• ShadowRam@fedia.io
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    8 months ago

    The earth generally has an overall fixed rate at which it can radiate heat into space.

    We dig up millions of years of stored solar energy and release it as heat.

    I really don’t understand why people are surprised. Sure, it can get really complicated as you factor in varying cloud cover, solar output, greenhouse effect.

    But long-term trend, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that every joule of energy we pull out of stored carbon, or even mass->energy via nuclear. We are generating more heat now than the earth is used to radiating out.

    So obviously the average temperature is going to increase.

    Even if we find ways to store the energy back, it takes energy to do so, and therefore more waste heat in the end.

    If we want to cool the planet, we have to increase the rate that we radiate heat out into space.