This may be anti-hot take, but dumping billion of tons of particles into the atmosphere to block the sun is maybe a bad idea, which is why I'm very worried some billionaire will want to do it.

[badastro@mastodon.social]

This may be anti-hot take, but dumping billion of tons of particles into the atmosphere to block the sun is maybe a bad idea, which is why I'm very worried some billionaire will want to do it. Words by me.

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/dimming-the-sun-is-probably-a-very-bad-idea

[sassdawe@infosec.exchange]

@badastro this was somewhat of a risk during the Kuwait war when all those oil/gas wells were on fire I think.

[viq@social.hackerspace.pl]

@badastro Neal Stephenson's "Termination Shock" seems awfully permissive of the idea and optimistic about the results

[music_from_the_80ies@mastodontech.de]

@badastro Unpredictable results, as you write. What is the legal situation? Could some billionaire just do that or do international laws or regulations exist regarding the atmosphere that could prevent such actions?

[saltywizard@beige.party]

@badastro

some billionaire *is* doing it.

cf. starlink

[sanealex@mendeddrum.org]

@badastro Sadly I think the #ClimateCrisis is already so bad if you understand that a lot of what we have already done will continue to have increasing effects over a large number of future years that we will now almost certainly need to use large scale #Geoengineering just to try to keep major areas of human habitation inhabitable. Neal Stephenson's Novel "Termination Shock" explores the concept & consequences of the particles in the atmosphere(& if you are very cynical like me assume is current plan of the fossil fuel companies as they have the piles of sulphur ready ) idea well. I agree with you that this is likely to have a lot of unforeseen effects some of which could cause even more unstable global tensions. For what it is worth when the governments of the world are forced to take action due to the increasingly high body count of the #ClimateCrisis I would go for a #Space mirror/s at Lagrange 1(if it could be dual use for a large space telescope all the better as we could have nice pics to look at whilst not burning to a crisp ) as it would be much easier to remove/move a mirror than sulphur particles spread across al the Earths atmosphere.(And would not necessarily further enrich fossil fuel companies patching the consequences of their prior actions️ )

[noodlemaz@mstdn.games]

@badastro didn't anyone watch highlander 2
Or the Matrix
Or any number of dystopian scifis where this happens

Of course they did
They didn't understand it

#TormentNexus

[ericbono@social.vivaldi.net]

@badastro

Captain Kaneda will have given his life for nothing

[viq@social.hackerspace.pl]

@Music_From_The_80ies @badastro "international laws and regulations" Chief Prosecutor of International Criminal Court had email and bank accounts blocked for daring to investigate a politician from a country *allied* to USA. USA has outright stated, and has I believe an official policy stating so, that it will send military to invade Hague were USA politicians to be investigated by ICC.

[viq@social.hackerspace.pl]

@Music_From_The_80ies @badastro With how tightly billionaires are tied with the USA government, trying to do something about them would be difficult.

[nibor4000@social.vivaldi.net]

@badastro

What about governments?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/block-sunlight-british-scientists-global-warming-b2740295.html

[peachfront@toot.community]

@badastro

they'll justify the nuclear war they're starting by claiming that nuclear winter is required to bring the Earth back into sync

[tauc@infosec.exchange]

@badastro

That happened worldwide in the 15th century (iirc) and it was a massive disaster.