignore the others and follow what Al Gore says.
I believe the facts, and that independently of what Al Gore might think. BTW, the "few experts " are the majority. That includes NASA who has the largest concentration of climate scientists, the academies of sciences of 27 countries, and all the major scientific institutions like National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Physics, National Center for Atmospheric Research, American Meteorological Society, US Geological Survey etc...
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Re:Global warming is a scam. (Score:4, Informative)
Look, I don't want to get into an argument about whether anthropogenic global warming is 'really happening' or not, but your comments show little understanding of... maths.
CO2 does not, and never has, been a significant greenhouse gas. but suddenly it's responsible for our planets temp???!
It's not 'responsible for our planets temp???!'(sic). It's a contributing factor. Unless you thing CO2 isn't in any way a greenhouse gas you must admit that the increase [wikipedia.org] from ~315 to ~385 ppm since 1960 will result in some increased heat retention which will be compounded every year until a new, higher, equilibrium is reached. CO2 concentration is only one factor in a complex equation which, yes, features insolation and water vapour prominently. Claiming that changing the CO2 concentration should have no effect on the climate only shows that you don't understand the mathematics of a basic climate model.
</rant>
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Tell me, how's the weather on Venus at this time of year?