US Is One Step Closer to Having Program to Study Blocking Sun

Re:US Is One Step Closer to Having Program to Study Blocking... by DennisP on Monday March 29, 2021 @09:52AM (#26621529)

So far, it's a program to study it, not to do it. Unilateral action to learn stuff is fine.

Nobody wants to block the sun. But ecological, climate, and humanitarian disaster are inexorably headed our way already. If positive feedbacks seriously kick in, this has a chance of buying us some time until we can reduce carbon levels.

Besides, we've already seen this employed, by volcanoes, with global effects lasting one to two years. Disaster did not ensue.

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Re:US Is One Step Closer to Having Program to Study Blocking... by tito on Monday March 29, 2021 @11:58AM (#26623763)

I'm surprised to learn less than $2M per year goes into this type of research in the USA. Given the massive unknowns, it's something we certainly need to better understand.

Kind of like research on deflecting asteroids.

"the U.S. Government and Accountability Office (GAO)"..."estimated that about $2 million were directed to “albedo modification and less conventional CDR approaches,” so less than 0.1% of the U.S. climate change budget focused on the strategies discussed in our report." (page 185 of the report)

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