I follow this scientist on YouTube, he’s made a very interesting series of videos and is looking for a research grant, here is a lot more context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvxNmStSC3M
tl;dw
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We’ve been pumping a shitload of CO2 into the atmosphere for the last 100+ years
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It seems extremely unlikely that the global CO2 emissions will go down in the next ~50+ years
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Even if the whole world became Net-Zero tomorrow, The planet will keep warming because the extra CO2 already in the atmosphere will stay there for the next 100+ years
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Carbon capture is basically impossible due to economics
Now here comes the scary part that that you maybe need a open mind to consider a good idea.
By adding 3% “Baking Soda” to jet fuel, it would reflect heat away to counter global warming, and would drop out of the air in ~1 year, so we can stop at any time.
Before forming a strong opinion and just down-voting let’s have a constructive conversation in the comments. Even better, please watch the video
This seems like an actual viable option to buy us time to fix global warming, because what we’ve been trying hasn’t been working nearly fast enough.
If you think this is a bad idea, please say why you think so, and what the alternatives are.
I think this idea has issues, but compared to “Just keep doing what we’re doing” it seems like a viable option.
At the very least, doing research into this seems like a no brainier.
Research, fine. Knowledge is good. There are two well understood processes we need to actually solve the polycrisis.
I’m all for stopping fossil fuels, and Degrowth, but realistically that isn’t happening in the next 50+ years.
This buys us time while we further our technology and solve the actual issue.
This kind of “give me your opinion and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong” post really sucks.
Your mistake is to think the solution is technology and not restraint.
Humans will continue to follow their nature. Shouting “You should have restraint” doesn’t solve anything.
It would be nice if we have restraint, but we don’t.
Which is the main reason why I believe we have the answer to the fermi paradox.
The answer to the Fermi Paradox is simple. Humans cannot comprehend the distance of a single light year.
If we don’t and can’t have restraint, then maybe exterminating ourselves, even if it happens at the cost of all other life on this planet, is actually the right choice. Give some of the other life elsewhere in the universe a chance, in the hopes it might be less awful than we are. Otherwise, we’ll inevitably destroy it too, if we continue on this path with our inability to practice restraint even in the face of self-preservation nevermind the preservation of things other than ourselves.
We will destroy everything we encounter, as soon as we achieve the technology levels required to do so, intentionally or unintentionally. A species that is incapable of restraint is not a species that deserves to survive. It is a hideous plague, and its only future is either one of complete annihilation (either by us, or of us) or constant, endless war against the forces trying to prevent it from destroying all it touches. If you are saying we are incapable of restraint, that seems to be an irredeemable flaw to me. Finding new ways for us to survive doesn’t solve anything, it only prolongs and expands the suffering we will inflict beyond what we already have done.
Thinking “restraint” could be a practical solution is delusional …
The problem is that the average person does have restraint, but mega corporations and coal burners and cattle farmers don’t.
This is a tech that sound reasonably promising, that won’t acidify our oceans (in fact it will counter the current trend of acidification), and cool the atmosphere enough that we don’t all kill ourselves in a global heatwave pandemic. Gives us enough time to find restraint, and build technology that will work within the means of that restraint.