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[+] 29 points 9 months ago (23 children)
  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    No "reverse physics" required.

    One idea among many:

    Restore cannabis.

    It cleans air 7 times more than pine forests.

    It's not just the carbon dioxide that comes into contact with the chlorophyll in the leaves. It's all the terpenes (and other aromatics and pollen) it pumps out too. Meaning it cleans the air high in the sky.

    And atop that, it can replace many polluting technologies. Oil and deforestation (like for farming), for a couple hot examples.

    Even making limecrete housing, instead of offgassing carbon dioxide and causing loads of carbon dioxide during production like concrete does, it's actually carbon negative, in production and throughout its lifetime, sucking up carbon, further hardening over time.

    Similar gains with bioplastics, graphene, paper, fabric, rope, medicine, food, etc.

    It can grow in a greater range of climates than any other useful plant. We could re-green e.g. the entire sahara, the australian outback and the southern half of north america. And it'd increase the soil quality readied for other vegetation within a year or two.

    And that's just one idea.

    Our problem is not physics, it's psycho-socio-economic.

    If the new solid state battery from donutlabs is legit, that could indicate the trickle of cleaner technologies coming, perhaps even towards availing of the emancipatory technologies that have been suppressed for the past century or two. Many an untapped potential. Even just the more mundane better known, like thorium reactors. We have so much headroom without the crooks keeping us down and dirty.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (15 children)

    The same way people fixed the ozone layer, by working together, is totally doable, and we have emerging technologies that would allow us to actively reverse harm, while we have other ones to adapt to the new climate.

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  • [+] 3 points 9 months ago (14 children)
  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (13 children)

    There is carbon capture, but most importantly, there is promising tech to increase atmospheric albedo to reduce temperatures, the problem obviously is that it has to be deployed in a worldwide scale.

    See geoengineering.

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  • [+] 5 points 9 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Good thing we can have so much cheap abundant excess energy that at times it's actually a problem for the grid!

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    That's why I talk about projects increasing albedo than carbon capture.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    Yes, reverse ecological damage by large scale geoengineering that can have significant serious side effects. I swear, techno utopians are completely fucking delusional.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    You say that, but it really is the only thing we can do without just giving up and saying "fuck you" to future generations. So how about taking your doomerism and fucking off somewhere to be miserable by yourself.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

    You can believe in magical fairy tech if you want. In the meanwhile I will continue to advocate for existing technology and societal change, at the risk of sounding like a "doomer".

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  • [–] -2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    At this point it’s already happening one way or another so either you resign yourself to the fact that the world you knew is over and do everything in your power to make something better or you cede the future to those who certainly won’t. I’m not delusional, I know things suck. The planet is irreparably damaged. Wallowing in that fact does nothing, it’s a bridge to nowhere.

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