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.
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).
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 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.
I still giggle at the idea of trump scrubbing a piece of coal with a toothbrush as a demonstration.