And again, my question is: does the science show that this is objectively bad, regardless of bog standard policy considerations? For example, comparison with the status quo?
No, the science doesn’t show it is “objectively bad,” which is why I didn’t claim it was. I said it is not an idea endorsed by many climate scientists (which it’s not), and that’s mostly because of the numerous unknowns involved with perturbing a highly complex system, the expected irreversibility of many of its effects, and the path dependence of making us perpetually dependent upon dumping aerosols lest we risk a global climate snapback effect.
This is a summary of the current posture of the climate science community towards this idea, which is not “it is objectively bad,” nor is it something I can spend my time linking you to a singular paper on.
That is why my suggestion, from the very very top, was to get curious about why so few climate scientists support this idea for climate intervention.
Any good faith curious person should pretty immediately ask themselves this question to begin with.
It does not mean we need to listen to said scientists in and have them exclusively dictate policy, but if “climate community doesn’t like climate solution” doesn’t set off enough alarm bells for YOU to go open up Google Scholar, then you are not earnestly interested in the problem and your “just asking questions” approach here is actually just profound laziness.
Here is an article by a climate scientist at Cornell and the head of a climate nonprofit, which is positive towards carefully scaled piloting of solar radiation management:
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/sunscreen-for-the-planet/
I am curious if you can cite an article that is responsive to the specific plans articulated here, especially the plans to help ensure safety by scaling slowly and gathering lots of data. Which is a normal practice in all reasonable policy rollouts.
The comment I replied to said, however, "this pretty much proves we can somewhat slow down climate change by spraying certain chemicals into the air".
No, it doesn't![†] In fact, your article mentions how much we don't know and how many risks there are. I.e. it is not proven. There are still unanswered questions of literally existential magnitude. That's why the consensus view toward this amongst people who think about our options on climate all day long do not see this as a great option, never mind a proven one.
Anyway, as for your article, merely breaking an experiment into 3 phases does not make it like a clinical trial. This experiment has nowhere near the controls nor the limited blast radius of even the riskiest clinical trial being conducted today. So that's my commentary on that. Seems naive and/or dishonest to compare it to a clinical trial.
† Technically of course it's possible to lower the temperature of the earth via aerosols. But this article/observation didn't "prove it," it's not new information, and it doesn't address the main reasons not to do this otherwise obvious idea. Which again is why the scientific consensus is not currently behind it
Yes.
We should listen to people who use evidence and reason to suggest the best course of action. We should listen to people who have spent decades of their lives studying this issue for relatively little reward other than trying to make the world better.
We should NOT listen to semi-literate goobers who gained authority by being popular with simpletons they manipulated into voting for them, mostly through graft and trickery. Those people's opinions should be regarded as being equivalent in value to the opinion of your weird conspiracist uncle who helped vote them into power.
I don't know. Is that plausible? I find that hard to believe.
I wouldn't argue that all scientists are selfless that would be silly. I would argue that the average scientist is less selfish than the average politician, yes.
Examine the motivations. Few people go into pure science seeking power or money. Most or all politicians do.
It is not reasonable to ask IF the science should guide our actions. They only alternative is madness.
Right now though, my own limited guess would be that the risk/reward doesn't justify it. The climate is a chaotic system which exemplifies the concept of sensitive dependence upon initial conditions. We could easily kill millions or even billions of people with a little "whoopsie". It might be better to wait until the alternative is worse than that potential cost.
I would, of course, defer to a consensus of experts on the subject if such a thing exists. I am not one.
What exactly does the science say that makes it definitively a bad policy choice, regardless of the fact that policy requires the consideration of political and economic feasibility?