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PaperclipPerfector  24d ago (text post)   34277 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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The correct solution to climate change is directly controlling the temperature by releasing sulfate aerosols in the upper atmosphere. At a cost of $5-20 billion per year we can hold temperatures in place or reduce them, even as CO2 levels rise. These people want to destroy industrial civilization over a glorified nothingburger.

That won't work forever. Those aerosols don't stay in the air nearly as long as CO2 does. So if we depend on them, we'll likely continue to raise the CO2 to dangerous levels while temporarily covering it up with the aerosols. It'll work for a while, but on historical timescales sooner or later something will happen that will disrupt the flights that deliver the aerosols. It could be a war, natural disaster, oil depletion, or anything that disrupts modern civilization and trade. Then the temperature will shoot up to where it would have been without the aerosols, but it will be worse because it will happen much quicker with no chance for people to adapt, and it will compound with whatever crisis caused the disruption.

But the alternative doesn't work at all. If we commit to green energy, that does nothing about all the CO2 already in the atmosphere, it only mildly decreases the rate at which the CO2 concentration rises. It's like taking your foot off a little bit off the accelerator and saying 'well we did our best'. We need to use the brakes.

Sulphates aren't a perfect solution. They do distort weather patterns. They do cause acid rain. But they are a solution to the temperature problem.

That won't work forever.

It doesn't have to work forever, just until we can get nuclear plants built and direct CO2 extraction running.

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