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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."
That sounds like a practical, reasonable plan that can be done with 19th century solutions. In other words, gay.
We're going to need a solution, preferably more than one, that will require 3D printers, private space, and dozens of universities, think thanks, and tax-funded "private" companies to rob you blind.
Welcome to the 21st century, don't forget to pay your rent.
Another movie did it too.
They called it Operation Dark Storm and shortly afterwards most of humanity went extinct, just like how the greenies like it.
“Now I prefer cloudy days when the drones don’t fly. When the sky brightens and becomes blue, the drones return and so does the fear. Children don’t play so often now, and have stopped going to school. Education isn’t possible as long as the drones circle overhead.”
I added the bold.
From: http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
I only read this a few days ago, but was really struck by it. The reason is completely different from that covered in the original article, but I wonder at the effects the author is concerned about...
Cheers,
Bruce.
Bruce A. Knack
Silicon Surfers
Seriously. We have a perfect understanding of the climate. We can predict to a tenth of a degree what the weather will be two weeks or two hundred years from now anywhere on Earth. We fully understand what triggers ice ages and can hindcast the climate of the entire Pliestocene, quantitatively. Our knowledge of solar dynamics is almost perfect, so we can confidently predict the state of the sun well into the future. Our measurements of atmosphere, ocean, and land are complete so that we know the entire state of the ocean (for example) well enough to predict with complete accuracy its future evolution given any possible variation of solar input. Finally, we are perfectly capable of predicting the future course of human affairs -- global population, the distribution of that population, land use -- and can predict already precisely when we will make critical scientific and technological breakthroughs (like thermonuclear fusion or widespread LFTR fission or storage batteries that don't suck or high temperature high current superconductors) . Our knowledge of the interior of the Earth itself is at last nearly complete, so we can predict to the day when Yellowstone or other supervolcanoes will wake up and erupt continuously for ten or twenty thousand years. Finally, once we create an orbital cloud of atomic sodium (or whatever) into space, it will be easy to remove it or rearrange it if it turns out to do something completely different than we expect, such as trigger snowball earth or act in its own right like a layer of greenhouse gas between the Earth and 3 K infinity.
Oh, wait, those are all things we don't have, and can't do, and don't know. And I absolutely shudder to think of the price tag, both in dollars and in joules.
I swear, common sense is a lost art.
Let's go back to discussing orbital solar cells as a solution to both energy production and screening. Adding 64 MJ/kg (times a thousand or so) to the cost of solar cells by lofting them into orbit and giving world governments potential access to an orbital superweapon just to get to 1370 W/m^2 sunlight is sheer economic brilliance compared to this one. Oh, wait! Maybe we can combine the two! We can mortgage the next 100 years of human productivity to pay for it, no problem! It's not like we have anything else to do, like ending world poverty, preventing antibiotic resistant malaria from breaking out into a worldwide pandemic, embracing rational thought at the expense of the not-great world religions, and coping with leftover hypernationalism and colonialism from the cold war. So sure, let's do it! Solar cells AND making Earth a ringed or stratospheric smog laden planet!
What could go wrong!
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
I suppose the first thing to ask is "What can go wrong?"
Our planet maintains a balance so far and if you start to upset that balance then you are going to have two possibilities. 1) The planet goes through a runaway greenhouse effect and effectively gets far too hot, although probably not as hot as Venus. 2) The planet goes into deep freeze and this has happened before. We can actually thank volcanic action for reversing this process.
I can understand concern over potential global warming and am in favour of reducing green house gas build up or better still to have a balance between consuming liquid fuels (example: practical bio-fuels without the hype) and growing them. Burning fossil fuels without some sort of balance is asking for trouble. Solar energy in all its forms should be seriously considered and the most suitable for each region implemented if possible and practical by all nations, although IMO that is basically asking the impossible but at least first world countries should set the example.
Another area to look at is the design and building of housing that is energy efficient in that there would be less need for heating and cooling. Practical solar solutions should also be considered here as well.
The things I have just mentioned are easily achievable with our current technology and would go a very long way in stabilising the climate of our planet. Of course this is but a pipe dream since we are a short lived species but if our life potential could be made to say 200 or more healthy years then most people in power would realise that they and not just their children are going have to put up with radical changes if they make stupid decisions. Of course human greed and fanaticism can still blind some even in the face of imminent disaster.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Think about how much power was generated over the past 100 years of burning carbon, you're going to need more than that, probably much much more than that, to pull all that carbon out. And that's on top of all the power we'll be using in the meantime.
Venus is a little more complicated. It's got no internal dynamo, so its magnetic field is generated by the convection of its intense atmosphere. If you cooled it or slowed it, the magnetic field would disappear and its atmosphere would be eroded by solar wind.
Some idiot is just going to do it.
It wouldn't surprise me if some consortium of obnoxious rich people (billionaires who own substantial amounts of Florida real estate are good candidates) and a low-lying country (my bet is on the Maldives) are just going to go distribute aerosols in the upper atmosphere.
The thing is, the actual volume of material you need to get into the stratosphere is not very large. A small jet flying eight or ten hours a week could do it. The problem is that most small business jets don't fly high enough to get effective distribution.
So you'd need to re-engine a gulfstream or two -- that's the big capital investment.
Someone could do this and not even need to ask permission.
I'd rather have us fuck with Mother Nature after a decade of exhaustive research, debate, and cost benefit analysis
I refer you to the calicivirus experiment in Australia for a truly scary example of exhaustive research, debate and cost-benefit analysis that didn't quite work out as intended.
Rabbit haemorrhagic disease, also known as calicivirus, was trialed in Australia to eliminate the rabbit population. Calicivirus can only infect rabbits; there is no interspecies transmission or carrier.
The trial was conducted on Wardang Island, some 2.4 miles off the coast of South Australia in Spencer Gulf. The island was already loaded with rabbits that were cut off from the mainland, and there was no known way for any of these rabbits to cross the water.
In 1991, the virus was introduced to the island. By 1995 it had spread to the mainland, killing 10 million rabbits within 8 weeks of it’s arrival. Those that were left developed immunity.
So, we have an isolated island with a virus that can only be transmitted within a single species; said species can’t swim; certainly not the two miles. Yet, unintended and unforeseen consequences of this carefully planned, carefully modeled and (apparently) highly contained in a very controlled area that was heavily policed by AQIS went horribly awry and made the rabbit plague in Australia much worse, but managed to wipe out huge numbers of pets rabbits..
We can't get it right on the small scale; how do we know we'll get it right on the planetary scale?
I suppose the first thing to ask is "What can go wrong?"
Answer: Not much. Volcanoes already do this, so it is not something unprecedented. If we change our mind, we can stop spraying the aerosols, and everything will return to normal in a few months.
Our planet maintains a balance so far
Well, the whole point of AGW is that we are already out of balance.
I don't really like the aerosol idea. It doesn't actually remove any CO2, so things like ocean acidification will continue to get worse. If we are going to do geo-engineering, then iron fertilization of the oceans seems like a much better idea. That removes the CO2, and boosts fishing yields. But we should be doing lots of research on ALL feasible solutions.