Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mdorazio 2570 days ago
Honestly, I support this guy. Most scientists and government bodies are still in the fearmongering stage trying desperately to decrease emissions without actually putting teeth behind targets when realistically that ship has long since sailed. It's better to be testing climate engineering projects like this now than to sit around and hope that things don't get as bad as every indicator points they will be.

Granted, there are better ways to go about this with more process, oversight, and government cooperation, but every time someone even proposes a similar test, it seems to get shut down immediately.

2 comments

Why support someone possibly poisioning the ocean with no oversight? Is teaming up with a university too difficult? No government needed, just actual science, not '"science" because some guy took notes'.
Nobody has suggested that he "poisoned" the ocean. By all accounts, it worked as planned, perhaps just a little too well.

If freighters would scatter just a couple of hundred pounds of iron dust behind them on each trip, the concentration would be easily low enough to cause no red tides, but might absorb all the carbon they are pumping out.

To claim that scattering rock dust is reckless, but spewing millions of tons of CO2 is fine, is extreme foolishness.

You support vigilantism?
Vigilantism is violating the government's (presumed legitimate) monopoly on violence.

Rock dust is not violence. Governments have no legitimate monopoly on action to protect the planet.

When necessary. Context is key.