Should we really be dimming the sun?! (Geoengineering)

[Whyx]

According to this article scientist are going to be filling the skies with reflective particles and salt water. It says no one is sure what the consequences to weather systems, drought, floods etc will be. It seems like an awful idea when we could just be mass planting trees and reducing emissions - as in actually do this rather than set targets that aren't met. But I do not know much about the subject. It certainly plays into the chem trail conspiracy theories.

I found a thread on here discussing it in 2023 but nothing recent.

This project has been approved to go ahead I think.

Scientists to dim the sun.

AIBU to think this is a bad idea?

True but I can only see this opening a Pandora’s box of problems for the world. Giving way too much power to a handful of one species (who often have self-serving ambitions) on a whole planet of living things. Who knows what chaos this will cause, not only in terms of climate but also in warfare. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

All conspiracy theories have an element of truth. They have to, in order to suck people in.

Conspiracy theories also contain “secrets” that “nobody knows”. Given this is being publicised it hardly fits that criteria.

What they are researching here, is nothing like the silly chemtrail stuff. Nor will it set off an endless winter. It’s looking at ways we can protect the planet because too many people don’t seem to want to do the simple things we can do to help it. I won’t waste my time explaining this, because those on this thread who are interested can go do the research and the rest of you who just want to catastrophise and talk about conspiracies won’t change your minds when you have real facts.

I think they already do but are now letting us know.

No. It's not true. Nobody is modifying the weather. There is a proposal to study how we might reduce solar radiation hitting the earth's surface at some point in the future. This would require billions of tons of whatever we might decide to put into the atmosphere (and as I mentioned earlier, I don't think it will happen anyway). If we were already doing it, we wouldn't need to do the research, and we certainly wouldn't announce that we were doing the research. (Conspiracies are apparently all run by people who are incredibly clever except for the occasional blunder that totally gives them away.)

The chemtrails thing really is the most bonkers of all conspiracy theories. We are required to believe that:

• Chemical plants exist that manufacture these very special chemicals, but nobody had ever located one or been hired by one (or even encountered someone trying to recruit for them). Nobody who works in one has ever confessed to it, even on their deathbed.
• The chemicals are trucked to the airport daily and loaded into planes by tankers that nobody has ever seen, driven by people who do not understand why they are regularly loading up at a factory that is not on any map.
• The chemicals are injected into the jet engines by components of the aircraft that no maintenance technician has ever seen.
• The chemicals react with air in the stratosphere at -50°C but are unaffected by being passed through the exhaust of a turbofan engine at 800°C.
• A few hundred kilograms of this chemical is enough to alter the fluid-mechanical characteristics of the 5 million million million kilograms of the Earth's atmosphere.
• The pilots presumably press a button to spray the chemicals, but not one pilot, even on their deathbed, has ever admitted to this.
• The science to do all this has been disseminated by a shadowy network of researchers who are doing Nobel Prize-level work but never publish in journals or have any affiliation with any university.

Essentially you need a Thunderbirds level of suspension of disbelief. Or as I saw someone write on social media the other day, "Everything looks like a conspiracy when you have no idea how anything actually works".

Conspiracy theories are deliberately designed to have elements of truth to them.

Snowpiercer and the law of unintended consequences coming our way....! I've updated our apocalypse plan to include "Run towards the dimming" as well as "Run towards the bright light"....I used to have nightmares about this kind of thing as an impressionable teen. Can't believe it's actually happening as a jaded, tired adult. Though engineering the weather has long been a topic of conversation in this household!

Have they not seen Geostorm?

I love disaster movies, but don't fancy the reality of messing with the weather.

With all due respect, he was correct though, wasn't he?

You don’t need to “waste your time” explaining anything, we are all capable of using our thumbs and noodles just like you are. No one on this thread is talking about “silly chemtrail stuff” which suggested governments were spraying people with mind-controlling toxins. What we are talking about, however, is a proposal to spray reflective particles into the atmosphere, which is quite clearly where the links to the chemtrail theory come from.

No, it won’t alter our minds and yes it may come from some sort of altruistic motivation for now, but when billionaires like Bill Gates are showing an interest in this field of research it’s not exactly unhinged for us common folk to be a little wary of that.

The unpalatable fact is we really need to look at serious population control across the entire world. There are simply too many human beings. Less humans, less use of resources, less consumption, less waste, less pollution. Everything else is a sticking plaster.

So using “Stratospheric Aerosol Transport and Nucleation” (aka SATAN - big LOLs) to test this it out is the way to go, in that case I guess! I mean, it’s only places like sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America that are likely to be really impacted by any future solar geo-engineering so who cares, right?

I know, and we won't hear the last of it! 🤣

No he’s not. They aren’t modifying the weather, and they haven’t been doing it for years. He’s completely wrong…

I believe the tendency for projects to be targeted by conspiracy theorists is one reason for the FOI request exemption. Vexatious requests are a constant time suck on people involved in complex projects. They would of course say it's suspicious but in my experience it's to protect the relevant people's time!

This came to mind too!

We're still only on page 2 and there are already three posts in this thread citing works of science fiction as reasons why a particular line of research should not be conducted. Should we stop all genetics research in case a Jurassic Park scenario happens?

When you say 'we' should be reducing emissions, you mean 'I' should be reducing emissions. But it's always those people over there who should be doing something, not us or me.

Mumsnet believes that someone who doesn't drive is deficient as a human being, and with entrenched attitudes like that we're going to have to resort to the risky solutions such as the one you've outlined.

Who here is prepared to give up their car, foreign holidays or forego a third child for the betterment of the planet? Thought not...

Don’t they say the flooding in Dubai was caused by cloud seeding? Scary.

Or stop using AI or the internet to save water.

Or stop private jets flying all over the place.

Bit unfair. How else is Harry going to get to Google Camp for his barefoot speech?

Not a fan of the royals anyway. Or of H&M bashing in particular. The obvious answer is ‘on a scheduled flight, either civilian or military’. They can use first if necessary, and bring security along.
It’s the billionaires who really take the piss with this. I read somewhere that they use up my lifetimes carbon emissions each year.

Sounds like it will bring on the ice age we will be entering, one sign of which is the world warming up.