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   From: NOT-SURE@idiocracy.gov   
      
   On 10/17/22 4:17 AM, zinn wrote:   
   > The White House is coordinating a five-year research plan to study ways of   
   > modifying the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth to temper the   
   > effects of global warming, a process sometimes called solar geoengineering   
   > or sunlight reflection.   
   >   
   > The research plan will assess climate interventions, including spraying   
   > aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, and   
   > should include goals for research, what’s necessary to analyze the   
   > atmosphere, and what impact these kinds of climate interventions may have   
   > on Earth, according to the White House’s Office of Science and Technology   
   > Policy. Congress directed the research plan be produced in its spending   
   > plan for 2022, which President Joe Biden signed in March.   
   >   
   > Some of the techniques, such as spraying sulfur dioxide into the   
   > atmosphere, are known to have harmful effects on the environment and human   
   > health. But scientists and climate leaders who are concerned that humanity   
   > will overshoot its emissions targets say research is important to figure   
   > out how best to balance these risks against a possibly catastrophic rise   
   > in the Earth’s temperature.   
   >   
   > Getting ready to research a topic is a very preliminary step, but it’s   
   > notable the White House is formally engaging with what has largely been   
   > seen as the stuff of dystopian fantasy. In Kim Stanley Robinson’s science   
   > fiction novel, “The Ministry for the Future,” a heat wave in India kills   
   > 20 million people and out of desperation, India decides to implement its   
   > own strategy of limiting the sunlight that gets to Earth.   
   >   
   > Chris Sacca, the founder of climate tech investment fund Lowercarbon   
   > Capital, said it’s prudent for the White House to be spearheading the   
   > research effort.   
   >   
   > “Sunlight reflection has the potential to safeguard the livelihoods of   
   > billions of people, and it’s a sign of the White House’s leadership that   
   > they’re advancing the research so that any future decisions can be rooted   
   > in science not geopolitical brinkmanship,” Sacca told CNBC. (Sacca has   
   > donated money to support research in the area, but said he has “zero   
   > financial interests beyond philanthropy” in the idea and does not think   
   > there should be private business models in the space, he told CNBC.)   
   >   
   > Harvard professor David Keith, who first worked on the topic in 1989, said   
   > it’s being taken much more seriously now. He points to formal statements   
   > of support for researching sunlight reflection from the Environmental   
   > Defense Fund, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Natural Resources   
   > Defense Council, and the creation of a new group he advises called the   
   > Climate Overshoot Commission, an international group of scientists and   
   > lawmakers that’s evaluating climate interventions in preparation for a   
   > world that warms beyond what the Paris Climate Accord recommended.   
   >   
   > To be clear, nobody is saying sunlight-reflection modification is the   
   > solution to climate change. Reducing emissions remains the priority.   
   >   
   > “You cannot judge what the country does on solar-radiation modification   
   > without looking at what it is doing in emission reductions, because the   
   > priority is emission reductions,” said Janos Pasztor, executive director   
   > of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative. “Solar-radiation   
   > modification will never be a solution to the climate crisis.”   
   >   
   > Three ways to reduce sunlight   
   > The idea of sunlight reflection first appeared prominently in a 1965   
   > report to President Lyndon B. Johnson, entitled “Restoring the Quality of   
   > Our Environment,” Keith told CNBC. The report floated the idea of   
   > spreading particles over the ocean at a cost of $100 per square mile. A   
   > one percent change in the reflectivity of the Earth would cost $500   
   > million per year, which does “not seem excessive,” the report said,   
   > “considering the extraordinary economic and human importance of climate.”   
   >   
   > The estimated price tag has gone up since then. The current estimate is   
   > that it would cost $10 billion per year to run a program that cools the   
   > Earth by 1 degree Celsius, said Edward A. Parson, a professor of   
   > environmental law at UCLA’s law school. But that figure is seen to be   
   > remarkably cheap compared to other climate change mitigation initiatives.   
   >   
   > A landmark report released in March 2021 from the National Academies of   
   > Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine addressed three kinds of solar   
   > geoengineering: stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening,   
   > and cirrus cloud thinning.   
   >   
   > Stratospheric aerosol injection would involve flying aircraft into the   
   > stratosphere, or between 10 miles and 30 miles skyward, and spraying a   
   > fine mist that would hang in the air, reflecting some of the sun’s   
   > radiation back into space.   
   >   
   > “The stratosphere is calm, and things stay up there for a long time,”   
   > Parson told CNBC. “The atmospheric life of stuff that’s injected in the   
   > stratosphere is between six months and two years.”   
   >   
   > Stratospheric aerosol injection “would immediately take the high end off   
   > hot extremes,” Parson said. And also it would “pretty much immediately”   
   > slow extreme precipitation events, he said.   
   >   
   > “The top-line slogan about stratospheric aerosol injection, which I wrote   
   > in a paper more than 10 years ago — but it’s still apt — is fast, cheap   
   > and imperfect. Fast is crucial. Nothing else that we do for climate change   
   > is fast. Cheap, it’s so cheap,” Parson told CNBC.   
   >   
   > “And it’s not imperfect because we haven’t got it right yet. It’s   
   > imperfect because the imperfection is embedded in the way it works. The   
   > same reason it’s fast is the reason that it’s imperfect, and there’s no   
   > way to get around that.”   
   >   
   > One option for an aerosol is sulfur dioxide, the cooling effects of which   
   > are well known from volcanic eruptions. The 1991 eruption of Mount   
   > Pinatubo, for instance, spewed thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide into   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)