Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Government United States Science

The US Government Has Approved Funds for Geoengineering Research (technologyreview.com) 150

The US government has for the first time authorized funding to research geoengineering, the idea that we could counteract climate change by reflecting more of the sun's heat away from the planet. An anonymous reader writes: The $1.4 trillion spending bills that Congress passed last week included a little-noticed provision setting aside at least $4 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to conduct stratospheric monitoring and research efforts. The primary aims of the program would include improving our basic understanding of stratospheric chemistry, and assessing the potential effects and risks of geoengineering. But it's controversial: There are concerns that using such tools could have dangerous environmental side effects, and that even suggesting them as solutions could ease pressure to cut the greenhouse-gas emissions driving climate change.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

The US Government Has Approved Funds for Geoengineering Research

Comments Filter:
  • Regardless of upon which side of the AGW debate one lies, the fact that the warmth from the Sun is what keeps the planet and its various residents alive is universally agreed upon. Even taking on faith that we'd be able to affect the climate in any way, this way seems so monumentally stupid that only the hubris of Government would deem it worthy of further study, as the too often ignored Law of Unintended Consequences would very likely rear its ever-present head and turn Good Intentions into Bad Policy.

    • this way seems so monumentally stupid that only the hubris of Government would deem it worthy of further study

      Telling citizens to reduce their CO2 output is political suicide, so... this is the way it's going to go at government level and it shouldn't surprise anybody who's been paying attention over the last 20 years.

      Anybody who thinks politicians or the public will do anything to save the planet is monumentally stupid.

      The only thing that can save Planet Earth now is new technologies. Something has to develop that's so compelling that everybody will demand to use it, not because it's good for the future.

      No, I have

      • "Telling citizens to reduce their CO2 output is political suicide,"

        That's funny... I hear politicians doing this all the time and from all sides... they have been in office for many years and I see no blood in the water.

        "Anybody who thinks politicians or the public will do anything to save the planet is monumentally stupid."

        That is too negative... if you were right we would never have created society to being with. Sure we are going to fuck it up all over the place on the way there, but we did in fact bui

        • "Telling citizens to reduce their CO2 output is political suicide,"

          That's funny... I hear politicians doing this all the time and from all sides...

          Sure but what's the schedule you hear from them? In ten years time? Twenty? "By 2050"...?

          • by HiThere ( 15173 )

            The real problem is not the schedule, though that's horrible, but the mechanisms they choose. They pick mechanisms that are designed to be cheated. "Carbon credits" is basically a scam. A carbon tax is much more reasonable, and could be harder to cheat.

      • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        this way seems so monumentally stupid that only the hubris of Government would deem it worthy of further study

        Telling citizens to reduce their CO2 output is political suicide, so... this is the way it's going to go at government level and it shouldn't surprise anybody who's been paying attention over the last 20 years.

        It's really telling that it's more palatable for some people to advocate potential global suicide than it is something that could possibly be political suicide....

      • Telling citizens to reduce their CO2 output is political suicide

        It seems quite obviously, but eventually at some point in the future, survivors are going to start simply killing people who will not stop polluting.

        I agree the solution is not entirely political. Just as, murder isn't reduced by politics, but by physical actions taken by other humans to stop or imprison the perpetrators.

        It amazes me how many people don't comprehend that it won't just be remote foreigners starving when the system of food distribution breaks down. They picture themselves sitting in their liv

    • the fact that the warmth from the Sun is what keeps the planet and its various residents alive is universally agreed upon.

      We ain't talking about blocking out the sun entirely, champ.

      Even taking on faith that we'd be able to affect the climate in any way, this way seems so monumentally stupid

      Here's what is truly stupid - to be against the only idea that can actually be easily reversed (by moving the blocking out of the way or adjusting it).

      ALL OTHER SOLUTIONS are more or less permanent, or take a very long

    • by rastos1 ( 601318 )

      this way seems so monumentally stupid that only the hubris of Government ...

      Luckily our Government ... oh, darn it :-(

    • I think I'm more worried about what the Chinese or Russians might accidentally do with this technology. We do not need to fund the research, then turn over Earth-destroying tech to governments that can't be trusted that well. Of course that's probably the reason we're doing this research... "they'll beat us to it, so we better do it first". Great. Meanwhile we're killing off every other species and chopping or burning down forests at stupid speeds. I really want us to preserve some of the beauty left on thi

      • by HiThere ( 15173 )

        What makes you think the US government is any more reliable in this context? The only countries likely to benefit from this are the countries around the equator...and even that's dubious. This would be likely to shut off the Jet Stream, and possibly even the Great Conveyor ocean current. That's not a localizable effect.

    • That's like saying it is up to debate if your boogers are God. It shows ignorance, but there is no debate implied.

      "Nanner nanner I don't believe you, you can't force me to believe you, nanner nanner" is not a debate position, it is purely within the realms of politics and personal aesthetics.

      That a thing can be believed by some human does not in any way imply that it is logical, or that their belief is part of a "debate."

  • Sure, we could legislate a smooth and transition off of fossil fuels over the course of 20 years, but that would be too hard. So, we are going to go the easy route and try to completely geo-engineer the entire planet without screwing it up in the process.

    • Sure, we could legislate a smooth and transition off of fossil fuels over the course of 20 years, but that would be too hard. So, we are going to go the easy route and try to completely geo-engineer the entire planet without screwing it up in the process.

      Spending $4 million every year for the next two decades will do exactly nothing to achieve that goal over the next 20 years. Recognizing that fossil fuels are about as future proof a technology as horse drawn carts were around 1900 and putitng some force behind phasing out fossil fuels would be better but the US in particular is just too apathetic, deluded and slothful to do that. This is not to say that Geo engineering is useless, it is worth looking at but your plan of trying Geo engineering while still p

      • "but the US in particular is just too apathetic, deluded and slothful to do that."

        What is this... Stupid Olympics day on Slashdot? It's the money moron... it has always been the money, it has never been, and never will be about anything else!

        Everything comes down to it, no matter how much people run their filthy holes about virtue and belief.
        Every War between nations... was about money. Civil wars... all of them about money. Take US Civil War which people claimed was about slavery... it's total bullshit.

    • The time for that was twenty years ago. We should still do it, but it's too late to save the biosphere. If all we did now was transition off of fossil fuels, it would only prolong the inevitable.

      • You are wrong and the science doesn't back you up. There is still plenty of time to minimize the long term effects of climate change.
        The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is today.

      • The time for that was twenty years ago. We should still do it, but it's too late to save the biosphere. If all we did now was transition off of fossil fuels, it would only prolong the inevitable.

        Just because we're past of the point of stopping major negative changes doesn't imply that we're past the point of making useful reductions in those changes.

      • Wait, I thought we still had a little over 11 years to go, per AOC and Bernie and others! Now you're telling me it's too late? Well screw you all - time to party like it's the end of the world because you just said it is the end of the world...
        • by HiThere ( 15173 )

          Depends on what your goal is. If you want to save Greenland's ice it's probably too late. Antarctica, though, may still be salvageable.

          I believe (as a non-expert) that we're already committed to the 2 degree rise in temperature because of lags in the system. But we still have time to keep it below 5 degrees. In between...I don't know, and I don't think anyone does. There are feedback loops that haven't been identified yet. E.g. "Just how much methane will be emitted as the permafrost thaws?" or "Will

  • You have to wonder (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 )

    how many trees you could plant for $4 million dollars.

    And how easily a new ice age could be triggered by well intentioned efforts.

    • how many trees you could plant for $4 million dollars.

      And how easily a new ice age could be triggered by well intentioned efforts.

      There was more forest in the US in 2012 than in 1920 [wikipedia.org]. So I'm not sure the problem is planting trees ...

      • But worldwide, the number has decreased quite a bit. The climate doesn't care what country the trees are in. It's all the same atmosphere. From https://www.nationalgeographic... [nationalgeographic.com]:

        Between 1990 and 2016, the world lost 502,000 square miles (1.3 million square kilometers) of forest, according to the World Bank--an area larger than South Africa. Since humans started cutting down forests, 46 percent of trees have been felled, according to a 2015 study in the journal Nature. About 17 percent of the Amazonian rainforest has been destroyed over the past 50 years, and losses recently have been on the rise.

    • Planting trees isn't the problem, it is finding places to plant trees which are.
      We have large spots of land that have been deforested to put up things like Farms, Housing, Cities, Factories... Things that we rely on to keep us alive, and comfortable, with out having to live like a cave man.
      While there are some areas where is just a big lawn is mostly for ascetic reasons they are on private property where we can't force people to plant trees. But other areas there is a safety concern on having too many tre

      • by Xenna ( 37238 )

        ...and that in most countries around the world at the same time. Countries that are in different stages of development, that they may not want to cut short because they feel it's their turn now...

        Climate change is not a regional phenomenon...

    • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      Roughly 4 million trees, assuming you owned the land in the first place. My dad and I reforested 550 hectares and we figured roughly $1 per tree, planted. Mind you this was 15+ years ago.
    • ..but Bobstreo, there's no profit to be made in planting silly old trees! Surely that money can be spent on something we don't need that can be sold at a massive profit and ensure some CEO can afford that new yacht he's had his eye on! Sheesh, 'trees', don't be so silly! </extreme_sarcasm>
  • "Earth's Radiation Budget.- In lieu of House language regarding Earth's radiation budget, the agreement provides no less than $4,000,000 for modeling, assessments, and, as possible, initial observations and monitoring of stratospheric conditions and the Earth's radiation budget, including the impact of the introduction of material into the stratosphere from changes in natural systems, increased air and space traffic, proposals to inject material to affect climate, and the assessment of solar climate interve

  • Worth a look for further insight into options. Volcano eruptions and asteroids are among large geo events that could prompt and opposite reaction.
  • Have none of these fools watched the movie "Snowpiercer"? Time to invest in trains!
  • All those sulfate emissions we just removed with international ship fuels is a massive increase in solar heating ... like adding a decade or twos worth of CO2.
  • Even if successful, geoengineering does not address acidified oceans from the extra CO2 in the atmosphere. That means shellfish and krill are scarce, it means sprawling dead zones, it means the base of the oceanic food web is knocked out. It means that the way nutrients cycle through the ocean's ecosystems and back to the land will be curtailed. That's the stuff of major mass extinctions.

    But, old addled dinosaurs have got to make money, and money's sure to have meaning when global famines hit.

  • by ToTheStars ( 4807725 ) on Thursday December 26, 2019 @09:50AM (#59558388)
    "...not studying the effects of geoengineering is even stupider." There are a lot of really fanciful geoengineering ideas (sunshades, and so on), but some of them are quite achievable, even by small nations or wealthy individuals, like dumping a barge full of iron filings to promote algae blooms (and then keeping the iron coming so they don't die and put all that carbon back into the atmosphere, I suppose). If we don't study these technologies and discover their side effects, a low-lying nation or wealthy activist might feel tempted to take pre-emptive action to protect themselves from climate change and then get us stuck with the consequences. Or maybe we'll find a couple of 'least bad' options that can be integrated into a larger plan for dealing with climate change.
  • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
    $4 million. With that they can hire a handful of people and a receptionist, rent a nice office for a few years and spitball a bunch of ideas that will never work let alone never be tested. But they can say they're doing something. On the other hand it's better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing...
  • This is what you get when you use fear as a motivator. Suddenly the most dangerous hare-brained schemes get consideration. In the best case this is just a stalling tactic used to give the appearance of doing something. At worst it is more problematic than the problem it purports to address.

    The problem and solution are straightforward: we consume needlessly and inefficiently. We need to stop doing so.

    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      No. In the best case we find something that works with minimal adverse side effects.

      we consume needlessly and inefficiently. We need to stop doing so.

      What will the side effects of this be? Putting millions of factory workers and supply chain employees out of work. Poverty, starvation, homelessness, social unrest, riots and lynching. And when the mob comes looking for the people responsible, will you post your address?

  • by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Thursday December 26, 2019 @11:35AM (#59558782)

    Looks like they are only talking millions, a drop in the bucket. If climate change is as serious a problem as many people think it is, then knowing and understanding ALL the options we have to combat it seems like a very good idea. There are no painless options - so we need to learn about all of them to make the best decision.

    In addition the research seems related to other climate research and so will increase our overall knowledge of how the climate system works.

    People have gotten WAY to political on this if they object to *research* into options because they don't match their own ideology 4 *million* dollars, not billion, not trillion. Geoengineering might be a great emergency measure if things start to get out of hand. Surely its worth learning more for such a tiny cost.

  • We don't want to use geoengineering, but we'll need to use it. It doesn't fix all the problems of climate change, and it can create new problems of its own. If we'd gotten our act together 30 years ago, we wouldn't need geoengineering. But we've dithered too long. Now it's too late. Even if we do everything else, it still won't be enough. So we'll have to use geoengineering, and we'd better start studying it to figure out the best way of doing it.

2 pints = 1 Cavort

Working...