Wow gee wiz, it’s almost like my original comment was: go do some reading.
Regarding the “no way to undo” and the “violent snap back”, we know the desire albedo effects dissipate and therefore require continuous maintenance.
However, these aerosols also cause hard-to-reverse reactions to other things like damaging the ozone layer and causing rain pattern shifts.
Yeah, most climate catastrophe scenarios are of the severity you describe. This one is not.
The entire point of SAI is to “save up” damage to the environment. So over 100 years of SAI and then stopping, you will incur 100 years of atmospheric and temperature changes within a few months.
And that’s only over a hundred years. If we depend on this and do it for a thousand years, now it’s a thousand years of damage applied in months.
This is far, far, far faster than any biological system evolves. Sure maybe some microbes that can survive in a gigantic range of environments could survive, but no, probably no complex life forms would.
> Wow gee wiz, it’s almost like my original comment was: go do some reading.
My understanding is that the whole purpose of HN is to discuss interesting topics with intellectual curiosity. "Go do some reading" type statements aren't really conducive. What would be more appropriate is recommending specific sources, or just taking a moment to elaborate since the whole point is discussion.
I appreciate your elaborations in this last comment. I don't appreciate the dismissive tone of your first line or your earlier comment.
> Regarding the “no way to undo” and the “violent snap back”, we know the desire albedo effects dissipate and therefore require continuous maintenance.
> However, these aerosols also cause hard-to-reverse reactions to other things like damaging the ozone layer and causing rain pattern shifts.
This makes sense. I guess where the logic breaks down for me is the conflation between the time it would take us to recognize the second order effects and stop the process, the amount of violent snap back that would occur, and the time to reverse the second order effects.
To be clear, I understand the risk you are pointing at and it is a significant risk, it still seems like you are exaggerating it.
It's either we do this for thousands of years (in which case the second order effects must be minor to make it sustainable for that long), or we do it for a short time because second order effects aren't sustainable.
It's the logical relationship between the reversibility, second order effects, and magnitude of snap back risks that isn't adding up for me.
All this said, as I've engaged in this topic and thought more about it, my current stance is that we shouldn't be introducing new things into the climate to address the consequences of other changes we have made. A safer approach seems like economically sustainable ways to undo the root-cause damage we have done. (E.g. CO2 capture sounds better than novel aerosol injection).
So I think we probably agree in principle, I just still find the comment I responded to originally alarmist and not very convincing.
> It's either we do this for thousands of years (in which case the second order effects must be minor to make it sustainable for that long), or we do it for a short time because second order effects aren't sustainable.
Just like building petrochemical-dependent societies!
Err, actually, there’s a third option: we put ourselves into a pickle.
Pretty much no hard problem would exist if the dynamic you’re describing were necessarily valid in general, and you’ve done nothing to demonstrate it’s valid in this particular case.
It is absolutely possible for the side effects to be hard to detect, widespread, hard to mitigate once detected, and for us nevertheless to be otherwise dependent upon continuing to produce those effects. See: fossil fuels.
But fossil fuels do not have the same snapback risk. This actually does.
> It is absolutely possible for the side effects to be hard to detect, widespread, hard to mitigate once detected, and for us nevertheless to be otherwise dependent upon continuing to produce those effects.
Oh I completely agree that it's possible, but there are some very material differences between those examples.
The purpose of fossil fuels is increasing access to energy and The downside is climate change. The purpose of the aerosol injection would be climate management and the downside would be unintended climate change. If it's not working as intended we are far more likely to stop doing it because of the direct relationship between the purpose and the issues.
Also, we got hooked on fossil fuels before we had the science to understand the long term consequences to the climate.
So to summarize there are at least two very material differences:
- fossil fuels were essential to reducing energy costs whereas I don't see a direct economic benefit to aerosol injection, just the purpose of managing climate damage. Am I missing something?
- our scientific understanding at the beginning of adoption will be materially different and we are a lot more likely to detect issues earlier on. Not certainly, but materially more likely.
To me the combination of these two things makes it a fundamentally different dynamic.
I am sure it sounds like I'm advocating for aerosol injection, but I'm actually just playing devil's advocate and trying to strengthen my understanding by pointing out the holes I'm seeing in your explanations.
If there's ever a specific source that you think would help fill a gap in my understanding I am receptive to checking it out.
Regarding the “no way to undo” and the “violent snap back”, we know the desire albedo effects dissipate and therefore require continuous maintenance.
However, these aerosols also cause hard-to-reverse reactions to other things like damaging the ozone layer and causing rain pattern shifts.
Yeah, most climate catastrophe scenarios are of the severity you describe. This one is not.
The entire point of SAI is to “save up” damage to the environment. So over 100 years of SAI and then stopping, you will incur 100 years of atmospheric and temperature changes within a few months.
And that’s only over a hundred years. If we depend on this and do it for a thousand years, now it’s a thousand years of damage applied in months.
This is far, far, far faster than any biological system evolves. Sure maybe some microbes that can survive in a gigantic range of environments could survive, but no, probably no complex life forms would.