First, there are the things that can be done, but we don't know how to do yet.
Second, there are things that can't be done, no matter what we learn, or how hard we work, or how clever we are.
The first kind of thing is why we have engineers.
For the second, we need scientists.
I will grant you, sometimes a great scientific discovery will allow us to move an item from category 2 to category 1. But these are VERY rare. As far as I can tell, in the entire 20th century, there were only two: Relativity and Quantum theory.
The idea of floating sunshades in orbit to cut down on excess insolation is not in principle wrong. It might even work! OTOH, it might just make things worse--Law of Unintended Consequences. But before we try stuff like that, we have to make sure that the procedure is reversible, so if anything goes wrong we can remove the sunshades safely.
There's another thing you probably haven't considered. Once the word gets out that there might be an easy technological fix that will solve a global problem, the temptation will be to do nothing about the problem because "The fix is on the way" In other words, burn more and more fossil fuel because those clever engineers and their inventive entrepreneurial backers have already solved that problem Remember fusion power? Its still '30 years away'.
Removing Carbon from the atmosphere is not impossible, the earth already knows how to do that,
we've just fucked things up so bad it can't. This is not a problem that can be solved by ingenuity, we already know how to solve it. We just don't want to do it it because it might be bad for business.
I have a feeling that now that climate change awareness is trickling down to the general population, we're going to be seeing a lot of Sunday Supplement Science and Supermarket Checkout Line articles on how the tech solution is right "around the corner". This is what happens when the Law of Supply and Demand and the Line of Least Resistance gets applied to public policy.
Space/Science » in reply to Energy to change the world
There are two kinds of impossible3 things.
The whole thread (33 posts)
- So tell me, what do you guys think?
- We are far past the tipping point...
- What about carbon capture?
- 400+ ppm?
- I am all for it- but the scale of the problem makes it questionable
- I can't say I believe entirely in your assessment
- What about carbon capture?
- Something else to worry about.
- I think we'll need to wait and see. n/t
- We are far past the tipping point...
