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Isn't this a very norm biased idea. I think geo engineering gets too much of a bad rap. It's powerful and thus massive mistakes have and will be made, but we're

Isn't this a very norm biased idea. I think geo engineering gets too much of a bad rap. It's powerful and thus massive mistakes have and will be made, but we're only going to get better at it. Why resign ourselves. Would logging at sufficient amounts help, could we better smooth the release of water and fix this? I sort of hate the modern environmentalisms insistence that we should just throw up our hands and anything else is inherently bad.

8note 5y ago
Just log out the whole forest you say? Removing the forest has the same problem as doing nothing about the fires. People want to have houses in the forest
marssaxman 5y ago
"Our previous attempts at environmental engineering have created bigger problems than we started with, due to unforeseen complexities in the system... what should we do?" "I know! Let's grab this tiger's tail even harder"
- space_fountain 5y ago
  Have they all failed though? We feed billons of people based mostly on massive changes we've made to the growable parts of the world. We've drained most of the Netherlands and they seem pretty happy. England is treeless because of our work and they seem pretty ok. Idk it's more like we got burned and now have decided to never try cooking again. I think it's quite easy to convince me we should try to structure life in a way that minimizes the interventions we need to do and that any particular thing we could do is bad, but just saying it ins't natural or that we've been wrong before won't cut it for me, not when we need to make big changes not when doing nothing doesn't actually mean the world stays the same.
  - marssaxman 5y ago
    Humanity is not just eating our seed corn, we're burning it for heat. If you think we can get away with that indefinitely, you are far more optimistic than I will ever be.
    - space_fountain 5y ago
      Well it seems like we're going to need some more corn then right? The idea that we can and should go back to the natural carrying capacity of earth would if implemented result in billions dying and we don't make a bigger pie without flexing our muscles a bit

8note 5y ago

Just log out the whole forest you say? Removing the forest has the same problem as doing nothing about the fires. People want to have houses in the forest

marssaxman 5y ago

"Our previous attempts at environmental engineering have created bigger problems than we started with, due to unforeseen complexities in the system... what should we do?" "I know! Let's grab this tiger's tail even harder"

space_fountain 5y ago
Have they all failed though? We feed billons of people based mostly on massive changes we've made to the growable parts of the world. We've drained most of the Netherlands and they seem pretty happy. England is treeless because of our work and they seem pretty ok. Idk it's more like we got burned and now have decided to never try cooking again. I think it's quite easy to convince me we should try to structure life in a way that minimizes the interventions we need to do and that any particular thing we could do is bad, but just saying it ins't natural or that we've been wrong before won't cut it for me, not when we need to make big changes not when doing nothing doesn't actually mean the world stays the same.
- marssaxman 5y ago
  Humanity is not just eating our seed corn, we're burning it for heat. If you think we can get away with that indefinitely, you are far more optimistic than I will ever be.
  - space_fountain 5y ago
    Well it seems like we're going to need some more corn then right? The idea that we can and should go back to the natural carrying capacity of earth would if implemented result in billions dying and we don't make a bigger pie without flexing our muscles a bit