[kayaeb]

Why does this scientific publication read like an op-ed? Absolutist language strikes me as exceptionally unscientific.

"it’s time to panic." "We are in deep trouble." "That’s it. Forever." "Forever. Think of what that word means."

Disregarding that, the paper seems to address the idea that stratospheric albedo modifications cannot counteract atmospheric carbon buildup since they operate on timescales of decades versus millenia. Specifically they state that:

"Deployment of albedo hacking does not in any way “buy time” to get carbon dioxide emissions under control, since once emitted, carbon dioxide cannot to any significant extent be unemitted with known economically feasible technology"

Which seems to rest on the absolutist premise that we will never know an economically feasible way to go negative carbon. Otherwise, buying time should absolutely be a reasonable thing to consider.

The author closes with a sentence along the lines of:

"To decarbonize, however, requires building a political movement that regards the climate crisis as a top priority."

Which strikes me as... not exactly impartial (Why would not an economic reason work? Or a grassroots social reason?). Which is obnoxious when the author makes specific appeals to the authority of their profession which has authority by the very virtue of being impartial:

"As a scientist, I viscerally dislike repeating myself; I like to think that once the truth is out there, it will somehow win out and it is not necessary to belabor the point."

This "article" rubs me wrong.

[black_puppydog]

Well, science has been spelling this out in "scientific" terms for the last few decades. And because science usually tends to prefix its conclusions with heaps of disclaimers and "assumings"s, "if"s and "probably"s nobody has been listening. So there you go, scientists seem to be sick of being ignored...?

[antisthenes]

> Which seems to rest on the absolutist premise that we will never know an economically feasible way to go negative carbon. Otherwise, buying time should absolutely be a reasonable thing to consider.

Well, that absolutist premise happens to be correct. There's no such thing as negative carbon. The carbon is never destroyed. Plants don't destroy carbon either, they just store it.

What we need is to find a way to be able to store long term X amount of carbon using X-Y carbon's worth of energy output, netting us Y carbon-free energy output to use for productive activities. So far the best/cheapest method here still seems to be planting trees and burying bio-char, almost entirely replicating the process that occurred millions of years ago before bacteria could break down lignin.

[AstralStorm]

Second version would be trying to bacterially attack said trees after burial to speed up the process, making buried bogs.

Trees are slow, maybe there's something a bit more efficient.