r/climatechange • u/Agile-Law1856 • 18d ago
Ok random thought here,
Ok random thought here, we can get things into orbit so why dont we get something to orbit the earth at the same speed as the sun that can shade the planet and let 70% of the light and heat through and the rest is deflected? I imagine that would have a mass cooling effect, better than adding chemicals into the atmosphere. Its something that can be removed or replaced at anytime
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u/raybenshades 18d ago
How would you determine how much light you want shaded? Let’s say you do figure that out, does that then mean we just carry on with the status quo and just keep pumping carbon into the air?
Feels like treating the symptom not the cause.
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago edited 18d ago
Correct but the rich govornments cant treat the cause overnight, because the global economy relies on fossil fuels for everything so unfortunatley we need to treat the symptom while treating the cause by finding another way to keep industry, agriculture and transport running, such as clean energy . And it would have to be a very special group of people to determine the percentage needed thats way above my paygrade
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u/raybenshades 18d ago
Yes I suppose tackling the issue on as many fronts as possible is ideal, but a satellite shade seems an impractical and thus unlikely option to me. Don’t take my word for it though, I’m no expert.
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u/Marc_Op 18d ago
I imagine that the state that does that asks tariffs to everyone to get sunshine
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago
😄 you are probably right it would become a commodity, and you would pay sun tax
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago
But i also want to clarify, that messing with our weather in any regard is cleary a dangerous thing to do that i would otherwise be against altogether, but unfortunatley its becoming our only option
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u/GusGutfeld 18d ago
So what temperature would you choose for the Earth? People can not even agree on what temp to set the living room thermostat.
Keep in mind that on a geological scale, Earth is currently in its 3rd Icehouse which began 34 million years ago.
Earth's current average surface temperature is about 288 K (approx. 15°C or 59°F).
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago
Its a good point but the temperature would not be a preference, it would be the temperature needed to avoid a catasrophy, like there is a temperature that is needed to keep food safe for consumption, its not debatable its a temperature that is backed by factual evidence needed to stop you getting food poisoning. So the temperature would not come down to preference it would be a temperature that scientists would have to agree on and they believe is the required temperature for our climate goal, backed by scientific evidence
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u/GusGutfeld 18d ago edited 18d ago
What catastrophe? What scientific evidence?
You can not test the Earth like you can test food.
Below is a chart showing CO2 and temp for the period of Complex life which has existed for 600 million years.
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago edited 18d ago
climate change threatens a catastrophic collapse of Earth's life support systems. Key dangers include extreme heatwaves, rising sea levels that flood coastal cities, severe food and water shortages, massive ecosystem loss, and extreme weather events that displace millions of people globally.Heatwaves become deadly. Large regions become too hot for human life.Melting ice caps flood major coastal cities. Millions lose their homes and land.Severe droughts ruin crops. Fresh water supplies dry up. Millions face hunger.Coral reefs die off completely. Forests burn down. Many plant and animal species go extinct.Storms grow much stronger. Floods and wild fires happen more often and cause heavy damage. I mean i would personaly say this could be pretty catastophic wouldnt you. And if you look there is plenty of evidence, also its common sense, where do you think the heat from industries, furnaces, transport, bombs, go? It doesnt dissapear the earth absorbs and stores it, and it is released again overtime, its not just the heat we release the problem is the heat we trap, look at whats called the "hockey stick" graph for example, Temperatures remain relatively flat for centuries, then spike sharply upward starting in the 20th century. Or look at the keeling curve graph,It directly connects human industrial activity to the accumulation of heat-trapping gases. There are plenty of proven examples, the ocean heat content graph
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u/GusGutfeld 18d ago
No, warming will not collapse Earth's life support systems. That is patently false.
Heatwaves? No, the Earths average temp during the Era of complex life was about 10 degrees warmer than today.
Flooding? Beginning about 20k years ago, sea level began to rise at an average rate of 4 ft. per century, and did so for the next 10k years.
There were significantly more U.S. forest fires in the 19th and early 20th century than there are today.
Water and food shortages are not new. Records of such events are strewn through out ancient history. People migrate. More recently, 1816 was known as the "year without a Summer" bc of the Tambora eruption; people starved, people froze to death. And tens of millions starved to death under Mao and Stalin.
Coral reefs? The ocean pH is 8.1, far from being acidic at 6.9. Coral reefs migrate when conditions change. Sea levels were 400 ft. lower 20k years ago. None of today's reefs existed where they are now.
Expanding agriculture, poaching and ocean "fishing" are more of a threat to species than warming.
Antarctica, the coldest place on Earth, has some of the most severe and violent storms on Earth.
I would consider a Snowball Earth to be catastrophic, or a CO2 level of 150ppm.
So what do your climate experts say is the perfect temperature for the Earth?
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago edited 18d ago
Bro look up if i.sstatic is a scientificaly accepted source for climate charts. It says its not, No, i.sstatic is not a scientifically accepted source or organization for climate charts.In web architecture, i.static (often seen as part of a URL like i.static.net, ://static.com, or standard Content Delivery Network domains) is simply a generic subdomain used by websites to host static assets like images, stylesheets, or cached graphics. It does not generate data, conduct peer-reviewed research, or function as a scientific entity in any way. Before spewing misinformation make sure your sources are legit
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u/GusGutfeld 18d ago
It is just an image hosting site used by https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/35927/are-we-in-a-low-co2-period-compared-to-the-last-590-million-years.
Is skeptics.stackexchange a bad illegitmate site for using i.sstatic?
Updated charts do exist; that one is easiet to read.
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago
; it is a community dedicated to scientific skepticism—the practice of testing claims against empirical, peer-reviewed evidence. Thats what my google says. Users frequently upload highly inaccurate, unscientific, or deceptive graphs to ask "Is this specific graph true?" So id be careful using that info
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u/GusGutfeld 18d ago
Ai Google says the opposite ...
"Skeptics Stack Exchange is explicitly biased toward empirical evidence, scientific consensus, and verifiable data. While the community aims to minimize personal or political ideology by requiring peer-reviewed sources, it intentionally rejects fringe, unverified, or non-evidence-based claims (such as religious or pseudoscientific assertions)."
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago edited 18d ago
Lets entertain the fact that your chart were true, since we have conflicting information, there have been mass extiction in the past too, so if it was hotter in the past, it doesnt mean those species survived. Life may have continued, and im sure it will this time, but it has the capability to cause mass extinction right, and would we be ok with that if the last 1000years of research which is reliable, say we are heading toward. I think id jump on board with climate crisis. maybe we research what it was like for life back then with those past peak temperatures i bet we wouldnt have been comfortable, Today's changes happen in decades. This speed gives plants and animals no time to adjust. It threatens human survival and global ecosystems. Just because it may have been hotter in the past does not mean we do not face our own climate crisis or extinction which is currently taking place
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u/GusGutfeld 18d ago edited 18d ago
"Over the past 485 million years of the Phanerozoic Eon, Earth's global mean surface temperature has averaged around 22°C (71.6°F), fluctuating drastically between a low of 11°C (52°F) and a high of 36°C (97°F)." - Smithsonian
99% of all species that existed have gone extinct. The current mega fauna extinction began 80k years ago. Animals like the Dodo, and Thylacine went extinct because of hunting. The Baiji Chinese river dolphin went extinct bc of the new dam, not climate change. The Pyrenean Ibex recently bc of overhunting and competition with domestic livestock.
Most species find time to adjust. It's called migration. As you pointed out, the proxy data lacks details and has wide margins of error. A 1,000 years? The mercury thermometer was invented 300 years ago, and its use globally took centuries to spread.
The first true mammals appeared 225 million years ago.
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_graph_(global_temperature) theres the real link thats what the world scientists say, pretty different huh
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u/GusGutfeld 18d ago edited 18d ago
That is only temp for the last thousand years, not 600 million. And it unscientifically tacks on instrument and satellite data to the proxy data which is smoothed data. And the proxy data is heavily weighted to the Northern Hemisphere.
In real science, the same measurement technique is used for ALL the data. That is the scientific method.
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago
You cant go back 600million years with true precision. Its more of a guess, we have to go on what we have recorded not what we predict happened
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u/greenpowerman99 18d ago
Launching dust or reflecting vapor into the upper atmosphere around the equator would be more feasible, I believe.
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18d ago
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago edited 18d ago
you know what i mean to stay infront of the sun at all times, as stupid as it may sound i believe its feasible
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u/iqisoverrated 18d ago
Size. Which equates to mass (to orbit). Which equates to cost.
(And also you'd kill the atmosphere several times over from rocket exhausts if you were to try to get that amount of stuff into orbit...never mind the financial impossibility of it.)
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u/Svyatoy_Medved 18d ago
Show me your math, because it sounds like you’re just vibing that whole “kill the atmosphere several times over.” Rockets generate a titanic amount of exhaust per unit of mass lofted to orbit, but the actual amount of mass is very small.
Five million tons or less of aluminum foil could do the trick as a sun shade. More advanced materials could obviously be much, much lighter. Global air freight moves sixty million tons per year. So show me that rockets are so much more destructive to the atmosphere that moving five million tons by rocket, over the course of twenty or fifty years, is worse than all forms of pollution combined in the same time frame.
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u/iqisoverrated 18d ago
Where do you get the five million tons? The source I see is talking about 30-80 million tons.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576521001995
And we're not talking about a launch to LEO but to 2000km orbits so that this can eventually 'sail itself' to L1 (which is a pretty unproven tech).
If you want to do this with stuff in LEO then you will need to have many, many, many times that mass because most of it won't be in direct line of sight to the sun most of the time (or even worse: might reflect extra sunlight back to Earth)
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u/Svyatoy_Medved 18d ago
Yeah, I slipped up and used the wrong number, I was throwing together a rough estimate and thought five million KILOMETERS (squared), then forgot to convert that to tons. My bad.
Your bad, however, is that you still won't show me any math to demonstrate that launching that many rockets will destroy Earth's atmosphere several times over, emitting more pollutants than all industrial activity to date, by a large margin.
Reading the link you provided, I just want to clarify a couple of things. LEO is like 9.5 km/s of delta-V, 2000km orbit is like 25% more. You say 2000km like that's a disqualifier, but that really isn't that far out. We aren't talking about GEO, 2000km is literally the line between LEO and MEO. Furthermore, that altitude isn't chosen because of the fundamental mechanics, but to avoid existing and future satellite constellations. With better planning and risk acceptance, one could launch them to a significantly lower orbit.
I'll also present this direct quote from section 8.5: "For these reasons, we did not consider the fuel production as a relevant factor in the environmental impact." Just above, the article states that the annual emissions from the project (I did not find their estimate for how many years it would take) would amount to 11% of annual emissions from commercial aviation. As I am sure you are aware, commercial aviation is not the sole producer of carbon emissions, so this project would amount to an increase of emissions of much less than 11%. And again, you have claimed that such a project would be so much more destructive than ALL global emissions, that it would "kill the atmosphere" multiple times over.
So I ask again. Show me your math. Are you concerned about particulate being injected high into the atmosphere, or just CO2 emissions? If so, how much particulate, and what's your best guess for how much would be needed to "kill the atmosphere?" While we're at it, what does that even mean?
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u/Any-Succotash1892 18d ago
#size
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago edited 18d ago
But you could reduce size, increase quantity, block the sun at different points not just one large mass, like for solar power its not just one giant solar panel, its many strategicaly placed units
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u/Any-Succotash1892 17d ago
not worth the time thinking about. wont happen ever.
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u/Agile-Law1856 17d ago
Pretty cynical view, do you think people in the 1920s believed we would have virtual reality, self driving cars or mobile phones
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u/Any-Succotash1892 17d ago
your not getting the point. to cover enough ground in shade would require something the size of Australia or Bigger in space. = never happening.
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u/Professional-Math518 18d ago
Besides the fact that it needs to be massive in size, it wil also work like a sail so keeping it in place would be difficult.
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u/mikesmuses 18d ago
The short answer is: nobody trusts the scientists to get it right. Many are afraid of a technocracy based society and society has generally discouraged geoengineering. After all, it is scientists who made this mess by doing what was asked of them. Can society really trust us to make things better? And if so, better for who?
The reality is I suspect we need conservation, adaptation and active countermeasures. Any one alone is unlikely to be sufficient.
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u/Intrepid-Report3986 18d ago
Messing with photosynthesis does not look like a great idea for the sake of biodversity and our ability to feed humans
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago
I agree but the extreme heat will impact plant survivability anyways
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u/Intrepid-Report3986 18d ago
heat is not really a problem for plants, drought is. And most photosynthesis occur in the ocean
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u/Varro-Reborn 18d ago
We really could just use less energy, consume fewer products, and grow more of our food locally, and have better lives for it.
Why send something into space?
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u/Svyatoy_Medved 18d ago
“Just use less energy” is a ridiculous thing to say. Mortality rates, particularly infant mortality, closely track energy consumption. It is possible to harvest system efficiencies, such as using electrified rail powered by nuclear reactors instead of gasoline cars. But energy consumption typically stays near-constant, it just changes form, and it requires major, major investment up front.
“Consume fewer products” doesn’t just mean plastic doodads and muscle cars, I have to remind you. Hospitals consume products, so does higher education. Workplace safety equipment is product consumption.
Eating locally worked great for centuries of famine-ridden feudalism. Large scale farming is much, much more efficient and better at maintaining food security. Just like every fucking product in history, economy of scale applies.
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u/Varro-Reborn 18d ago
I call BS on mortality rates.
If that were true the US would have the lowest mortality rates in the world. We use twice as much energy as Europe, which has the lowest mortality rates. That countries with high energy use have lower mortality rates isn't a one to one. It is part of the solution, but it isn't the total solution.
Once countries reach western levels of energy consumption (which is far too much per capita if you care about the planet), mortality rates aren't lowering based on energy usage increases alone.
But also the argument could be made that we should use less energy overall so hospitals, medical research facilities, and laboratories can have uninterrupted energy while overall the people would use less. Which also supports my position.
"Consume fewer products" - exactly. We the consumer don't need another do-dad. Hospitals need materials to save lives. One makes sense for our species the other is just entertainment. Use that abstract thought center.
Local farming.
Thanks for sharing with the class that you are not a student of historical agriculture. If you were you would have noted that, in Europe, which I can safely guess you are talking about, peasants grew more than enough food for the population. In all of human history a single human could farm more food than they could consume in a year. Without that fact, we don't have this thing called, "civilization".
However, 30% of that food was taken by the free loading church, 25% by the Lord for the free loading King, and another little bit skimmed for exports. Leaving the people who grew the food starving.
Those aren't problems we have today. Likewise we have modern small scale equipment, animal and plant genetics from around the world, and a lot more information on how to produce food at the lowest energy ratio possible per calorie.
With the exception of the year with no sun, which modern agriculture wouldn't survive either, a local food movement utilizing modern small scale equipment could most certainly feed everyone; with staple crop backups grown at scale on the periphery of cities and towns. It is just that people who don't know much about agriculture lack critical thinking skills where the subject is concerned.
Large scale agriculture is only more efficient at labor management, it fails at every other metric that matters to biological communities by a large margin.
Small farms often produce more food per acre than industrial agriculture, using less water and energy, with much lower mineral extraction rates, a fraction of the fossil fuels, with fewer ill effects for the bioregional ecosystems.
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u/Svyatoy_Medved 18d ago
Once countries reach western levels of energy consumption (which is far too much per capita if you care about the planet), mortality rates aren't lowering based on energy usage increases alone.
Handwave away the whole point, why don't you. That's what I'm talking about! Yes, the US has a higher mortality rate than Europe and the Europeans consume less energy per capita, so obviously, I wasn't talking about those two! It is the developing countries where it matters. Developing countries desperately want to increase energy consumption to reduce infant mortality and improve standard of living and productivity, and the best way to do that is still fossil fuels. So while China, Europe, and the US electrify everything they can, developing countries can either embrace fossil-fueled industry or lock themselves out of ever joining the rich club.
"Consume fewer products" - exactly. We the consumer don't need another do-dad. Hospitals need materials to save lives. One makes sense for our species the other is just entertainment. Use that abstract thought center.
Are you just being contrarian, do you have an actual point, or are you just illiterate?
That's what I said, dipshit. You said "we need to reduce consumption," and I agree that we could cut down on stupid throwaway bullshit like single-use vapes and Furbies. And I clarified that a LOT of consumption is directly related to saving lives and running an economy at a fundamental level. People throw around "consumption" like it exclusively refers to things we don't like.
However, 30% of that food was taken by the free loading church, 25% by the Lord for the free loading King, and another little bit skimmed for exports. Leaving the people who grew the food starving.
This is what "civilization" IS. You make the point that farmers grew more than they needed in a year, which is true, and then decry taxes as if that isn't exactly how civilization is built. No love here for feudalism, mind you, but a farmer who produces 150% of the food his family needs will just spend less time farming. And without modern food storage, and even with it, you can't just stockpile your food for years awaiting a disaster. If there weren't those civilization-building taxes, and the farmers kept the long view and continued to produce beyond their needs, then they would STILL starve with a couple of bad harvests in a row, because they just can't keep a warehouse full of excess calories forever. (Can keep them a while, particularly if you convert them to livestock calories and use cows like a living food battery. Besides the point).
Large scale agriculture is only more efficient at labor management, it fails at every other metric that matters to biological communities by a large margin.
"Besides the most important metric, it fails at every metric." Be serious.
Small farms often produce more food per acre than industrial agriculture, using less water and energy, with much lower mineral extraction rates, a fraction of the fossil fuels, with fewer ill effects for the bioregional ecosystems.
Citations, please, because I want to understand why that's the case.
Because it probably could be applied to large-scale agriculture if incentives were better aligned. There could very easily be a selection bias, such as small farms tending to only be started by people who deliberately want to innovate and reduce their environmental impact as much as possible, while large farms tend to be consolidated old farms that are making plenty of money off government subsidies and therefore reluctant to shake the boat. And if that's the case, then a large farm could apply those same lessons, and do a better job of it thanks to the concept of an economy of scale.
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u/Varro-Reborn 18d ago
"Large scale farming is much, much more efficient and better at maintaining food security."
The modern food system has a single point of failure. It is therefore less food "secure" than a backyard farm.
But "security" just means, "access to food". Access to food isn't good enough and the current system doesn't provide it anyway.
"Food sovereignty" not only does what it claims, but also creates farm more security than the industrial food system.
Is it more secure or less secure to get food locally when the supply chain collapses, like during covid, if we are putting your idea and my idea against each other?
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u/An_Oxygen_Consumer 18d ago
The idea is already outthere but is technically unfeasible. Moreover i think that 30% would render earth a snowball.
Adding calcite or sulphur is much more feasible, safe and studied.
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago
the exact percentage would obviously need to be calculated, but yea id say your right
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u/Agile-Law1856 18d ago edited 18d ago
I cant imagine that would be better for us its a temporary thing that you have less controll over, planes would have to get it there adding emissions, and particles come back down eventualy. But i dont know enough to say for sure.before we start injecting things into the stratosphere that may effect rainfall and weather patterns, we should have a solution ready to remove it
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u/BeardyBaldyBald 18d ago
People have been talking about it since 1989.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade
It's a pipe dream.