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Like any engineering project, it could fail, succeed, or be "meh"

GekkePrutser 5y ago
Or it could cause many unintended consequences by messing with a super complex system we don't fully understand. "Stop doing what broke it in the first place" (e.g. stopping CO2 emissions) sounds like the sanest option.
- cnity 5y ago
  Almost everything humans do at scale interacts with the environment. The perspective of just not interacting with the environment anymore is a fantasy. We need to learn to wield the environment skillfully, instead of clumsily waving it around. We cannot just "stop" having an effect on the environment.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    That's true, but trying to fix it by making more unnatural changes is bound to backfire. Also, few of our changes to the environment have an impact as great as the greenhouse gases.
    - cnity 5y ago
      That depends. Is it too unnatural to go and plant millions of trees? What about culling populations of deer (as we do here in Scotland) to prevent the erosion of forestry (deer love to graze on saplings)? What about the introduction of new species to restore ecological balance? These things work when we get them right. I'm proposing that we get better at it, instead of giving up.
  - brylie 5y ago
    Nobody is proposing we "not interact with the environment anymore." That is a straw man. The idea is to mitigate our impact on ourselves and the environment by reducing consumption. We already have widespread understanding that reduction of resource usage is the most environmentally beneficial change we can make.
    - cnity 5y ago
      I didn't mean it as an attack specifically on the parent comment, sorry if it came across that way. What I mean about the perspective "not interact with the environment anymore" is that many/most people describe the environment as something that exists above and around us. Something that is best left undisturbed and interacted with as minimally as possible by human life. I am proposing that this perspective has run its course. It is clear that human behavior can have a very broad impact, so we should aim to learn to work with the environment for the better. This means learning how to intervene on "natural" (whatever that means) environmental processes such that they tip in our favor (ecological engineering).

Or it could cause many unintended consequences by messing with a super complex system we don't fully understand. "Stop doing what broke it in the first place" (e.g. stopping CO2 emissions) sounds like the sanest option.

cnity 5y ago
Almost everything humans do at scale interacts with the environment. The perspective of just not interacting with the environment anymore is a fantasy. We need to learn to wield the environment skillfully, instead of clumsily waving it around. We cannot just "stop" having an effect on the environment.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  That's true, but trying to fix it by making more unnatural changes is bound to backfire. Also, few of our changes to the environment have an impact as great as the greenhouse gases.
  - cnity 5y ago
    That depends. Is it too unnatural to go and plant millions of trees? What about culling populations of deer (as we do here in Scotland) to prevent the erosion of forestry (deer love to graze on saplings)? What about the introduction of new species to restore ecological balance? These things work when we get them right. I'm proposing that we get better at it, instead of giving up.
- brylie 5y ago
  Nobody is proposing we "not interact with the environment anymore." That is a straw man. The idea is to mitigate our impact on ourselves and the environment by reducing consumption. We already have widespread understanding that reduction of resource usage is the most environmentally beneficial change we can make.
  - cnity 5y ago
    I didn't mean it as an attack specifically on the parent comment, sorry if it came across that way. What I mean about the perspective "not interact with the environment anymore" is that many/most people describe the environment as something that exists above and around us. Something that is best left undisturbed and interacted with as minimally as possible by human life. I am proposing that this perspective has run its course. It is clear that human behavior can have a very broad impact, so we should aim to learn to work with the environment for the better. This means learning how to intervene on "natural" (whatever that means) environmental processes such that they tip in our favor (ecological engineering).