While I was in the shower, I thought of a brilliant idea! Let’s trigger several smaller volcanic eruptions that release a semi-controlled amount of volcanic ash into other atmosphere. That will cool down the atmosphere, which should buy us some time to fix our carbon emissions.
Then I realized, that doing so would block visible light. Plants need the light to grow, and we need the plants to breathe and eat. Obviously, this is not going to be a long term solution. Oh, and how do you even make sure the volcanic eruption doesn’t spiral out of control and suddenly spew out 50 times the ash we were aiming for. Oh, and volcanoes also spew CO2 and even nastier gases, so… It sounded so good while I was still in the shower. The more I think about it, the worse it gets.
Basically this:
Man, do I love Futurama.
TREES DOWN
What do you say if you want the trees up?
Totally forgot about nukes.
This is called Geoengineering, and we don’t need volcanoes for that. Current approaches mostly consider injecting sulfates or other reflective aerosols directly into the atmosphere to influence how much solar radiation reaches the Earth. The principle is the same as behind volcanoes. This method is in fact already being employed and has been used in the past, albeit only for regional climate engineering.
Why don’t we do this to stop climate change? As you yourself kinda noticed, the consequences could be very unpredictable and dangerous because the effects are difficult to model. However, maybe after everything else has failed Geoengineering could be a viable option.
If we could selectively reflect only IR, but not visible light, then I might be more convinced.
But the aerosols would also amplify the green house effect right?
There are actually anti-greenhouse gasses like SO₂ (of acid rain fame(!))
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection
basically snowpiercer
geo engineering is a stopgap solution. it enables the continuation of fossil fuel burning, and rampant over consumption. it does nothing to prevent ecosystem collapse in our oceans, decline of breathable air or extinction of native species.
when you hear “geo engineering”, think of “clean coal” and “sustainable aviation fuel,” because they are one and the same
And, just like people who install solar panels on their homes tend to use more energy than people who do not, finding a tricky way to buy additional time for us will only exacerbate and prolong how long we are destructive as a species to the planet that we live on.
Surely if that statistic is true it can’t mean that on average after solar panels are installed people are taking more energy from the grid. I imagine it’s also pretty easy to single out individual groups, like software engineers or something, who on average might use more electricity or reverse that and say people who use more electricity on average are more likely to get solar panels installed.
I only bring this up because sustainable energy initiatives, even individuals installing a handful of panels, should be praised. There’s nothing better we can do right now than clean up our energy generation (and maybe go vegetarian? Lol).
I personally want to see humans invest in geoengineering but not for climate change. I believe geoengineering research and development will lead to terraforming which we’ll need to expand beyond the earth.
You’re right. Naive shower me thought that we could buy some time to do the right thing. Should have put on an oil billionaire top hat for a while to see how we could waste that time instead.
I still giggle at the idea of trump scrubbing a piece of coal with a toothbrush as a demonstration.
This guy thinks we can control volcanoes.
You get some paper machet, you get some altroids, you drop in some diet coke, and BOOM! You got a 4th grade science teacher failing you because you did the project wrong, and (airquotes) “didn’t pay attention”.
…what were we talking about.
Quality shower thought. Once you leave the shower, and give it some more thought, you can also flush the idea down the drain.
Isn’t this what happened in the Matrix?
We don’t know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar power. It was believed they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun.
Maybe take a bath next time!
More water, more ideas. What could go wrong.
If you want to make a shade without choking life to death how about a big parasol in space? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade
Ideally, it would allow plants to get the visible light, but block much of the heat. I don’t know which material would do the trick though. Maybe some sort of glass could work as a band pass filter.
Watch Snowpiercer
At least the “how” should be easy: drop Tsar Bomba down Old Faithful, and set off the Yellowstone caldera.
What could go wrong. Literally nothing. It’s scientifically impossible for any part of this plan to cause any problems at all.
Have you read the Mistborn novels, by any chance? That’s more or less what would happen, only without the cool metal magic
Man, the fact that
Tap for spoiler
The mist they were so scared of didn’t actually harm plant growth, and the Lord Ruler fucked up the ecosystem for nothing
was something. Also, I don’t think our plant life would adapt nearly well enough to sustain human life if it happened to us.
Tap for spoiler
Besides, those humans were genetically engineered to survive off shit nutrients, at least on the main continent.
It happened again. I get a great idea, and later find out that, not only someone else thought of it first, but they also made it into a product many years ago.
Lord Ruler, is that you?
This could cause a lot of acid rain
Yeah… Among all the other disasters it could cause. Probably not the safest idea, now that I think of it.
Ha that’s a shower thought!
Should have also posted this in LinkedIn. Some of those aphorism are actually dumber than my idea, so it should fit right in.
