Maybe I'm missing something, but besides reducing the Earth's temperature, vulcano eruptions have also caused famines, because reduced solar light impacts crop yield.
We have much better agricultural technology now, but:
1. Is there even any research saying we can counteract the reduction in solar light by "planting smarter"?
2. Agricultural technology is very unevenly distributed. If solar light gets reduced globally, Europe and US might be fine, but Africa, Asia, and South America could still face catastrophic reduction of crop yield.
I don't want say that it's a stupid idea, but boy, surely sounds like it is.
> Maybe I'm missing something, but besides reducing the Earth's temperature, vulcano eruptions have also caused famines, because reduced solar light impacts crop yield.
There is already around -0.9W/m2 of radiative forcing due to shipping (sulphur in shipping fuels) which is massive compared to volcanos.
> We have much better agricultural technology now
Yes and no, "modern" agriculture depends massively in fossile fuels and mining so it is not sustainable.
> 1. Is there even any research saying we can counteract the reduction in solar light by "planting smarter"
I read some research saying we can absorb a significant amount of CO2 by regenerative farming. The best however is to plant forests where cows are grazing.
> Agricultural technology is very unevenly distributed. If solar light gets reduced globally, Europe and US might be fine, but Africa, Asia, and South America could still face catastrophic reduction of crop yield.
Unstable climate AND heatwaves are much worst to this regard IMHO. But yes, geoengineering is bad.
> There is already around -0.9W/m2 of radiative forcing due to shipping (sulphur in shipping fuels) which is massive compared to volcanos.
It follows then that the effort to clean up ocean freight will backfire by accelerating global warming unless we do deliberate geoengineering to replicate the unintended forcing.
> Agricultural technology is very unevenly distributed. If solar light gets reduced globally, Europe and US might be fine, but Africa, Asia, and South America could still face catastrophic reduction of crop yield.
It seems likely that any reduction in solar energy will impact those at higher latitudes where the available solar energy is already lower, so I'd expect the equatorial regions to fare best (including large parts of Africa, Asia, and South America).
Although obviously there would be lots of unintended consequences, large areas in those regions may far better with a more temperate climate and lower energy atmosphere.
We have much better agricultural technology now, but:
1. Is there even any research saying we can counteract the reduction in solar light by "planting smarter"?
2. Agricultural technology is very unevenly distributed. If solar light gets reduced globally, Europe and US might be fine, but Africa, Asia, and South America could still face catastrophic reduction of crop yield.
I don't want say that it's a stupid idea, but boy, surely sounds like it is.