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It is possible to be concerned about the viability of the ecosystem and still want to do geoengineering, mainly by being convinced that current trends point ess

It is possible to be concerned about the viability of the ecosystem and still want to do geoengineering, mainly by being convinced that current trends point essentially an unviable ecosystem on incredibly short time scales. For example, the wet bulb thermometer temperature forecasted for large swathes of land near the equator essentially means it's uninhabitable for mammals several weeks of the year. Its the perceived choice between 1) Do nothing and watch everything die or 2) try something risky and if it goes wrong, watch everything die.

snapcaster 4y ago
Those aren't remotely the choices! If we do nothing _everything_ will die? that is so absurd i don't even know how to respond to that. It's hard to not suspect you're trolling I can't believe someone actually for real thinks like this
- wolfram74 4y ago
  Everything dieing is pretty far out on the bell curve. 99% of humans? That's inside the range of reasonable considerations given how little slack we've left in the system.
  - snapcaster 4y ago
    Nonsense. 99% of humans will refuse to adjust or adapt and just die? how can you actually believe this?
    - wolfram74 4y ago
      It comes down to how fast things change. No amount of optimism over comes the fact that you need ~10 megajoules of food and ~3 liters of water on a daily basis. Producing those things for 8 gigapeople involves a lot of infrastructure that took a decent amount of time to build working correctly. Farmland and logistics hubs in places that no longer get rain water and have run out of aquifers to tap need to be replaced somewhere more fertile. Desalination plants to replace dried up rivers need to be built. None of these can be operated on credit because giving someone a years supply of water after a year of drinking nothing just washes the corpse. If the numbers shake out that there's a 10% shortfall, which 10% of population volunteers to starve their children? Or do fights break out? How does those fights stay constrained enough to not damage already strained infrastructure exacerbating the problem? This is not a guaranteed outcome, but if you've seen how wide spread "just in time" logistics has gotten over the last 20 years and think it's impossible, I applaud your optimism. And also don't want you anywhere near disaster planning.
      - snapcaster 4y ago
        We don't disagree that bad stuff can happen, but nothing you've responded with has convinced me 99% of everything dying isn't hysterical

snapcaster 4y ago

Those aren't remotely the choices! If we do nothing _everything_ will die? that is so absurd i don't even know how to respond to that. It's hard to not suspect you're trolling I can't believe someone actually for real thinks like this

wolfram74 4y ago
Everything dieing is pretty far out on the bell curve. 99% of humans? That's inside the range of reasonable considerations given how little slack we've left in the system.
- snapcaster 4y ago
  Nonsense. 99% of humans will refuse to adjust or adapt and just die? how can you actually believe this?
  - wolfram74 4y ago
    It comes down to how fast things change. No amount of optimism over comes the fact that you need ~10 megajoules of food and ~3 liters of water on a daily basis. Producing those things for 8 gigapeople involves a lot of infrastructure that took a decent amount of time to build working correctly. Farmland and logistics hubs in places that no longer get rain water and have run out of aquifers to tap need to be replaced somewhere more fertile. Desalination plants to replace dried up rivers need to be built. None of these can be operated on credit because giving someone a years supply of water after a year of drinking nothing just washes the corpse. If the numbers shake out that there's a 10% shortfall, which 10% of population volunteers to starve their children? Or do fights break out? How does those fights stay constrained enough to not damage already strained infrastructure exacerbating the problem? This is not a guaranteed outcome, but if you've seen how wide spread "just in time" logistics has gotten over the last 20 years and think it's impossible, I applaud your optimism. And also don't want you anywhere near disaster planning.
    - snapcaster 4y ago
      We don't disagree that bad stuff can happen, but nothing you've responded with has convinced me 99% of everything dying isn't hysterical