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Yes, that's one of the possibilities here. However the point of the comment and what the article illustrates in my view, is that these grand projects can turnou

Yes, that's one of the possibilities here. However the point of the comment and what the article illustrates in my view, is that these grand projects can turnout to be horribly misguided in retrospect. And you may say to that, "but this time is different, because..." >None of them had anywhere the level "scientific consensus" on the topic as climate change has. Which is fine as far as that goes. However, consensuses have been wrong before, even when dressed in the pretenses of science. Cannabis prohibition would be a good example where research was exclusively funded to show the harms of cannabis. Today CBD is presented as a cure all. A common thread would be the underlying financial and political incentives for prohibition. Incentives matter. Another parallel might exist in the fear based promotion of prohibition. >Climate change needs everyone to do something... Yes, and as we examine the proposed solutions most of them revolve around new taxes and supranational bodies issuing currency in the form of "carbon indulgences" or "carbon credits". We are supposed to believe that those horrible oil companies have every incentive to distort the facts about the climate. Yet simultaneously we should also believe there are no malign incentives for or distortions surrounding the inverse. We should unquestioningly believe there are no ulterior motives for those who would appoint themselves to issue carbon credits, permission slips to consume energy needed by every human on Earth. That's a bit of a stretch, but it is possible. It is also possible that just like the proposed project in 1958, which was imagined as a boon for the Siberian region, future geoengineering projects will also have unanticipated dangers. It looked good at the time, just like the drug war looked good at one time. Today the climate agenda and geoengineering looks appealing to many. Maybe not. Maybe we don't know as much as we think we know?

dathinab 5y ago
> is that these grand projects can turnout to be horribly misguided This is why instead of grand projects we should have many smaller projects which combined still have a large effect. Also luckily many of the changes which are good for the climate are (at least in their idea) also good even without climate change. Like going way from coal power plants, which are not just bad for the climate but also bad for the environment. (Through in practice there might be drawbacks in whatever replaces it.) > just like the drug war looked good at one time. I get your point, but I'm not sure that this is a good example, the war on drugs looked from the get to go like it was overly targeting certain communities while even back then it was known that it's unlikely to work due to e.g. previous experiences with fighting alcohol during the prohibition period...
genewitch 5y ago
My theory is that companies that manufacture soil amendments are the prime mover behind all of the room and gloom of climate change, specifically the need to reduce atmospheric carbon. Plants used to be heavier and squatter, and usable material would have been greater, back when the atmosphere was closer to 2000ppm CO2. That is, realistically, and actually, plants get all of their food from the air, and soil amendments make it easier for the plants to grow tall/wide enough to get more usable sun and surface area to get their food out of the air. Ask anyone who's ever tried CO2 with plants what happens to their fertilizer budget. It goes down, because plants are carbohydrate factories, and more carbon means more carbohydrates. I'm off in the weeds, but cui Bono is something I ask of nearly everything and other than the carbon credit companies and all the people employed therein, who benefits from less CO2 financially? The Bayer/Monsanto and Dow of the world. Not me or you, not the oil companies, not a Rockefeller or whoever.

dathinab 5y ago

> is that these grand projects can turnout to be horribly misguided This is why instead of grand projects we should have many smaller projects which combined still have a large effect. Also luckily many of the changes which are good for the climate are (at least in their idea) also good even without climate change. Like going way from coal power plants, which are not just bad for the climate but also bad for the environment. (Through in practice there might be drawbacks in whatever replaces it.) > just like the drug war looked good at one time. I get your point, but I'm not sure that this is a good example, the war on drugs looked from the get to go like it was overly targeting certain communities while even back then it was known that it's unlikely to work due to e.g. previous experiences with fighting alcohol during the prohibition period...

genewitch 5y ago

My theory is that companies that manufacture soil amendments are the prime mover behind all of the room and gloom of climate change, specifically the need to reduce atmospheric carbon. Plants used to be heavier and squatter, and usable material would have been greater, back when the atmosphere was closer to 2000ppm CO2. That is, realistically, and actually, plants get all of their food from the air, and soil amendments make it easier for the plants to grow tall/wide enough to get more usable sun and surface area to get their food out of the air. Ask anyone who's ever tried CO2 with plants what happens to their fertilizer budget. It goes down, because plants are carbohydrate factories, and more carbon means more carbohydrates. I'm off in the weeds, but cui Bono is something I ask of nearly everything and other than the carbon credit companies and all the people employed therein, who benefits from less CO2 financially? The Bayer/Monsanto and Dow of the world. Not me or you, not the oil companies, not a Rockefeller or whoever.