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What If We Lost the Sky?
HughPickens.com (3830033) writes "Anna North writes in the NYT that a report released last week by the National Research Council calls for research into reversing climate change through a process called albedo modification: reflecting sunlight away from earth by, for instance, spraying aerosols into the atmosphere. But such a process could, some say, change the appearance of the sky — and that in turn could affect everything from our physical health to the way we see ourselves. "You'd get whiter skies. People wouldn't have blue skies anymore." says Alan Robock. "Astronomers wouldn't be happy, because you'd have a cloud up there permanently. It'd be hard to see the Milky Way anymore."
According to Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California, losing the night sky would have big consequences. "When you go outside, and you walk in a beautiful setting, and you just feel not only uplifted but you just feel stronger. There's clearly a neurophysiological basis for that," says Keltner, adding that looking up at a starry sky provides "almost a prototypical awe experience," an opportunity to feel "that you are small and modest and part of something vast." If we lose the night sky "we lose something precious and sacred." "We're finding in our lab that the experience of awe gets you to feel connected to something larger than yourself, see the humanity in other people," says Paul K. Piff. "In many ways it's kind of an antidote to narcissism." And the sky is one of the few sources of that experience that's available to almost everybody: "Not everyone has access to the ocean or giant trees, or the Grand Canyon, but we certainly all live beneath the night sky."
Alan Robock says one possible upside of adding aerosols could be beautiful red and yellow sunsets as "the yellow and red colors reflect off the bottom of this cloud." Robock recommends more research into albedo modification: "If people ever are tempted to do this, I want them to have a lot of information about what the potential benefits and risks would be so they can make an informed decision. Dr. Abdalati says deploying something like albedo modification is a last-ditch effort. "We've gotten ourselves into a climate mess. The fact that we're even talking about these kinds of things is indicative of that."
According to Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California, losing the night sky would have big consequences. "When you go outside, and you walk in a beautiful setting, and you just feel not only uplifted but you just feel stronger. There's clearly a neurophysiological basis for that," says Keltner, adding that looking up at a starry sky provides "almost a prototypical awe experience," an opportunity to feel "that you are small and modest and part of something vast." If we lose the night sky "we lose something precious and sacred." "We're finding in our lab that the experience of awe gets you to feel connected to something larger than yourself, see the humanity in other people," says Paul K. Piff. "In many ways it's kind of an antidote to narcissism." And the sky is one of the few sources of that experience that's available to almost everybody: "Not everyone has access to the ocean or giant trees, or the Grand Canyon, but we certainly all live beneath the night sky."
Alan Robock says one possible upside of adding aerosols could be beautiful red and yellow sunsets as "the yellow and red colors reflect off the bottom of this cloud." Robock recommends more research into albedo modification: "If people ever are tempted to do this, I want them to have a lot of information about what the potential benefits and risks would be so they can make an informed decision. Dr. Abdalati says deploying something like albedo modification is a last-ditch effort. "We've gotten ourselves into a climate mess. The fact that we're even talking about these kinds of things is indicative of that."
Burn the land, boil the sea; you can't take the sky from me.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
"We don't know who struck first, us or them, but we know that it was us that scorched the sky."
What effects might the aerosols have?
What if we use too much?
At least we'll all have great looking hair that always stays in place.
Yeah, but in those countries, they count beer and cider as alcohol. No self-respecting Irishman would do the same.
/duck
/run
It doesn't actually remove any CO2, so things like ocean acidification will continue to get worse,
The ocean is getting more neutral if anything, but absolutely not "more acidic".
And whatever changes come from CO2 are far less than natural variance over the course of a month (read article)...
I despair that alarmists can't understand even the most basic aspects of material science.
Kind of makes you sweat that people who can't even understand the pH scale are casually fine messing with the atmosphere for the entire Earth because "volcanoes already do it". Well if a volcano jumped off a cliff would you do that too?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nothing that mankind has control over is more likely to cause mass death than continuing to contribute to climate change
The most likely stable state the climate is going to end up in, compared to the interglacial we're in right now, is back into full glaciation.
There's no stable "hotter" state known (no matter the historical CO2 levels, which have been much much higher than we're projecting to ever reach) to science. The only question during an interglacial is whether the poles will be free of ice or not - and looking at the latest interglacial, the Eemian, we shouldn't be surprised if the arctic circle becomes ice free (still without any catastrophic effects whatsoever).
What do we need to do to get back into full glaciation?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Although - changing the albedo as proposed in the article might well bring us there sooner rather than later.
Caveat: This post reflects the current state of science accurately. Watch out for replies that don't.
it's in my head