Why is there so much interest in terraforming mars but comparitively little on utilising the same Earth sciences to...

looks like i'm not getting muh real winters without a fucking apocalypse then :^(

Because terraforming is a comfortable fantasy that doesn't require real work and fixing Earth and ceasing its destruction requires effort and sanity. Muh flying cars is literally just another religion.

We do not understand earth systems very well. Ludditism and restoration is the best way to go about making the earth habitable.

Why aren't we terraforming the Moon? It's much closer than Mars.

how are we not geoengineering the earth every single day since fire was discovered?

I think OP meant the opposite of fucking it up.

There's currently more effort to "geoengineer" Earth than there is for Mars. I'm not sure why you'd think otherwise.

Public perception wise

Three reasons: water displacement that would flood the world, salt water, and because sand isn't going to magically become fertile soil no matter how much water you add to it anyway.

We understand the systems far better for Earth than any other planet. The Earth is already habitable desu

I like reading sci-fi about the terra-forming and colonization of Venus more than that of Mars; due to the similar gravity Venus would actually be like a second home. Mars can't even hold onto its atmosphere.

youtube.com/watch?v=1yzmuwDTwAU
>temperatures rise
>put adjustable infrared blocking solar shade in front of the earth
>temperatures can now be adjusted at will to how we want them
daily reminder that anyone in favour of carbon taxes is braindead cattle

Am I the only one that scrolled past the image and thought they saw a jewish merchant

No we don't, ecological systems make earth way more complex
>earth is already habitable
Not for long desu

Fuck now I see it

Sad desu

What would we have to change about the Earth in order for it to remain habitable as long as possible?

Or is it too late and we're all doomed

We have the technological ability to:
Make Artificial islands and reefs to break up storms
make fuckmassive dikes to combat rising sea levels
make colossal storm barriers
make solar shade arrays to block unnessasary radiation from the sun, infrared being a particular target
make solar mirror arrays to focus light on certian areas to raise the temperature to how we want it
and many many more

The talent of humanity is it's mythical engineering capability, for we have been knocking down mountains and invading the sea itself for more land since we developed stone tools
the fact that there are retards who want carbon taxing and for everyone to be put into a cuckshed micro house while banning all industry is absolutely fucking disgraceful

Nice strawman

>bro just put an adjustable ir blocking solar shade in space in front of the Earth lmao
>ignoring how fucking expensive that would br

when you source the materials from the moon or asteroids instead of hauling it from earth, it wouldn't be very expensive at all
also add in the fact that this would be a global project like the ISS was, so most nations would pitch some cash in to get it done

Because no matter how well we might geoengineer the earth a giant world-ending asteroid could still hit us at just about any moment.

Because ancient aliens who gave us the tech to build pyramids in their honor originate from Mars. The oil oligarchy have severe interests in acquiring their green propulsion tech, destroying every evidence of it ever existing, and solidify their position as the gods of fuel.

>bro don't do anything because of some asteroid at some point in time

That would make it less expensive, but it would still be hugely expensive. And, it's wasteful when you consider the natural progression of mankind is using even more of the energy from the sun, not blocking it. Solar arrays are what we should be putting into to space to utilise the energy of the sun

>>bro don't do anything because of some asteroid at some point in time

My point was that terraforming Mars is a more popular idea because it would give us a backup in the event that some catastrophe made Earth uninhabitable.

What do you even study if you want to learn more about terraforming/geo engineering?
>Earth Sciences
>Climatology
What other fields?

182 Millions of tons of Saharan dust blows each year over to the Amazon rainforest, helping to fertilize the plant life there.
If it weren't a desert, that wouldn't happen and it would negatively impact the rainforest ecosystem.

Step 2:

>grow algae to get biomass
>mix it with sand
>get fertile soil
>grow plants

Step 3: profit

Ecology and evolution

There is water, plant-pollinator phenology, an entire world of soil bioata, and so much more that needs to be taken care of.
Your ignorance betrays your ignorance

Life science is actually the most important one if you want to achieve any kind of stability.

making a solar array that blocks some light hitting earth will not make even the slightest dent in the amount of energy humanity can harness from the sun, The area that we wont be able to use because of earth being there is nonexistent compared to the size of the sun
by the time it becomes an issue, where we do need that area, we would have long since discovered sciences that would make it unnecessary, and/or disassembled the earth for resources

making a solar shade*

>making a solar shade
What about its effects on the dynamics of ecological, climate, hydrological systems? Do you not get that this would have significant casual implications?
Just use trees nigga lol.
Lmao they also do nutrient cycling and hold moisture. Engineers and physicists are fucking retarded. Synergetic not synthetic, OKAY?

The purpose of a shade would be to forcefully stop global warming
You have it adjustable, and you can ensure that that temperatures don't stray far from the range you want to keep them at, dim it for less heat, the reverse for the reverse
It'll have a profound effect, but the effects will be near entirely beneficial, even better when compared to the effects of letting it change naturally

also, for what reason could we not do both?
trees AND shade, best of both worlds

Because trees do everything that the artificial shade does but better, with less negative impacts, and increase ecological complexity and connectivity, humidity, sink carbon into biomass and contribute loads of ecosystem services.
Not to mention that being alive they are adapitble and resilient to change instead of reflecting entropy such as artificial shade.
Sure small scale artificial shade could be of local successional utility when trying forest/ humidify arid land.
Not to mention the ocean is where the vast majority of thermal radiation is absorbed, and shading the ocean would have profound ecological effects.

My argument was not that it would reduce the amount of energy we could harness significantly, it was that blocked energy is useless energy. A solar array can block im the exact same way and transmit the energy back to us, and can be adjustable by tilting or moving the panels

The shade would be designed to only block infrared radiation, not anything else
Solar panels do not use infrared for power, so it would have no effect on our power generation abilities

Step 4: remember Mars has no magnetic field and thus no protection against sun storms.

This. Plus the Earth is already "self terraformed.."

The shade wouldn't actually cast a full shadow over any portion of the earth. If you looked at the sun with a telescope, the shade would just be a little blob obscuring a small part of the disc. You'd still have full sunlight everywhere on earth, it would just be slightly less intense.

Fixing manmade damage would be a good start.

Australia was probably far more lush and cooler not long ago. The Abos burning off the forests literally changed its climate.

step 5: Put a station at the mars sun Lagrange point generating a 1 tesla magnetic field to protect mars from nearly all solar radiation

It can be used by solar panels to up efficiency, so nah. Also, I'm not aware of materials specific enough to only block ir and let everything else pass through
Also, you're missing the point - putting a solar panel in combination with a shade is wasteful because only one is required to perform the sunlight attenuation function (and one does it in a more useful manner).

Sounds like a consequence of the world being fucked rather than a cause

>no atmosphere
>no water
>no gravity
>700 hour long day
>Terraform
nigga you stupid.

That's only because of magnetic fields, not gravity.

Is terraforming even a realistic option? Or would is only occur on small scales like biodomes?

If humans have to do it manually, it'll be only dug in caves. If we manage to invent shit like chemically-powered self-replicating nanobots, we might have a better shot. There are still some problems that don't have a solution, like
>how do you get a breathable atmosphere in less than 100 million years (where do you get oxigen in the first place)
>where do you get oceans in less than 100 million years
>how do you raise the temperature
>how do you induce a planetary-sized magnetic field at all
>how do you avoid waking some andromeda strain-tier superdisease from the polar permafrost
>how to live a lifetime in 0.4G without your decendants being 7-8 feet lankets that literally can't survive on Earth
>how do you get more than several hundred tons on a mars transfer orbit without it costing billions

You don't need a planetary magnetic field
NASA already calculated that a station producing a 1 Tesla field at the Lagrange point between it and the sun would block almost all of the solar radiation

Rotating habitats at a diagonal angle filling in that last 0.6g would let you simulate earth normal gravity and keep everything good for kids

You can make all the tonnage of ship you need the same way it was got on earth, by constructing infrastructure and better methods of travel
back centuries ago, a trip to america took 6 fucking months, now it takes mere weeks
currently we have to drift through space to save fuel, causing it to take a long ass time, a torch ship would drop that shit to weeks, just like the olden days, and like the old days, we'd be able to create and fuel those ships with infrastructure

You could get the atmosphere and oceans by shipping it in from other places like venus, europa, and titan, the more ships you have transporting shit, the faster it will go

You can't prevent the disease, because it's completely fucking unknown if it exists, though if it does, the odds of it being compatible with human life are slim to fucking none