Willing to give up blue skies for climate fix? | Hacker News Reader

Willing to give up blue skies for climate fix?

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3 pointsprat11 comments

The objections are essentially "I believe that the AGW science but I don't believe the mitigation science." Since the latter is mostly a subset of the former, this is interesting.

The science behind the mitigation effort may be wrong, but none of the objectors are making an argument that turns on specifics. They accept AGW on faith or because of values and they object to mitigation for the same reasons.

No, no, no, ... a thousand times no.

As applicable to climate change as to ethics: Two wrongs don't make a right.

When I first heard about this, I about broke down and started crying. This is the worst idea I've ever heard in this on-going climate change saga.

I'd rather we just went back to coal power and forgot about "clean energy" than implement this.

Demonstrating that your sense of environmentalism is based more on what you find pleasing and less on costs and benefits

My sense of environmentalism is caring about what's good for the planet, not what ways we can offset the damage we've done. We have NO idea the cost of geoengineering. Outside of ruining the sky, how many plants will die due to lack of proper sunlight? How many animal species will go extinct due to the loss of these plants? What about the effect of less sunlight on any living being? Suicide rates are high in the extreme north and south of the planet due to constant darkness. A lesser effect, across the whole globe?

And what of the effect on weather patterns due to us pumping MORE junk into the air?

Oh and of course this geoengineering, once started, must NOT stop. If we stop replenishing the atmosphere, weather patterns will not keep an even layer around. We'll lose coverage, holes will open allowing pure sunlight back to the surface, and we'll end up with a greenhouse effect the likes of which we can't even imagine.

So no, the potential risks of this idea FAR outweigh the benefits in my mind. I would rather just kill the planet off now instead of make it a worse death later on.

caring about what's good for the planet

What the hell does that really mean, anyway? So the planet is harmed when old plants burn? Somehow this huge rock hanging in the sky is going to be hurt by some dirt?

I don't think so. I think no matter what mankind does the earth will continue along just as it always has.

And you'd rather just "kill the planet off now" WTF? Tell me, please, just how you would do that?

Look -- I'm fine with wanting "clean skies", whatever that means. But stuff is in the sky already. Has been for eons. So it's never going to be "clean". Never has been. If you're really pumped on "what's good for the planet" then you need to start explaining what exactly that means, cause for just words it doesn't make a lick of sense. In fact, it sounds like happy-happy-feel-good talk. The kind of talk which everybody agrees to but doesn't have much meaning.

What if the alternative is famine, dislocation, and instability?

The Wall Street derivatives guys smell big money trading carbon credits and they will never let it happen. Even Al Gore who called the idea "nuts" has a conflict of interest because he owns a carbon trading firm.

Why don't we experiment with geoengineering some other planet before we screw up our own.

Venus is covered in clouds, doesn't seem to help it any...

They scorched the earth in The Matrix, and that didn't go so well...

Agread @chrisb -- This just sounds nuts. Let's poke some more holes in the ozone and create droughts to cool the earth? hmmm

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