I suppose if I was this much of a ghoul, I'd also be deathly scared of socialism because there's no way someone who's ready to gas the whole planet is only a Nazi about this one specific thing.
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2024
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I think I see a negative externality on the wall over there. Maybe he should go and get a closer look.
Looks like he's at least into nazi facial hair...dude has a Hitler mustache going on idk
By the way, Ive been saying for years that they are 100% going to do this shit. They are going to keep the pedal to the floor on carbon emissions until it becomes impossibility to ignore any longer and then sell this as a magical technocratic solution. This is going to be a liberal consensus position in like ten years
Doesn't China produce more new solar capacity than the rest of the world has like every year?
Yeah but why wouldn't they want to spend a bunch of money to make their solar panels 1% less effective for the benefit of the US imperial order? Just makes sense really.
Note that the "negative externalities" are implied and not listed.
Its pretty clear what they are: freeze peach no iphone vuvuzela
But of course, can't have Imperialists living like subjects of Empire.
I did a two-year post-doc in a climate modeling lab at a major research university studying exactly this proposal. I have peer-reviewed publications on it. I cannot overstate what a bad idea it is. It would kill--at minimum--tens of millions of people, and set off the worst refugee crisis the world has ever seen as global precipitation patterns shifted--and those are the effects we know about. Once we start it, we will have to run it indefinitely or incur absolutely apocalyptic snap-back temperature increases.
Still, I will be absolutely flabbergasted if we don't implement this sometime in the next 15 years. It's cheap, effective at controlling temperature increases, and will let us continue to kick the can down the road for meaningful climate action.
It would kill--at minimum--tens of millions of people
What is the mechanism for this?
Shifting precipitation patterns.
Drought in moist regions, floods in arid regions, massive shifts in farming methods that would be necessitated by famine/crop failure, drying of wells and rivers that provided drinking water.
Surely this is the type of climate change impact that wouldnt affect the continental United States though? Right??
It would actually probably be a net positive for the US, at least in most places (and at least if you ignore the blowback from the rest of the world). We're less likely to get hit by major precipitation changes, have the technology to shift our agriculture practices to compensate for what changes we do see, and the capital to adapt. A significant (>2°C) temperature reduction is likely to have enough positive effects for us to make it at least a wash. The same is not true for the rest of the world. We all know how much that matters to us, though. This is part of why I'm not optimistic about us keeping this particular genie in the bottle. 
I'm in Colorado and my house already has been within a mile of a wildfire due to increased drought from climate change, as well as being within 10 miles of catastrophic flooding.
Climate is everywhere.
Same, it's scary how close the fires get sometimes
Primarily precipitation pattern shifts. Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is highly likely to result in less precipitation falling globally overall, but it's really the distribution that's worrying. Our natural model for this--the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the 1990s--caused an almost perfect inversion of global precipitation patterns: places that usually get a lot of rain turned dry, and places that are usually dry got a lot of rain. The effect was detectable for more than two years, and appeared and disappeared right along with the temperature reduction signal.
Here's the precipitation anomaly and Palmer Drought Severity index data for 1991 and 1992, immediately after the eruption. Warmer colors mean less water:
Computational modeling of SAI has indicated that this was not a fluke, and that the degree of change will likely increase with more aerosols in the stratosphere. Both elements of the switch are bad: if you're used to dry conditions, excess precipitation brings flash flooding, erosion, and mudslides. If you're used to rainy conditions, a lack of precipitation brings drought, famine, and fire. SE Asia--and other places that rely on a stable seasonal monsoon--are likely to be especially hard hit, and we have every indication that the shift would be permanent for as long as we kept up SAI. That's why I said it would set off the worst refugee crisis in the world's history.
Ah that's horrifying, I never appreciated this aspect of geo-engineering
Virtually any geo-engineering solution will have horrific side effects. It's a matter of how systems work. You can easily control a linear system with a feedback loop. We know all of the math and the equations are easy (if sometimes tedious) to solve by hand or by computer. For some non-linear systems, you can approximate them as linear and control them that way. For other non-linear systems like the climate, which are chaotically non-linear, only god can help you.
Hell, even if the climate did respond linearly (enough), controlling it would still be very difficult. For an N-order linear system (that is, there are N number of states, or energy storing "devices" in the system), you need to continuously provide N inputs in a precisely calculated way to control it. You also need at least N sensors to be able to keep track of the N states, whether directly or indirectly. On top of that, we would still need massive amounts of energy and materials to actually provide the control inputs.
If you did all that, then geo-engineers could control the climate in a predictable way. But the thing is, in political consciousness, very few people actually know what it would take to control the climate. Most people think of geo-engineering as a cheap and quick way of solving climate change. It is not.
To use an analogy, imagine you are driving your car off a cliff. You could press the brakes (reduce emissions), or you could build a paraglider, attach it to your car and then fly off the cliff (geo-engineering).
Still, I will be absolutely flabbergasted if we don't implement this sometime in the next 15 years
Ah but have you considered I still want my funkopops delivered with same day amazon delivery
Who needs blue skies
Pah, scientists. Always so pessimistic. Do you remember what they said about Corona and masking? And it wasn't so bad at all, barely a cold. Few million old, poor people died but look at the economy!
Do you have sources to read about this? I'm very curious about it having seen it bought up over and over again. Always thought that it was gonna blowback on us bad even if it bought some time
Yeah, I'll put together an effort post tomorrow.
👏
In tech
Are you sure you and your lot aren't just trying to sell us something? I think people forgot there's other smart people in the world other than folks in the tech industry.
The tech sector seems to have a high concentration of people who believe that because they understand one complex thing, they must inherently understand other complex things
"I can program well in 5 languages therefore my opinions on economics are valuable"
Engineers disease. https://ask.metafilter.com/297591/Origin-of-the-term-Engineers-Disease
Most engineers I’ve met are a fantastic example of the need for mass re-education.
Probably some of the most dangerous people in the current day and age. Imagine having the knowledge allowing you to get work where you do something like develop weapons of mass destruction used to vaporize entire communities and ecosystems (ooh didn’t realize how this can be equally applied to car manufacturers and military contractors what fun!) and using THAT background as some sort of proof that you’re an expert when it comes to everything.
Enraging doesn’t even begin to describe it
In my school, the physics majors talked shit about the engineering students. Most of them had no patience, always wanting to skip to the end of a proof just to get the answer/formula.
Honestly, I think a lot of it comes down to Autism and other social/behavioral challenges that are absolutely boosted sky-high by being used by ruthless capitalist actors from a young age.
Not saying everyone in tech is a nice person at the core but being on the spectrum also specifically makes you vulnerable for propaganda.
On the other hand I have the suspicion a lot of lefties are on the spectrum as well. So maybe it does come down to personal choices.
Ready for taking some heat, but I think engineers are actually a great example of a group of people that learns how systems work but often never think to apply this thinking to social questions. Rationality of engineering is very "apply advanced concept to concrete example and understand how limitations (conditions) and accuracy affect the system." Which is beautiful and awesome. Just that the people who study it are often freaks who love bombs. And if they're not, they still just cannot grasp the social question.
This is to say, I must defend engineers to an extent, but reeducation is likely a fine option because they mostly have all the bases to understand.
Ready for taking some heat, but I think engineers are actually a great example of a group of people that learns how systems work but often never think to apply this thinking to social questions. Rationality of engineering is very "apply advanced concept to concrete example and understand how limitations (conditions) and accuracy affect the system." Which is beautiful and awesome. Just that the people who study it are often freaks who love bombs. And if they're not, they still just cannot grasp the social question.
This is to say, I must defend engineers to an extent, but reeducation is likely a fine option because they mostly have all the bases to understand.