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Dimming the Sun Could Be Climate Science’s Trolley Problem
The Atlantic via MSN ^ | April 20, 2022 | By Robinson Meyer

Posted on 04/20/2022 12:21:51 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

In 1991, Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines, injecting nearly 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the sky. This sudden burst of gas in the atmosphere reflected away sunlight from Earth and lowered the planet’s average temperature by about 1 degree Fahrenheit for a little longer than a year. If humanity wants to turn down the worst effects of global warming, then it simply needs to do that, with planes, indefinitely.

That is the idea, at least, of solar geoengineering. To its supporters, mimicking a large volcanic eruption is an ethical necessity, a way to soften the blow of climate change. “Perhaps the best reason to take cooling seriously is that benefits seem likely to go to the poorest countries,” David Keith, a Harvard professor of applied physics.

The technology necessary for geoengineering has never been successfully demonstrated, but already many economists are sure that it will happen at some point this century. That’s because its theoretical costs are little more than a few flights, a spraying device, and a couple million tons of sulfuric acid—expensive, to be sure, but not out of the reach of your average island nation or climate-concerned billionaire.

But geoengineering is far from a sure bet. To its critics, the technology runs the risk of re-creating some of the worst mass extinctions in the planet’s history, which have been the consequence of boosting both the atmosphere’s carbon-dioxide level and its sulfate level. We’re already pumping CO2 into the sky, they argue. Why are we so sure that adding sulfates won’t just backfire?

A new study hints that solar geoengineering is going to be even more complicated than its proponents realize: It could expose tens or even hundreds of millions of people to malaria every year.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: globalwarming; hoax; propaganda; socialism
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1 posted on 04/20/2022 12:21:51 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

These liberals freaks can’t decide what’s a male or female, now they want to try darkening the sun to lower the global temperature, what could possibly go wrong...LOL


2 posted on 04/20/2022 12:24:06 PM PDT by srmanuel (`)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Getting echoes of Highlander II: The Quickening here........


3 posted on 04/20/2022 12:25:33 PM PDT by cranked
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Everybody likes warm weather. Why should we go back to the ice ages?


4 posted on 04/20/2022 12:25:49 PM PDT by AZJeep (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0AHQkryIIs)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Just use ‘ the clapper’. Sheesh


5 posted on 04/20/2022 12:25:54 PM PDT by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this? 😕)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

These folks are freakin’ insane.


6 posted on 04/20/2022 12:26:52 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: rktman

LMAO!!


7 posted on 04/20/2022 12:27:25 PM PDT by cranked
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To: srmanuel

They will kill us all while trying to save us.


8 posted on 04/20/2022 12:29:07 PM PDT by Dutch Boy (The only thing worse than having something taken from you is to have it returned broken. )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

How much sun needs to be blocked? For how long? Where is the math? What is Earth’s correct temperature anyhow?


9 posted on 04/20/2022 12:29:28 PM PDT by Seruzawa ("The Political left is the Garden of Eden of incompetence" - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Bad, bad idea.
Once we learn to control the weather and climate, complaints will increase a thousandfold.
If you think two people fighting over a thermostat is bad, imagine 8 billion.

10 posted on 04/20/2022 12:30:51 PM PDT by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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To: AZJeep
Agreed. Only in the modern west have we had a society that hated life in during the centuries-long warm periods (like our Modern Warm Period) where crop yields are higher, rain patters are more predictable, and plagues are less deadly. It's life during the cooling periods that suck.

People in the Medieval Warm Period and Roman Warm Period were wise enough to appreciate how good it was, and by some measures they didn't have it as good as we do. LOL

11 posted on 04/20/2022 12:32:18 PM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I’ve seen this movie before.

It doesn’t end well for mankind.


12 posted on 04/20/2022 12:34:18 PM PDT by moovova
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

If ever there has been a collection of conspiracy theorists, it is definitely the group of so many “climate emergency ‘scientists’” and deep state politicians/bureaucrats.


13 posted on 04/20/2022 12:35:52 PM PDT by Maceman (People who vote Democrat sell their lives (and ours) to the government and their souls to the Devil.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

What could possibly go wrong?............................


14 posted on 04/20/2022 12:36:45 PM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

We’ve had the technology to cheaply kill hurricanes for a half century, but can’t because everyone will sue everyone else if we do it.

Block the Sun? Right.


15 posted on 04/20/2022 12:37:56 PM PDT by Born to Conserve
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To: Born to Conserve

We have? Link?


16 posted on 04/20/2022 12:42:49 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Climate has been in a constant state of change since the earth was created. It’s like a pendulum, always moving - one way then the other. Why do these people want to change what God has ordained.

In most cases, when some out of the ordinary condition arises it is caused by activity on the sun’s surface. There is a good reason for everything that occurs.

For humans to try to influence the every day flow of nature’s activity is to invite disaster.


17 posted on 04/20/2022 12:42:54 PM PDT by elpadre (W)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
A new study hints that solar geoengineering is going to be even more complicated than its proponents realize:

"DON'T MESS with MOTHER NATURE!"

18 posted on 04/20/2022 12:44:20 PM PDT by VideoDoctor
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

So instead...we pull sunlight in to these solar panels.


19 posted on 04/20/2022 12:47:42 PM PDT by Sacajaweau ( )
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To: cranked

You suffered through that craptastic movie too?


20 posted on 04/20/2022 12:54:39 PM PDT by Texas_Guy
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