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Comment by perfunctory | Hacker News Reader

A gentle reminder to everyone - we don't have to be passive observers of the unfolding global climate catastrophe. We can pretend that we are intelligent, responsible grownups and go do something about it.

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As a (hopefully) intelligent, responsible adult, I am at a loss as to what to do that will have any effect. I’ve installed solar, and a heat pump water heater, I don’t have AC despite the sweltering temperatures. I eat primarily plants. I vote for the party that lies to me most persuasively that they will do something about the environment, though I know neither party will do anything of substance.

And yet I turn around and feel that all my efforts are undermined by neighbours who take their giant trucks and 5th wheels or travel trailers on long summer drives at 4 miles per gallon for fun.

Until we have COVID-style restrictions on our lives, we as a society will never voluntarily give up all the bullshit that is feeding climate change.

> Until we have COVID-style restrictions on our lives, we as a society will never voluntarily give up all the bullshit that is feeding climate change.

Oh, we will. When food, shelter, energy, etc. become scarcer and more expensive, we will change our way of life, whether we like it or not.

This is what 40 years of propaganda by the likes of British Petroleum (the ones who invented “carbon footprint”) about how climate change is about middle class people making consumer choices does to you.

If governments wait too long some rogue organizations might start geoengineering efforts. A few orbiting Mylar shields are in order.

I know we're all really dedicated to solving social problems with far fetched technology but this is a lot even for here, come on.

At some point it's either going to be using tech to try to directly solve the issue or accept dying and people will never take dying as an option, regardless of the morals behind the other option.

Somehow I doubt those are the only two options.

It's almost like we need to decouple from the tech and media induced buying spree that is propped up on manufactured obsolescence. That we need sweeping reform and people need to take going Vegan (or at least cutting down meat consumption) more seriously. Air travel should not be subsidized until we have cleaner means of transport, and above all we need to return the buck back to Corporations who green washed us into ownership of their messes. Finally, we also need to be very critical about carbon credits, or emissions offsetting, which can be (and have been) incredibly corrupt. I'm also aware that this platform isn't going to look favourably on "tech slow down", as it is very hard to want to slow down or turn off the faucet.

Personally I doubt that there's any other one, the impact of climate change seemed widely underestimated and the recent large spike of emissions has yet to have any effect. There's already way too much emissions already "locked-in".

We are already having "once in a lifetime" events every month.

The first well-done climate models by Manabe and Wethereld in 1975 found that a 2% reduction in solar radiation would cancel the effect of a doubling in atmospheric CO2 levels.[0,1] This problem has an engineering solution that should be implemented as soon as possible. [2]

0. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atsc/32/11/1520-0...

1. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atsc/32/1/1520-04...

2. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-sun-shield-over....

When I see stuff like this I think immediately of like, the Four Pests Campaign, kudzu in the US south, Australian erosion caused by rabbits etc. We can't even reliably predict or manage the consequences of our actions across a single ecosystem. Mind boggling to me that we still however have high confidence in our ability to.

A fictional account of what could happen:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Piercer#Plot

A 2% reduction in insolation is consistent with solar cycle variations. Aerosols are not the way to do it because they are not reversible, but a shield at L1 is.

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