Considering we can’t even get heads or state or imagining-they’re-heads-of-states to not:
- Wage war on neighboring countries.
- Try to usurp their own government.
- Promote wild conspiracy theories.
- Be ragingly against personal freedom even in the US, the countries that is supposedly all about that.
- Be ragingly anti-intellectual.
… I really have exactly zero hope we can do shit-all about climate issues. We can’t even handle far smaller and far more benign (by comparison) issues on a national level, what hope do we have to handle things that require everyone to pull in the same direction, on an international one.
… I really have exactly zero hope we can do shit-all about climate issues. We can’t even handle far smaller and far more benign (by comparison) issues on a national level, what hope do we have to handle things that require everyone to pull in the same direction, on an international one.
you wanna hear something even more depressing? people first started talking about the greenhouse effect (though it wasn’t called that,) in 1824. (Fourrier and Pouilett were the first two. Fourier in 1824, and pouillet in 1836 or so,). In 1896, we have the first scientist getting concerned about it. that credit goes to Svanta Arrhenius.
Oh. and Popular Mechanics ran an article about it being a problem in 1912. complete with this picture:
In short. We’ve known for over a century and still fucked the earth up.“A few centuries… That’s next week’s problem. No one I ever know will be alive to see that.”
We know what we did to cause the problem. Anything we do to mitigate the effects of what we did will only encourage us to continue making those same mistakes.
Forget carbon offsets, just reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gases. Forget geoengineering and carbon capture. Just tax emissions and budget for carbon neutral infrastructure and reducing car dependence.
Anything we do to fix the climate that doesn’t stop us from screwing up the climate will only enable further mistakes.
Look! My solar panels are 23% efficient! 😀
And what happens to the other 77%? It turns into heat! 🥵
I don’t have stats on hand but its much less than 77% of photons “turning into heat”.
Those photons do lose some energy which is kinetic and becomes heat but it’s not 100% either, as those photons mostly just bounce off after losing a little energy.
Solar panels appear dark - more so than a 23% reduction can account for. The whole of the other 77% will not immediately turn into heat, but the bulk of it will. Some photons bounce, with a dependence on colour - but what happens to them then? A tiny amount will escape the Earth, with the rest absorbed by objects, atmosphere and eyes - mostly becoming heat. And what happens to visible light when it loses “a little energy”? It becomes infrared - y’know: heat.
Look I don’t agree with your comment being downvoted but my statement is broadly correct though I don’t have the numbers to back it up.
You’re also correct that the photons are likely to bounce around and impart more of their remaining energy within our world/atmosphere.
That would happen with most objects (barring perfectly reflective surfaces and even then) such as a roof though…. So it’s not like your solar panel is increasing the total energy imparted to the “system”.
Indeed it doesn’t increase the total energy. It converts much of it into energy that our excess CO2 traps - IR. So we must either leave it as visible light, or push technology to convert it into microwave, both of which can escape.
And use what exactly for energy generation? Covering even 5% of the planet in solar panels would be less disastrous than continuing with fossil fuels.
Your proposal also isn’t mutually exclusive with solar power. You can do both… absorb light for electricity generation and efficiently reflect light to reduce total absorption.
Both would kill us, so it doesn’t matter which passes the finish line first. This is what the article warns about - massive engineering projects that affect the climate, whether for the purpose of geo-engineering or not.
Nothing wrong with solar IF we can pump the heat out of the atmosphere, or dodge it in some other way. Which we can’t, yet, and a solution to this is not waiting around the corner.
