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New Paper Supports Stratospheric Aerosol Injection for Cooling the Planet

posted by martyb on Tuesday November 27 2018, @04:25AM   
from the What-could-possibly-go-wrong? dept.

takyon writes:

Scientists are considering the possibility of climate engineering via aerosol injection

In a new paper published in Environmental Research Letters [open, DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aae98d] researchers discuss the potential to use what is known as stratospheric aerosol injection (or SAI) to help cool the Earth over a long period of time. This "solar geoengineering" effort would take a long time to plan and put into action, but the authors of the work suggest that it is indeed possible.

"While we don't make any judgement about the desirability of SAI, we do show that a hypothetical deployment program starting 15 years from now, while both highly uncertain and ambitious, would be technically possible strictly from an engineering perspective," Dr. Gernot Wagner of Harvard said in a statement. "It would also be remarkably inexpensive, at an average of around $2 to 2.5 billion per year over the first 15 years."

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Original Submission

• What could possibly go wrong? What could possibly go wrong? (Score: 1) by ensigndna on Tuesday November 27 2018, @05:35AM (4 children)

  by ensigndna (7179) on Tuesday November 27 2018, @05:35AM (#766827)

  This just sounds like a really bad idea.

• Re:What could possibly go wrong? Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 27 2018, @06:17AM (2 children)

  by c0lo (156) on Tuesday November 27 2018, @06:17AM (#766834) Journal

  Why? Because it makes too little profit?

  (grin)

  --
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  Parent

  • Re:What could possibly go wrong? Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 27 2018, @12:41PM (1 child)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday November 27 2018, @12:41PM (#766904)

    Sadly, as wrong as this would likely go, it may be preferable to the default alternative.

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    🌻🌻 [google.com]

    Parent

    • Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 27 2018, @01:15PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 27 2018, @01:15PM (#766911)

      Whats this alternative?

      Parent

• Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 27 2018, @03:48PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 27 2018, @03:48PM (#766940)

  Not only this, climate engineering has been discussed for some time now. There is a long summary of different approaches on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering [wikipedia.org]

  (did not read the whole Wiki article for potential political bias--the intro appears to be written in a neutral tone)

  Parent