Timo wrote:Geoengineering, anyone?
I know there's another thread somewhere here, devoted to that topic, but i'll only reiterate my POV from over there that for the sake of planetary survival, we really have no choice but to go in that direction, FSA. Aerosols, while not a silver bullet that really solve anything, do have a mitigating effect on global temperatures. For that matter Mt Pinotubo produced a rather nice cooling effect across the planet with it went kaboom.
Exactly right. Of course, aerosols like that emitted by Pinatubo only stay in the atmosphere for a couple of years, so we'd have to have a geoengineering program set up to continue to shoot stuff into the atmosphere for hundreds of years if we try to counteract AGW using aerosols. Much better to geoengineer climate by pumping down CO2.
Timo wrote: If five years is all we've got before never going back, then we should recognize that reducing carbon emmissions in planetary unison is a pipe dream, and shift gears big time to mitigating the catastrophic consequences that we, ourselves, have geoengineered.
It is already too late now. Atmospheric CO2 is at 400 ppm----already higher than at any time in the last several million years. Greenland is going to melt and sea level is going to go up 7 m or more---and it will happen quicker than seems possible now if the Arctic Ocean goes ice free and major feedbacks kick in to warm the Arctic.
With China, India, Germany and other economic powers building FF plants like mad, and the UN climate change treaty process in disarray since the disaster in Copenhagen in 2009, there isn't much chance of stopping the FF foolishness now.