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Why focus on "fixing" climate ? Why not just assume it's going to become unstable in close future and start building with that assumption ? Large scale isolate

Why focus on "fixing" climate ? Why not just assume it's going to become unstable in close future and start building with that assumption ? Large scale isolated citiy domes. Nutrient synthesis that doesn't rely on climate/agriculture. Environment independent energy generation like micro nuclear reactors. Large scale air filtration and temperature control. As the world becomes more interconnected and developed catastrophic outcomes like super virus/bacteria, large scale nuclear event, etc. become bigger threats to entire world. Why not start building self sufficient and well isolated megacities that can function irregardless of climate change ? It's perfectly possible on 50 year timescale if we don't waste time on shoving our heads in to the ground and hoping everything will stay great if we stop burning stuff.

gnaritas 10y ago
If you can't mobilize man to fight climate change, you aren't going to mobilize him to prepare for it either. People are in deep denial about the problem.
- Razengan 10y ago
  Preserving human knowledge and art [0] won't require mobilizing all of mankind; it could be done by a few individuals and it's kinda already being done by Wikipedia, Wikia, "pirates" etc. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13944410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13944410
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    True, however, the problem is preserving humans from near extinction, not preserving our knowledge and culture for the few who might survive if we ignore the problem.
    - Razengan 10y ago
      > for the few who might survive It doesn't have to be for our survivors... We could, and I believe we should, do it for the next civilization to come after ours, even if it's a few alien visitors. If for no other reason than to leave a legacy of our short existence against the infinity of this universe.
      - gnaritas 10y ago
        I and I'm sure most people on this planet don't care about leaving a legacy to a future species when the problem at hand is our own survival.
        Razengan 10y ago
        Nobody's saying we should give up or not try to survive, but IF the options came down to: Going extinct — or — Going extinct without any trace whatsoever of our existence left behind, which would you prefer? You said it yourself: If you can't mobilize man to fight climate change, you aren't going to mobilize him to prepare for it either.
        gnaritas 10y ago
        I won't care, because I'll be dead. So let me be clearer, the notion that anyone will care about leaving proof of our existence rather than themselves trying to survive I find laughable. It's an easy nonsense thing to say when living in relative comfort but when the reality of survival kicks in, such lofty bullshit will go right out the door and you'll be fighting to eat and live another day, not worrying about humanity leaving traces behind for posterity.
- knz 10y ago
  I was just on a call to a Federal agency in DC today to discuss research related to green house gas emission reductions. The staff were excited but quick to point out that anything related to climate change means "substantial pressure from the White House". They were reluctant to even publicize the findings and this was for good news ("easy" to do, potentially saves industry millions) so I can imagine the reaction to bad news. What good does convincing people do if the government won't even admit climate change is real? The "huge" savings for our industry are minimal in the grand scheme of things. It's depressing to realize how we are past the prevention phase of climate change and rapidly passing through chances to more easily mitigate the impacts.
jacquesm 10y ago
Most of your partial solutions depend on 'mere engineering' on a scale that has never been attempted before.
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  Sure but I think climate change is just one of many variables that show how our global society is fragile - the direction of my proposal would go a long way towards making it much more robust, isolation from climate change is just one problem solved by it. It becomes easy to quarantine/filter access preventing biological contamination. Even on city level you can have isolated blocks further limiting the impact of catastrophic events. I think the "preserve the environment" is a knee-jerk driven by the same kind of instincts that sell "natural organic food" and stuff - even if we could somehow magically reign in man made climate change there's really no guarantee that the climate will remain stable or that a low probability event like a volcanic eruption won't cause a huge global crisis, etc. Instead of hoping things remain as they are we should limit our exposure to environment risks.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Another problem I see with your approach is that it tends to favor the rich countries in an extreme way over the poorer ones (assuming it could be pulled off at all), which I think is the final move in the 'externalization' game, let the rest of the world die so that the remnants of Western civilization can go and colonize an otherwise empty world at some point in the far future.
    - rubber_duck 10y ago
      It's a problem if you're looking for a global solution, but even the poor countries would benefit from R&D breakthroughs.
ericd 10y ago
Have you read the Silo series? But to answer your question, because we can't build enough of these to sustain billions of people.
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  >But to answer your question, because we can't build enough of these to sustain billions of people. Maybe but then again scaling isn't really the immediate problem - it's building the thing in the first place, replicating should be simpler and by the time it's done who knows what the tech will be. And while it probably won't work for everyone it will work much more reliably for those that participate in it - not just for climate change but for other catastrophe protection/isolation as well.
mirimir 10y ago
It seems likely that some are doing this. But I doubt that they want publicity ;)
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  PM invite pls :)
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Yeah, would be cool :)

gnaritas 10y ago

If you can't mobilize man to fight climate change, you aren't going to mobilize him to prepare for it either. People are in deep denial about the problem.

Razengan 10y ago
Preserving human knowledge and art [0] won't require mobilizing all of mankind; it could be done by a few individuals and it's kinda already being done by Wikipedia, Wikia, "pirates" etc. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13944410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13944410
- gnaritas 10y ago
  True, however, the problem is preserving humans from near extinction, not preserving our knowledge and culture for the few who might survive if we ignore the problem.
  - Razengan 10y ago
    > for the few who might survive It doesn't have to be for our survivors... We could, and I believe we should, do it for the next civilization to come after ours, even if it's a few alien visitors. If for no other reason than to leave a legacy of our short existence against the infinity of this universe.
    - gnaritas 10y ago
      I and I'm sure most people on this planet don't care about leaving a legacy to a future species when the problem at hand is our own survival.
      - Razengan 10y ago
        Nobody's saying we should give up or not try to survive, but IF the options came down to: Going extinct — or — Going extinct without any trace whatsoever of our existence left behind, which would you prefer? You said it yourself: If you can't mobilize man to fight climate change, you aren't going to mobilize him to prepare for it either.
        gnaritas 10y ago
        I won't care, because I'll be dead. So let me be clearer, the notion that anyone will care about leaving proof of our existence rather than themselves trying to survive I find laughable. It's an easy nonsense thing to say when living in relative comfort but when the reality of survival kicks in, such lofty bullshit will go right out the door and you'll be fighting to eat and live another day, not worrying about humanity leaving traces behind for posterity.
knz 10y ago
I was just on a call to a Federal agency in DC today to discuss research related to green house gas emission reductions. The staff were excited but quick to point out that anything related to climate change means "substantial pressure from the White House". They were reluctant to even publicize the findings and this was for good news ("easy" to do, potentially saves industry millions) so I can imagine the reaction to bad news. What good does convincing people do if the government won't even admit climate change is real? The "huge" savings for our industry are minimal in the grand scheme of things. It's depressing to realize how we are past the prevention phase of climate change and rapidly passing through chances to more easily mitigate the impacts.

jacquesm 10y ago

Most of your partial solutions depend on 'mere engineering' on a scale that has never been attempted before.

rubber_duck 10y ago
Sure but I think climate change is just one of many variables that show how our global society is fragile - the direction of my proposal would go a long way towards making it much more robust, isolation from climate change is just one problem solved by it. It becomes easy to quarantine/filter access preventing biological contamination. Even on city level you can have isolated blocks further limiting the impact of catastrophic events. I think the "preserve the environment" is a knee-jerk driven by the same kind of instincts that sell "natural organic food" and stuff - even if we could somehow magically reign in man made climate change there's really no guarantee that the climate will remain stable or that a low probability event like a volcanic eruption won't cause a huge global crisis, etc. Instead of hoping things remain as they are we should limit our exposure to environment risks.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Another problem I see with your approach is that it tends to favor the rich countries in an extreme way over the poorer ones (assuming it could be pulled off at all), which I think is the final move in the 'externalization' game, let the rest of the world die so that the remnants of Western civilization can go and colonize an otherwise empty world at some point in the far future.
  - rubber_duck 10y ago
    It's a problem if you're looking for a global solution, but even the poor countries would benefit from R&D breakthroughs.

ericd 10y ago

Have you read the Silo series? But to answer your question, because we can't build enough of these to sustain billions of people.

rubber_duck 10y ago
>But to answer your question, because we can't build enough of these to sustain billions of people. Maybe but then again scaling isn't really the immediate problem - it's building the thing in the first place, replicating should be simpler and by the time it's done who knows what the tech will be. And while it probably won't work for everyone it will work much more reliably for those that participate in it - not just for climate change but for other catastrophe protection/isolation as well.

mirimir 10y ago

It seems likely that some are doing this. But I doubt that they want publicity ;)

rubber_duck 10y ago
PM invite pls :)
- mirimir 10y ago
  Yeah, would be cool :)