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The climate change we caused is here for at least 50,000 years – and probably far longer
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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Are these "generations" in the room with us right now?
Maybe if we get cheap automated lunar manufacturing we could set up some solar shades?
That’s all i’ve got, no one is going to put massive effort into restoring a diffrent climate for the hell of it. By that point they’ve already adapted to the new normal. I mean you might see some efforts over time in a effort to cut forest fires and hurricanes, but given that emissions are still accelerating over fifty years after the UN found we need to get rid of them entirely i doubt there’s going to be much effort to undo that.
I think solar occlusion is the way to go; you could harvest solar power 24/7 and beam it back via microwave; you could directly occlude the amount of sunlight impacting the earth, enabling fine and localized changes, and it wouldn't require pumping unknowns into the atmosphere and hoping there isn't some kind of whiplash effect down the road.
it's just expensive as fuck due to the amount of material; a lunar manufacturing operation is a must.
That's magnitudes more expensive than stopping fossils right now. Not to mention the impact on ecosystems worldwide.
Oh no - I in no way advocated that - fossil fuels must be stopped. Period. I just worry that in the short term - 100-200 years - it won't make much of a difference to the heat running out of control. And in order to 'stop' fossil fuels takes time - even with a ruthless implementation. We're going to be lucky to stop the world from exploration of fossil fuels and not burning the already known shit - but also, I suspect mass deaths from heat will galvanize enough of the world population to see it through.
Meantime, an automated construction system on the moon that lofts sections of wafer thin occluder panels into position gradually building a system described in my post.... might actually prevent the worst parts of runaway heating by stopping a small but significant percentage day after day when needed.