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Comment by Super_Jambo | Hacker News Reader

As I understand it (and I would like to know if this is wrong). Carbon dioxide emissions take 5-10 years for their heating impact to work through into warming.

So even if we could get to net zero today we'd still be in for 5-10 years of worsening impacts.

And we're not even talking about getting to net zero today. Even in the UK where we've exported and reduced emissions a long way net zero by 2035 is seen as a wildly optimistic scenario.

So it seems to me inevitable that we're going to need to do geoengineering. We mustn't let this delay emission reduction but I think at this point we should get to where we're going asap so we can research it properly.

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> So it seems to me inevitable that we're going to need to do geoengineering.

Nobody knows how to do that at scale and for a time frame long enough and safely (although there are experiments all over the place). Stopping fossil fuels, moving to renewable and nuclear, using less energy is the only known and safe way. And for the rest of time, adapt (which, depending on the speed of our efforts, will mean less people in uninhabitable zones and migrations or, if we're too slow: wars).

Safe for who? How are we going to extract the resources required for that clean energy transition without further habitat destruction? Energy is IMO a red herring, yes energy is needed to maintain our current way of life. But what about all the other species we share this world with? Spoiler, the unsustainable part is modernity https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/03/lets-make-a-deal/

"Stopping fossil fuels, moving to renewable and nuclear, using less energy" is great. None of it just doesn't reverse climate change even a little. It just means we have dialed the oven regulator from 3 to 2. The oven will reach maximum temperature anyway, just a little slower.

Geoengineering is not similar thing to the emission reduction initiatives, it is a completely different idea with a completely different result in the end. You can't substitute one for another.

Perhaps geo engineering isn't such a great idea? https://archive.ph/AgLi8

Also - just to show that we know almost nothing about unintended consequences - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL09...

Assuming that's correct about 5-10 years (though honestly I doubt it takes that long). The question is - why do you assume that after 10 years gas suddenly stops heating atmosphere? Gas will stay there for the practical purpose "forever", enough to heat atmosphere for thousands of years.

I believe that's untrue, stopping emissions stops warming more or less instantly. Co2 captures energy the first day it is floating around in the air.

I don't think you got it right, the rate of warming depends on the concentration (i.e. the total amount) of GHGs in the atmosphere, not the rate at which they're emitted. GHGs basically reflect (actually absorb and re-emit) some of Earth's thermal radiation back to the surface, they act as an "insulator" (a greenhouse) just by being there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

Yes that's what I'm saying

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