Experiments to dim the sun given green light

[highplainsdem]

Source: The Times (UK)

Research into whether the sun could be dimmed to combat global warming will be given the go-ahead by the government within weeks and £50 million is expected to be spent on experiments and analysis.

The geo-engineering techniques that will be explored include spraying aerosolised particles high into the stratosphere to deflect a small fraction of the sun’s energy away from the Earth.

Early modelling studies have suggested that this may cool the planet relatively cheaply. Advocates have pointed to natural experiments in which emissions of such particles through volcanic eruptions led to the Earth cooling. However, experts have warned of possible unintended consequences, including the potentially catastrophic disruption of weather patterns.

Other geo-engineering techniques that will be looked at include “marine cloud brightening” — spraying sea salt into the atmosphere, making the clouds whiter and deflecting solar radiation. Another option involves thinning natural cirrus clouds, which act as heat-trapping blankets.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/environment/article/uk-experiments-dim-sun-global-warming-fss9l5cw5

[Ponietz]

1. Smoking with a tracheotomy

[Silent Type]

10. I actually saw a patient in a wheelchair outside a dialysis center doing just that. Freaked me out.

Sorry, has nothing to do with OP, but reminded me.

[thought crime]

11. That's an even more perfect metaphor

Reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon from about 20 years ago. A large planet acting as doctor (with stethoscope, etc) and Earth looking sick (sneezy).
The Planet-Doctor tells Earth-Patient, "I'm sorry. You've got humans."

[Figarosmom]

39. I remember that

[Earl_from_PA]

2. Mr. Burns tried something like this once...

https://m.

[underpants]

9. My first thought as well.

[StevieM]

37. Maggie put a stop to it. (eom)

[C Moon]

38. :D "Owls will defean us with incessant hooting!"

[C_U_L8R]

3. How about "pollute less"? Is that so hard?

And what's the point of this magic shield if we're just going to belch out more smoke and gasses into the atmosphere?

[melm00se]

6. We may be past the point

where "pollute less" will have a substantive quick response.

[IbogaProject]

7. We are decades past only "consuming less"

Jimmy Carter had a comprehensive plan to get us off of imported oil by the year 2000 using only 1970s technology and maybe some estimates of likely efficiency improvements. Now were are almost 100 ppm of CO2 higher then we were then. This won't be incremental, it is leading to more week to week variability. This includes about 3 high temp records per 1 low temp record, but the pace of record temps either way has been increasing. The amount of water in the air is increasing, and the combination of heat with humidity is what will start killing many people every summer. Even here where we have Air Conditioning, if the power goes out it could turn deadly fast. It is now time to attempt things like this. I personally believe we need to take every nuclear powered ship and start building up the arctic and antarctic ice covers to try and increase our planets reflectivity. And the geologic records shows that rapid climate shifts go exponentially and usually happen over just 10-15 years, if we've begun a switch, which the increase in warming indicates it is about to get very serious. And this is happening far faster than previous switches at the start or end of recent ice ages. Our plants like trees won't be able to settle into new climate zones fast enough.

We haven't been above 400 ppm for about 15 million years, humans and our food sources aren't evolved to handle what is coming in our lifetimes. https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/ The average temperature worldwide was 10 to 20 degrees warmer overall, with less variations, just very hot or hot all the time.

[electric_blue68]

14. I don't remember if I suggested in a post waaay back (for me, been here ? anout 2+ - 3 yrs)....

an international effort of ships in the artic in a three, or four ship clusters stretching out extremely strong how ever treated white fabric to increase reflectivity.

[electric_blue68]

15. Fucking Reagan taking down the WH Solar Panels...we really could have had a head start at all this!

🤬😭🤬

It would have slowed climate change down maybe a fair amount, at the same time with that government encouragement in that direction more ideas for green energy, sequestration of CO2, ?trapping more methane, etc would have been encouraged.
.
We need a "Sigh" emoji. 👍

[angryxyouth]

19. I'm kind of old

But if I remember correctly, it was actually a solar hot water system not panels. I believe UVM ended up with it. But your premise is still right. Carter understand what the scientists were saying and Reagan said fuck it. Carter also helped get fluorocarbons banned because there was a huge hole in the ozone that because of Carter and actions by our allies, first world countries, the hole was able to fixed itself.

[angryxyouth]

27. There were Experiments with solar panels

by the government. Back in the Bush Sr. days. I was working in demolition back then and a government bid notice went out to demolish a giant area of solar panels in the desert. They would have been nothing like what we have now but I think that was the end of government research on solar panels for a while.

[sl8]

29. They were thermal (hot water), not photovoltaic, but they were still panels.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/

[electric_blue68]

32. Ooops, ty for the correction. I forgot about the flurocarbons.

[Igel]

25. Yes.

When other countries ramp up carbon emissions so much that it wipes out our reductions. What to do? Impose tariffs if they don't abide by our rules?

Oddly, those tariffs might reduce emissions. Less imported crap-manufacture = less off-shored carbon emissions. All that crap we get from China or Mexico or Vietnam--that's on *their* carbon budgets, we just pay them to emit the carbon ... yes ... in our name. And by any means necessary.

Note that last Sunday I plopped 25 species of mostly cactus seeds into pony packs and covered them with panes of glass to trap in moisture. Monday when I came home from work I found the sun that managed to get under the back porch, past the crepe myrtle and Mexican fan palms, was too intense and I didn't like the temperature of the mini-greenhouse I set up. My response? Strung up 40% shade cloth. It's a 2-fer. It'll reduce the insolation of the germination area and it'll reduce the insolation of the wall for the master bedroom--should have done that 10 years ago, to be honest.

What they're planning is short-term--it'll be washed out of the atmosphere in a few weeks. Given the area involved and the way the atmosphere works, if they reduced the insolation by 100% it would produce darkness in a shifting area for a week or two before dispersing to near no effect.

It's one of the two geo-engineering approaches I favor; the other is seeding the ocean with Fe and Ca and letting phytoplankton harvest all that excess solar energy to produce biomass.

[dweller]

4. Send the Pisswig , couchf'r and e skum (N-ZA)

In a rocket into the Sun …. It won’t dim it , but it will brighten life here on Earth


✌🏻

[SheltieLover]

13. ...

[littlemissmartypants]

44. ❤️

[Shipwack]

5. What could possibly go wrong?

Sounds like the opening narration of a post-apocalyptic movie...

or ?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

12. I'm sure we can invent a space-based vacuum cleaner to collect all these particles ...

... when the next ice-age appears.

[forgotmylogin]

40. Yeah, if only there were some kind of protective layer around the Earth, maybe made of ozone...

That might work like sunglasses or window tinting to prevent UV and heat from building up like a greenhouse...

[speak easy]

8. 1816 - The Year Without Summer

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/1816-the-year-without-summer.htm

[SamuelTheThird]

16. Once you start spraying the stratosphere you can never cease

It was obvious all along geo-engineering was going to be tried

[Igel]

26. Well, you can but you remove the protection.

Think of it as a condom (or hormonal birth control). Yes, if that's how you're going to do things, you can never really stop. Unless that's not how you want to do things any more or you've simply stopped doing those things.

[iemanja]

17. They've covered this in sci fi movies

It doesn't turn out well.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

18. What could possibly go wrong?

[Orrex]

20. I'm sure that this will work perfectly with no unforeseen consequences.

[xuplate]

21. Men that play god because they haven't trashed the planet enough.

[Botany]

22. How about putting less targets for the Sun's infrared rays to hit and heat up and then releasing that ..

….. energy into our atmosphere? You know CO 2 or CH 4 as the target of those infrared rays that are
produced by the burning of fossil fuels. Dimming Sun Light to cool our atmosphere? What a scam.

[PortTack]

23. Great...what could,possibly go wrong?!

[cbabe]

24. Who has the big bucks contract?

[LudwigPastorius]

28. Somebody, please tell me that a full scale version of this wouldn't accidentally destroy the ozone layer.

"You are meddling with the primal forces of nature!"

[Midnight Writer]

30. "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!"-wisdom from an old margarine commercial

[Bread and Circuses]

31. B.S. If everyone switched to a plant based diet we would reduce the poison that is killing us all

[AdamGG]

33. Then there would also be less soloar energy for photosynthesis

and there would be lower agricultural yields.

[truthisfreedom]

34. I'm doing what I can. I have a Rivian and exceptionally efficient when driven carefully.

I love it. If you can afford one, get one. Used ones like mine are a steal compared to new and the warranties are excellent.

[LT Barclay]

35. The ending of the Dinosaurs series by Jim Henson. I couldn't find full episode, but it is worth viewing.

?si=zk2JC9bamiYE73IT

[littlemissmartypants]

45. ❤️

[patphil]

36. We think this will work.

Sure, lets just alter the upper atmosphere to cool us down a bit. By the time we actually know how this will work globally, it'll be a bit late to say oops.

BUT if it works, we can go on polluting down here on the surface with no consequences.
That's the thinking behind this.
It's terrifying to say the least.

[C Moon]

41. To me, this means that those who fought tooth-and-nail to deny global warming, now believe it is a problem.

But on edit, maybe we've reached the point of no return. So defense is now a necessity.

[Layzeebeaver]

42. Project ULTRON - "I see a suit of armour around the world..."

what could possibly go wrong?

?si=7OMrVAvikIsTbZZT

[Karasu]

43. Rather than remotely change our unsustainable economic systems to save the planet, let's spend money

to DIM THE FUCKING SUN.

Because that's so much more fucking rational, don't you know.

Humanity sucks. We have completely lost the plot. But now that we're here, I guess it's better than nothing.

[littlemissmartypants]

46. Exactly. ...

My first thought was what a waste of money.

I'd rather it fed children. There might be one or two intelligent children who could actually grow up to create a better world if we would feed them.

The last few generations have already thrown enough money around and done little more that fu>k things up.

❤️

[Hugin]

47. Eliminating commuting and curtailing jet travel would cut carbon emissions by between 25 to 40%.

But, that’s too hard. Let’s dim the Sun instead.

[Javaman]

48. there is a Simpsons clip for everything...

?si=aEHzlx3_S5IPS-el

[Paladin]

49. Are we sure the trump boys aren't involved in this?

Eric and Don jr.: Talk about a couple of Dim Sons...

[Conjuay]

50. instead of tackling the problem

Let's come up with some stupid, cockamamie plan to launch more pollution into the upper atmosphere.

I'm sure Musk will get the contract-

Think about that a minute.

[twodogsbarking]

51. Couldn't we just put tarriffs on sun light.

[orangecrush]

53. England doesn't get much sun anyway

Misery loves company.

"Bloody Weather!"

?si=mEwRLE3bD8VC2zEm

[orangecrush]

52. What could possibly go wrong?

[Bristlecone]

54. This is the exact plot line to the movie Snowpiercer

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowpiercer