
A Disappointing New Problem with Geo-Engineering - curtis
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/solar-geo-engineering-cant-save-the-worlds-crops/567017/?single_page=true
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philipkglass
_What they found was sobering. In the geo-engineered world, maize yields did
increase by 6.3 percent due to cooler temperatures (compared with the climate-
changed world). But they decreased by 5.3 percent due to the reduction in
light. When accounting for a few other side effects of geo engineering, there
was essentially zero benefit._

I never thought of sulfate albedo enhancement as specifically about increasing
agricultural yields. I always thought of it as a band-aid measure to jam a
dangerous feedback loop of thawing tundra, ice cap loss, loss of stored carbon
from soils => even lower albedo, even more GHGs in the atmosphere, even higher
temperatures. Meanwhile humanity pokily gets its act together about cutting
emissions and deploying slower-acting CO2 countermeasures like accelerated
silicate weathering. I hope.

Knowing that crop yields don't get _any worse_ with sulfate albedo enhancement
is better news than I expected. (If you were expecting to lose a whole leg,
hearing that the doctors just have to amputate the foot is good news. My bar
for good news about climate change is set pretty low nowadays.)

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collective-intl
Agree that this isn't that bad of a result. I find that nearly every article
on geo-engineering is unnecessarily negative, always stressing the downsides
and trumping up the 'unknown' side-effects.

Is there anyone left who can do a neutral cost-benefit analysis?

From what I've read, it should be welcomed as a miracle that there happens to
be a simple, cheap technique that will decrease global temperatures, which has
already been tested naturally with volcanoes, has minimal effects other than
reflecting sunlight, fades out on its own over time, and can be precisely
regulated by the amount of particles injected.

I agree we need to be careful of other effects of deflecting the sunlight,
but, come on! The results so far are quite amazing.

It's this human bias against modifying our world (similar to the bias against
GMO's or improving IQ by tweaking genes) that has delayed geo-engineering
science by decades already. It's finally turning into a real field, and the
only mainstream articles are ones that report mostly negative results.

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joe_the_user
Well, maybe it would take reducing CO2 production and geo-engineering to stop
run away climate change.

But if Earth's various nation's can't collectively organize reduced CO2
production, and evidence so-far indicates they can't, trying to do geo-
engineering by itself looks ridiculous and criminal on multiple levels (among
the multiple methods of reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere, of course reduced production looks cheapest among them). And
humanity's future appears similar if these trends continue. Note to the rich
and other decision makers - no, you won't survive if the earth itself is
dying, there is no escape for anyone in this scenario.

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mirimir
> Note to the rich and other decision makers - no, you won't survive if the
> earth itself is dying, there is no escape for anyone in this scenario.

Hey, I agree with the sentiment. And still, there is virtually no chance of
the Earth dying from GCC. Sure, if it flips to full Venus mode. But it's my
understanding that experts consider that to be unlikely. I mean, the biosphere
goes down kilometers beneath the surface. Worst case, there'd be a few hundred
million years of ecological simplicity.

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ericd
Yep. I've always thought we should try to reframe it as "save humanity" rather
than "save the Earth". The Earth doesn't give a hoot, and it appeals more
directly in our self interest. "Save the Earth" makes people think we're
talking about things they only sort of care about, like saving the whales.

~~~
mirimir
> like saving the whales.

Some people consider whales tasty ;)

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ncmncm
All the geoengineering proposals I have encountered ignore ocean
acidification. A less-overheated planet with a dead ocean is hardly any better
than an overheated planet with a dead ocean.

That said, half of global climate disruption is from refrigerants. To prevent
ultimate disaster, existing refrigeration systems must be destroyed without
gas release, and replaced with systems that don't rely on (and leak) CFCs or
HFCs.

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chr1
This is not a problem with geo-engineering as a whole, but only with one of
the methods.

Other methods like sea fertilization, or building large number of solar
updraft towers are much more promising.

