Interactive exploration of LessWrong and other large collections of documents 2020-12-20T19:06:32.128Z

Comment by FriendlyOwl on Can we really prevent all warming for less than 10B$ with the mostly side-effect free geoengineering technique of Marine Cloud Brightening? · 2019-10-09T20:21:49.506Z · LW · GW

"With Solar Radiation Management techniques specifically, it is not possible to be certain of the effects on ecosystems’ biodiversity, since it will create an entirely new ecological balance (or disturbance) (Alan Robock., 2016). The energy from incoming sunlight is an essential resource for life on the planet and is closely linked, for example, to supporting the oceanic algae that produce most of the world’s oxygen"
From the book "The Big Bad Fix", 2018

In our discussion and potential actions, we should not focus only on climate-related side-effects. We should take into account risks connected to the ocean ecosystem functioning. The ocean is full of living organisms that depend on each other's functioning, and some of which depend on light. Because of this interdependence, a whole ecosystem can collapse if a certain species would be eliminated (this called "tipping point" in biodiversity discussion). The conditions for such a collapse for ocean ecosystems are yet poorly understood. But this remains a risk of successful or unsuccessful deployment of any of Solar Radiation Management techniques.