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The EU Wants To Crack Down on Rogue Efforts To Alter the Atmosphere (theverge.com) 85

Posted by msmash from the pushing-the-limits dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: It's surprisingly easy for someone to mess with the makeup of Earth's atmosphere, regardless of the consequences that could have for our planet. Now, as part of its plans to address security risks posed by climate change, the European Union is calling for talks on a potential international framework on how to treat deliberately atmosphere-altering technologies, AKA geoengineering.

The issue is that scientists aren't quite sure how much good that would do or whether geoengineering might inadvertently trigger new problems. That's why the European Commission says the world needs to start thinking about rules on geoengineering. Without them, climate vigilantes could decide to go ahead with their experiments without any oversight or accountability. In fact, that's already started to happen, albeit on a small scale.
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The EU Wants To Crack Down on Rogue Efforts To Alter the Atmosphere More

The EU Wants To Crack Down on Rogue Efforts To Alter the Atmosphere

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  • Like CO2 emissions? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sonlas ( 10282912 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @11:27AM (#63640178)

    It's surprisingly easy for someone to mess with the makeup of Earth's atmosphere, regardless of the consequences that could have for our planet.

    Our whole civilization is based on energy consumption, mainly from fossil fuels, messing up the makeup of Earth's Atmosphere through greenhouse gases (CO2, methane ...) emissions, regardless of the consequences that could have for our planet.

    That said, at least those kinds of emissions are well-documented. Might be a good idea to have a set of international rules to make sure rogue geo-engineering doesn't do more harm than good.

    • Might be a good idea to have a set of international rules to make sure rogue geo-engineering doesn't do more harm than good.

      The problem with that is that one person's harm is another person's benefit. The problem we are going to have once geo-engineering becomes possible is what climate is best for the Earth?

      A small, limited amount of global warming (1C or less) might be strongly supported by northern countries who would see agriculture suffer if we completely undid all the warming whereas warmer or low-lying countries will benefit from undoing all the warming and perhaps even allowing some cooling. If we ever gain the capab

      • It's also a question of how far down the line is the appropriate focus. Is action that achieves benefits in 20 years while causing problems in 40 more/less appropriate than vice-versa?

    • No, like deliberately spraying sulphur compounds into the atmosphere to block sunlight.

  • Cute but who decides? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @11:27AM (#63640180)

    And who's going to tell the Empire - aka Uncle Sam - they aren't going to do what they think is a good idea? And will China or Russia play nicely? We play nicely in Europe; noone else does.

    • Define "Europe." Do you include Hungary, for example? What about Belarus? Serbia?

      • They probably meant "Europe minus Eastern Bloc"
        • ... and minus Greece and Italy whenever it is inconvenient to include them. Same for Spain.
      • Europe is often used to refer to European Union... Same as America may refer to Burgerland.

      • Both are widely abused. However it is true that most of Europe - widely defined, not just the EU - does play nicely compared with America, North and South etc...Even such countries as Hungary and Serbia are in fact bullied into compliance when push comes to shove. But I'll give you Belarus - though given they are in practice a colonial outpost of Russia, they're not really relevant.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Sanctions would be the first option. Military strikes if it poses an imminent threat.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by logjon ( 1411219 )
      Welp, pack it in boys. China and Russia exist, so we might as well just drive off the cliff without doing anything.
    • 'noone?' what is this word? Oh, you mean NO ONE, 'noone' isn't a word.

    • Easy. You want to sell your products and services to ~500 million of the richest people on the planet? Great, then follow our rules. No different to the already extant electrical/food/pharma/toy/vehicle safety rules.

    • Not to be That Guy, but you need to learn what the word "Empire" means if you think the USA is one.

      • empire: An extensive territory under the control of a supreme ruler (typically an emperor) or an oligarchy, often consisting of an aggregate of many separate states or territories. In later use also: an extensive group of subject territories ultimately under the rule of a single sovereign state.

        OED https://www.oed.com/view/Entry... [oed.com]

        The US consists of several separate states. The fact that you have ethnically cleansed most of your territory of its original inhabitants doesn't mean that you aren't an empire;

        • The fact that we were an empire does not mean we perpetually are one. Nor does a disserved indigenous population justify the term, since that would literally make every single level of sovereign political organization on the planet "imperial."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by UpnAtom ( 551727 )

      The EU has been leading the world on preserving our environment and consumer rights for over a decade. It's already making rules on AI which it can't enforce outside the EU. Such rules are to encourage international discussion and co-operation.
      Without this leadership, most of our cities will be underwater -- or more likely constantly flooded with emergency repeated geoengineering staving off disaster with whatever side effects it has.

    • We play nicely in Europe; noone else does.

      That is only an accident of history. Europe as a whole, lost WW2. Even the winners in Europe lost. Europe lost its position as the center of the world, leaving it to Russian, China, and the United States of America. It is a LOT easier to play nice when you are no longer top dog as cooperation is the only way to get power.

      • Indeed. I wish I could disagree with you, but you are right. Ever since Suez in 1956 when the US vetoed Europe (France and UK) on preventing the theft of assets located in third world countries by the local junta, we've had to behave ourselves. Of course the US lost Cuba a few years later...

  • I mean, we've pretty much fucked up already, why close the barn now?

  • What I really want to know (Score:4, Funny)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @11:38AM (#63640208)
    is what are we doing about this "Cobra Weather Dominator" I keep hearing about. If President Serpentor was still in office he'd know what to do!

  • Good (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 0xG ( 712423 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @11:39AM (#63640226)

    Start with all coal-powered industries.

  • These are still all scams (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @11:43AM (#63640232)
    e.g. all this talk of altering the atmosphere is, like carbon capture, a scam to give people who've accepted climate change as real an excuse to keep driving their SUV instead of building walkable cities with public transportation.

    I suppose it's easy for me since I never had an emotional attachment to cars (I was more of a sci-fi toy kid growing up). Also I don't hate my family so I don't look forward to a 2 hour commute to get some peace and quiet.

    But the attachment to cars is mostly ingrained in us, I don't think it's something built in. Take away that ingrained love from decades of advertisements and cars are noisy, smelly and terrible machines that kill and mangle us all the damn time and get in the way of doing what we really want. And there are better ways to get some "me" time then being stuck in traffic breathing fumes.

    • Re:These are still all scams (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Comboman ( 895500 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @12:07PM (#63640308)

      e.g. all this talk of altering the atmosphere is, like carbon capture, a scam to give people who've accepted climate change as real an excuse to keep driving their SUV instead of building walkable cities with public transportation.

      I think we are past the point where increased public transit would do much good. In 2020 we ran a giant unplanned experiment where much of the world stopped commuting to work/school entirely and air travel practically ground to a halt. Besides being economically unsustainable in the long term, it also resulted in a negligible reduction in global carbon emissions. If you want to stop or even slow down climate change, it will require more drastic measures.

      • ding-ding.. we have a winner. It is terrifying to me that the COVID lockdowns made no perceptible difference in the rate-of-rise of CO2 as clearly shown here at Mauna Loa. [noaa.gov]. Granted there are natural variations that might have counterbalanced any reductions but still... you can draw a line straight from 2019 through 2021 like nothing ever happened.

        It's really hard to feel confident we're going to navigate this mess. We are like bacteria in agar -- completely unable to stop our consumption until we hit

        • "We are like bacteria in agar -- completely unable to stop our consumption until we hit resource exhaustion"

          Are you willing to give up commercial air travel? It's a luxury worth 2% of global CO2 output.

          Then hop over to YouTube and admire the boats at Haulover inlet. Imagine the fuel consumption of four 200 HP outboards. Do they care?

          Fortunately the Pliocene was very nice. We are going there.

          • because it's a point for point

            Much of what you're calling "commercial air travel" is private jets. Sure, I'll give those up. Along with private yachts.

            We're heading for massive droughts and food shortages. I can't be arsed fact checking your crack about the Pliocene, but pretty sure there weren't 7+ billion humans with nuclear weapons dependent on modern high productivity agriculture back then.

            Seriously, I get that you're a right winger, but there should be limits to "conservatism" and calling f

            • Delta Air Lines is a Private jet Chartering Firm? I never knew that. How about American Airlines? Alaskan Airlines?

              Private jets are wasteful, no argument, but they are a tiny part of the air travel. From the news just now, "Travel has picked up steadily every year since bottoming out during the pandemic. For the past week, an average of 2.6 million people a day have been flying in the United States, about on par with pre-pandemic numbers from 2019, according to the Transportation Security Administration."

              Ar

            • Suicide is self-expression. It would save me considerable effort if you jump off your balcony.

          • Are you willing to give up commercial air travel?

            If society got its act together and decided we should? Definitely. And meat and individual car ownership, etc, etc.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by noodler ( 724788 )

          as clearly shown here at Mauna Loa. [noaa.gov].

          That's a pretty deceptive graph.
          For one, it's difficult to judge anything on such short timescales.
          And i can see a slowing in the graph in the covid period. It definitely looked like the slowing gained momentum. It just was too short a period to make a huge difference.

          • as clearly shown here at Mauna Loa. [noaa.gov].

            That's a pretty deceptive graph. For one, it's difficult to judge anything on such short timescales. And i can see a slowing in the graph in the covid period. It definitely looked like the slowing gained momentum. It just was too short a period to make a huge difference.

            It's not deceptive. It's merely one of two graphs that shows recent 5 years. Here's 60 years https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/tren... [noaa.gov]. and "slowing gained momentum"??

      • Um... that experiment worked great (Score:4, Informative)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @02:34PM (#63640872)
        Air quality shot through the roof. But as for climate change, we didn't shut down the factories. We need to clean those up too, yes. But don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

        The problem isn't just raw pollution, it's unnecessary over consumption. Think of all the crap pumped into the air not just by cars, but by ever single bit of infrastructure to build and support them. Think of all the wars fought for oil and the carbon footprint of those.

        Walkable cities are a lot more than just clean air for you to breath. But it also means a lot less economic activity, which means less profit. I'm talking about stopping the cycle of endless growth and making an economy that service people instead of itself.
        • Here we go again, Damien Lee pays to have his comments with no replies modded up to +4 or +5.

          Kind of gay, you fat chink. You are no better than C.D.Reimer, Esq.

  • Ministry of the Future (Score:4, Interesting)

    by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @11:46AM (#63640242)

    It's not my favorite read, and the 'beat me over the head with the politics' part was tiring....BUT...seems prescient especially given the current heat waves in India that are creeping up to 'not survivable'. One could easily see the events in the book playing out in coming years.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Also, as others have mentioned, the world seems just fine with messing with the atmosphere using certain gases and aerosols...aka CO2, methane, etc. If half the voters think there's nothing that can go wrong with gigatons of that stuff, why should sulfate aerosols matter?

    • It's not my favorite read, and the 'beat me over the head with the politics' part was tiring....

      I liked Termination Shock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      On the other hand, India is now the country with the highest population on the planet. Seems they do not mind some dying-off.

      As to why stuff like sulfate aerosols could matter, how atmosphere chemistry works is not thing you can decide by democracy.

  • when you dump 20 tons of iron dust into the ocean to kickstart atmosphere change?

    • Frankly we *should* be experimenting with that. Even if some studies say the carbon doesn't stay sequestered permanently.
    • Sounds like a smaller measure than scuttling a single ship which happens all the time.

    • Be careful where you get the iron dust from. Iron oxide is usually reduced to metal with carbon. You can do it with hydrogen but it's not the common way. Hydrogen soaked steel has issues.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Basically species extinction. You just need to be close enough to some trigger-point that was not yet known. This stuff is very hard to predict, so anybody sane will be very careful with it. I do get that most people are not sane by any reasonable definition of the term.

  • The best way to stop these efforts is to start taking an ax to people running companies that pollute for profit. Seriously, there is no shortage of profits to move to a neutral or near neutral emissions output. Also, maybe don't close down functional nuclear power plants.

    • The best way to stop this is to stop the delusion that any of this activity is needed in the first place, or is ever likely to be effective. The same people who want to regulate this activity are the ones who are fanning the flames of apocalyptic fear that motivates the activity in the first place.

    • The best way to stop these efforts is to start taking an ax to people running companies that pollute for profit.

      You mean those of us buying and consuming products have no responsibility? It's only companies? You mean Billy Bob burning his used oil rather than properly disposing of it is absolved? Or his friends who think rollin' coal is hilarious?

      • Personal responsibility is an aspect but the general public is not focused on that because if companies making better/more recyclable products then the general public will follow. Honestly, I doubt you have a real concern and are really just interested in stirring the pot.

  • ... we're continuing to pump millions of tons of co2 and methane into the atmosphere but "climate vigilantes" might be a problem.

    of course this is just chatgpt hallucinating over the real communication:
    https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sit... [europa.eu]
    which implies nothing of the sort.

    • Re:so ... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @01:13PM (#63640618)

      For those who can't be bothered reading the entire thing, there's one short paragraph on page 21 of the linked document above, plus summary on page 23, that refer this issue.

      "In the context of accelerated global warming, deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s natural systems (referred to as “geoengineering”), such as solar radiation modification, is attracting more attention. However, the risks, impacts and unintended consequences that these technologies pose are poorly understood, and necessary rules, procedures and institutions have not been developed. These technologies introduce new risks to people and ecosystems, while they could also increase power imbalances between nations, spark conflicts and raises a myriad of ethical, legal, governance and political issues. Guided by the precautionary principle, the EU will support international efforts to assess comprehensively the risks and uncertainties of climate interventions, including solar radiation modification and promote discussions on a potential international framework for its governance, including research related aspects."

      "Guided by the precautionary principle, the Commission and the High Representative will support international efforts to assess comprehensively the risks and uncertainties of climate interventions, including solar radiation modification and promote discussions on a potential international framework for its governance, including research related aspects."

      Any panic or hyperbolic reactions over their intentions would seem a trifle unwarranted...

  • Understanding the EU (Score:4, Interesting)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @12:27PM (#63640406)

    The main thing to understand about the EU is Sartre's definition of hell: anything not prohibited is compulsory. (At least I think it was Sartre.) The EU is on a mission to compel everything that is "good" and prohibit everything that is "bad." In their omniscient and infallible opinion, of course. UK made a decision to avoid hell; costly, but at least it's a haven for the UK's huddled masses to breathe free.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by UpnAtom ( 551727 )

      Yes, the economy going backwards since 2019, the unstoppable inflation, the ever rising interest rates, the non-stop turds floating in the rivers, the collapse of the car industry, 5 PMs in 8 years and more immigration than ever... it's all going great. /sarcasm.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      That is just uninformed drivel. What the EU is trying to do is address some areas which urgently need regulation, but which the rest of the world, due to universal greed and stupidity, has so far determinedly ignored.

  • A law to crack down on rogue efforts to NOT alter the atmosphere.

    Meh. It doesnt matter. Our species has made the decision to ignore the scientists and pretend that AGW doesnt exist. It’s going to hit us and hit us hard. Future generations will study this as an object lesson.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by abreauj ( 49848 )

      Our species has made the decision to ignore the scientists and pretend that AGW doesnt exist.

      Nonsense. We didn't make that decision as a species. A vanishingly small percentage of our species, comprising a combination of billionaires and of CEOs in control of the fossil fuel industries, are the ones making that decision.

      The vast majority of those of us who are well-informed about the issue are desperately trying to prevent, or at least mitigate, the damage, but fighting efforts backed by such obscene accumulations of wealth is proving to be a sisyphean task.

  • If a large volcano starts emitting lots of SO2, cooling the atmosphere?

    Said volcano may, or may not be within the EU

  • What a smart move to force nuclear powers to abandon their dangerous toys.

  • I guess we'll have to settle for performing a rain dance during the dry season.

  • The EU/WEF doesn't want the problem fixed (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They don't want an Elon Musk type coming along with a simple, cost-effective, no opportunity for graft solution.

    They want to keep people fearful and therefore controllable, which requires a crisis.

  • But then I am also a user of the sea and I don't want raw sewage being pumped into it.
    And that ain't working out so well.

  • ... regulate their atmosphere as they see fit. We will do with ours as we want. And of course, there is no stopping the Chinese.

  • In which private geo-engineers step up to do something because the global will is too fragmented. https://www.nealstephenson.com... [nealstephenson.com]

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