Are there any attempts to start geo-engineering to fix this? I'm assuming there will be no attempt to stop dumping carbon into the atmosphere, can we at least do something to take it back out? Can we use solar or renewables to possibly do that at scale?

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grumbelbart 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Putting sulfur into the right layers of the atmosphere seems to be the currently best viable options. It's not overly expensive, either. It acts fast and is reversible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injectio...

	▲	triceratops an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Dumb question: would this also lower solar panel yields?
	▲	alcover 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Thank you. This reading lowers my anxiety. I believe we'll rationally - and in a hurry - come down to this kind of solution. It makes solid sense.

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swiftcoder 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So far all of the carbon capture techniques (apart from growing forests and keeping them protected) have been pretty unsuccessful, and/or don't scale well.

That leaves us in the realm of solutions that may be very likely to disrupt our ecosystem themselves, like genetically-engineering algae/phytoplankton to improve ocean carbon sequestration

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SV_BubbleTime 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> apart from growing forests and keeping them protected)

I’m in a loop. I must be.

How are people still basic at this? No. Forests are not “carbon capture” devices.

Plant a big forest and “protect” (which means thinning it, unless you are California) and in 100 years most trees have died, rotted, released their carbon.

There is so much wrong with the alarmism here, so much hand waving away of scale when it is inconvenient… that it’s like people are doing more damage than good when they jump up and down over this stuff.

It’s almost like if the jumping up and down and alarmism has a different purpose, a whole separate game removed from the issues at hand.

	▲	krashidov an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The carbon in our atmosphere is already in the atmosphere and it won't go away. So there really is nothing more you can do other than take it out of the air and store it somewhere for as long as you can. Trees are a good way to store it until we have better technology/can handle climate change better

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mapmeld 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't think carbon capture / sequestration is going to do enough, but if we continue slipping into this trajectory I think there will be more support for changing reflectivity (spraying sea water, or putting particles in the stratosphere).

	▲	peterbecich 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Stratospheric aerosols: the dangers of this seem overblown. It is milder than a volcanic eruption. It seems like a reasonable thing governments should be attempting.

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bayindirh 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There are currently no power efficient and scalable ways to remove carbon dioxide from air or water.

Renewables are considered woke technology which mock old and masculine fossil fuel tech, which feel threatened by all these white spinny things, hence renewable energy projects are being actively discouraged or canceled altogether.

You know, we'd be all woke and weird if our cars don't have 8 cylinders and make wroom sounds. Same for our chimneys and power architecture. Woke electrons should be banned. We need masculine, fossil based electrons, which are more powerful per electron than wind/solar based fluffy/hippie ones.

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exitb 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The rich don’t care which side you’re on, as long as you’re fighting each other.

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bayindirh 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't play that game. I only do what I can do with what I have and don't care about losing time with pointless fights.

I may not be able to save the whole planet, but at least I'll leave my area a bit better as my capacity and time allows.

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theossuary 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Both sides aren't fighting each other, one side has turned themselves into a weapon for rich pedophiles to attack the other side with.

	▲	exitb an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Notably, both sides held that exact view in recent times.

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swiftcoder 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Renewables are considered woke technology which mock old and masculine fossil fuel tech...

This is mostly a US problem at this point. The rest of the world is adopting renewables considerably faster than anyone expected (and despite the best efforts of the current administration, the adoption curve is accelerating even in the US).

That said, it's still apparent that even optimistic estimates of renewable energy adoption aren't fast enough to fix the climate crisis on their own.

	▲	bayindirh 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> This is mostly a US problem at this point. Yeah I know, and I'm not from that side of the ocean. I worded my comment like that since most users here are from the US. electricitymaps paints a nice picture, though. We'll be using them in a project, so I'll be able to see the nitty gritty details soonish. At least some of us are trying. Maybe we'll fail, but not all of us are that ignorant, and that's better than nothing.

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bamboozled 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Needed to happen 30 years ago.

Now it’s drill baby drill time.