Talk:Geoengineering

Geo-engineering is definitely not a crank idea, even if some idiots take it to the level of "Global warming? Pfft, we'll just launch shitloads of sulfur into the air." Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 16:36, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I rather think it's time to take it more seriously. I don't think that humanity has a hope in hell of reducing greenhouse gas emissions so other solutions are going to become necessary.--BobSpring is sprung! 16:42, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Starting perhaps over a dozen years ago (maybe the late 90's?) I began thinking that the collective emission reduction actions for the first portion (first quarter, third, half?) of the 21st century could be described as a bunch of lofty unmet goals, empty promises, and wishful thinking and I have every reason to believe that won't change anytime soon. Saying over and over again that we need immediate and severe emission reductions is thus far just so much empty rhetoric - It isn't happening and GW denialism makes it so easy to say "Global Warming is Real!" without addressing the next step of describing realistic, effective mitigation strategies. I mean, just look at the denuclearization of Japan and Germany. Any hope for emissions reductions of the third and fourth largest economies in the world are now gone! The effects of climate change are likely to be so extreme that current denials and rationalizations will be silenced by the brute force of drought, severe weather, and rising sea levels. That will leave obviously (finally some real) emissions reductions, but also an implementation of geoengineering (likely a version of the SPICE project) by the US, China, and/or EU to act as a patch, and then the long hard work to sequester all that excess carbon, perhaps with perennial crops and the use of atmospheric carbon allotropes (nanotech derived diamond and graphene) in construction. But it will likely all come far too late to stop the worst effects of Global Warming, and given how ineffective and slow acting emissions reductions alone are, I can't imagine geoengineering being written off forever. It's gonna happen and it's only a question of when, how, and by whom.
 * Japan has recently made the decision to start its nuclear plants again, though I'm not sure if any are running quite yet. I trust Germany will remain pants-on-head retarded, though. --Someon (talk) 15:15, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I like how you act as if energy sources that are clean (if you can call radioactive waste "clean") other than nuclear power do not exist. Or that you cannot reduce emissions in other ways than changing power mix (like electric cars). Truth is that you will need both and other measures. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 89.76.6.78 / talk


 * Leaving aside, for a moment, anthropogenic global warming (as well as the general uselessness and suicidal moronity of nuclear power,) there's a much bigger reason to get a handle on geoengineering. In the long term (quite possibly rather soon,) regardless of what does or doesn't happen as an accidental result of human influence on the climate, earth will abide by its own agenda and commence the next glaciation. Further yet in the future, the current ice age will end, naturally thawing out the entire globe from pole to pole. Unless humanity is willing to tolerate these normal but still violent alterations to the environment, we will eventually need to preserve the earth at exactly the temperature band we want, forever.


 * Why, in the long enough run, we might end up halting continental drift, boosting orbits, or even refueling the sun, all in a mixture of environmentalism and childish nostalgia. 72.130.58.85 (talk) 08:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)