Time to Start Work on a Panic Button? (Geoengineering plans)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/time-to-start-work-on-a-panic-button/

August 25, 2011, 6:32 pm

Time to Start Work on a Panic Button?

By JUSTIN GILLIS

For two decades, the world’s governments have failed to meet their own commitment to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas. As frustration builds among scientists, some of them have begun to argue for research on a potential last-ditch option in case global warming starts to get out of control. It is called geoengineering — or directly manipulating the Earth’s climate.

The idea sounds like science fiction, but it is not.

My colleague Cornelia Dean outlined the possibilities in http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/science/29scibks.html">this piece last year. As she reported, several methods might be used to cool the planet, though with potentially large unintended consequences. Perhaps the single most prominent idea is to scatter sulfur compounds into the upper atmosphere, mimicking volcanic eruptions and causing some of the sun’s light to bounce back to space. Other ideas include designing machines to capture carbon dioxide from the air and store it underground or in the deep ocean.

Most scientists who support this kind of research are emphatically not advocating that geoengineering schemes be undertaken now, and most of them hope society will never reach that point. But they do want a research program to quantify the potential risks and benefits, so that future political leaders will have some scientific basis if they ever have to make decisions on the issue.

…

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Kicked and recced.... let's hope it doesn't come to that but things aren't looking

too good right now.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. I think we’ll come to it sooner or later

I think we’ll have to, and when we do, I’d prefer we have some good, solid scientific research in place, rather than having some bozo decide, “http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/quotes?qt0479926">I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part!”

[izquierdista]

3. Let's hope it does

Engineering means using your scientific knowledge to build a predetermined outcome. It might be making a large lake out of a river so that you can have more reliable water and at the same time hydropower. It might mean running a canal from a place with lots of water (the floods on the upper Missouri) to a place that needs water (OK & TX). It might mean turning a large part of the Sahara desert into an inland sea (see Flooding the Qattara Depression at: http://basementgeographer.blogspot.com/2010/11/flooding-qattara-depression.html)

What it doesn't mean is to continue on, thinking that 7 or 9 billion people are having no effect on the planet and even if they are, there is no way to direct it. Our 150 years of ever increasing fossil-fuel use HAVE had an effect on the planet and it is now time that we get hold of that before it wrecks the planet for us. If we don't, we are no better than yeast in a vat, who keep turning sugars to alcohol until the vat is too toxic for them and they die.

The big problem I see is that implementing any of these ideas is going to require people to quit bickering and work together, something for which history doesn't have a good track record.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Oh I'm sure the profit motive will win out when it comes down to it.... or not. n/t

[izquierdista]

5. Capitalism can't fix it

These geoengineering projects are too big for capitalists concerned with the quarterly bottom line. Capitalists would never have built the Boulder Dam, that was too big for them and only the government could plan, organize and finance it. Notice that capitalists didn't discover the internet until DARPA had already sunk 30 years of investment into it.

To take care of rising sea levels by flooding the Qattara Depression, even Egypt can't do it be itself, but only with help from the rest of the world. Any plan to reverse desertification in the Sahel and the Sahara is going to require more resources than those of the poor African countries involved.

The Soviets had grandiose plans to rearrange Central Asia, but they turned out to be huge disasters (like the almost dried out Aral Sea). In order for geoengineering to work, the planning is going to have to look at ALL the ecology involved and not just what makes a quick buck.

[GliderGuider]

6. I just took a look in the dictionary

Hubris: Extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power.

hu·bris
Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance: "There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris" (McGeorge Bundy).

The way I see it, hubris got us into this predicament. Therefore, according to Einstein, hubris is unlikely to get us back out of it. It's always a good idea to agree with Uncle Albert.

We are going to fuck our shit up with this shit.

[pscot]

7. Hevi

What could possibly go wrong?

[The2ndWheel]

8. We've been increasingly manipulating the planet in more direct ways for a long time

and here we are. Each time we do it, we then have to directly manipulate more of the planet to fix the problems caused by our previous direct manipulation. I think we should keep doing it. Circle of life.

[GliderGuider]

9. Whether we "should keep doing it" or not, I expect that we "will keep doing it."

At least as long as we can. Once we can't keep doing it, we'll stop.

Humans are funny like that. But not in a "ha-ha" sort of way.