3 ms·

Every time humans try and fix nature, we tend to make it worse due to not understanding the problem or consequences.

theropost 3y ago
Do we though? Up until very recent history, we thought of nature as deadly, and unforgiving. The wilderness would mean almost certain death. We did not master the environment, we were afraid of it. I wouldn't say we make things worse, I think we make things our own. Is that worse? I'd tend to disagree. I prefer human environments over the deep wilderness. Most of us love nature, but we love the human version of that.. groomed trails, modest temperatures, light breezes, and having all the human comforts within reach. Humanity does certainly do things wrong, but we also do things right.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  I'm with you mostly.... But this is fluids, we don't have science to know how it will actually perform. Gosh, I'm so afraid of problems with fluids. My worst case dooms: >The change in energy causes extreme weather >The energy change causes some electrons to leave their orbitals temporarily, causing compounds in the atmosphere that typically never occur(creating cancer air). >Long term effects are not known, causing cancer air.
tptacek 3y ago
That's not the point of the comment you're responding to. Climate-driven austerity isn't going to happen, because it's an intractable global-scale collective action problem. If you believe that anthropogenic climate change is going to be a global disaster, you should probably reasonably assume that some country in the world is going to allocate serious resources to mitigating it. There are 50 countries in the world with resources exceeding that of Portugal or New Zealand. Any of those countries could fund and implement a large-scale geoengineering project. No mechanism exists to ensure that any of those countries get permission to do so. So it doesn't much matter whether we think it's a good idea. Either: (1) Anthropogenic climate change isn't going to impose unacceptable costs on the industrialized world, and we'll just blow it off, or (2) Some country is going to intervene directly in the climate.
- connorgutman 3y ago
  "If you believe that anthropogenic climate change is going to be a global disaster, you should probably reasonably assume that some country in the world is going to allocate serious resources to mitigating it." Not when mitigating it requires ending and reversing economic growth. You're assuming there's a single nation on Earth run by good-faith actors. Furthermore, if climate-drive austerity doesn't occur, the Earth will kill billions of people until it reaches a new equilibrium.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    My understanding of the point being made is, if anthropogenic climate change is a global catastrophe threatening countries around the world, each of those threatened countries will, at some point, have no choice but to invest in the implementation of geoengineering projects. There won't be a choice. So the only real question is, when the moment comes that the first sufficiently industrialized country is pushed to the edge by climate catastrophe, what options will they have available to them? If the only options are bad things that are likely to cause more harm than good, that won't matter --- it'll still happen, because what else could happen?
- wizofaus 3y ago
  What sort of geoengineering project could a country the size of NZ undertake on its own though? Certainly nothing that will make any difference to global climate - at best they might find ways to control cloud-cover and/or rainfall over its own territory. And "legal permission" mightn't be an issue, but if one country decides to undertake a geoengineering project that's fully expected to have a significant negative impact on other ones, they can certainly expect military retaliation.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    Those are two coherent rebuttals. "But it will do harm than good" or "it will have unintended consequences", on the other hand, aren't. But in the thought exercise here, consider that military retaliation just pushes the moment that a climate-threatened country will respond with geoengineering into the future --- to the point where the cost of military intervention is lower than that of climate change. I don't know, though, I'm just noodling.
rednerrus 3y ago
Isn't that exactly what's happening with limiting the sulfur output of ships?
idlewords 3y ago
I don't know, the rural poor in America used to all get malaria and intestinal parasites, and now they don't anymore. And it's rare now to lose a child to disease, where it used to be normal. Our current rosy view of nature is skewed by the fact that so many generations of people worked to rid ourselves of its worst shortcomings, and largely succeeded.

Do we though? Up until very recent history, we thought of nature as deadly, and unforgiving. The wilderness would mean almost certain death. We did not master the environment, we were afraid of it. I wouldn't say we make things worse, I think we make things our own. Is that worse? I'd tend to disagree. I prefer human environments over the deep wilderness. Most of us love nature, but we love the human version of that.. groomed trails, modest temperatures, light breezes, and having all the human comforts within reach. Humanity does certainly do things wrong, but we also do things right.

hospitalJail 3y ago
I'm with you mostly.... But this is fluids, we don't have science to know how it will actually perform. Gosh, I'm so afraid of problems with fluids. My worst case dooms: >The change in energy causes extreme weather >The energy change causes some electrons to leave their orbitals temporarily, causing compounds in the atmosphere that typically never occur(creating cancer air). >Long term effects are not known, causing cancer air.

tptacek 3y ago

That's not the point of the comment you're responding to. Climate-driven austerity isn't going to happen, because it's an intractable global-scale collective action problem. If you believe that anthropogenic climate change is going to be a global disaster, you should probably reasonably assume that some country in the world is going to allocate serious resources to mitigating it. There are 50 countries in the world with resources exceeding that of Portugal or New Zealand. Any of those countries could fund and implement a large-scale geoengineering project. No mechanism exists to ensure that any of those countries get permission to do so. So it doesn't much matter whether we think it's a good idea. Either: (1) Anthropogenic climate change isn't going to impose unacceptable costs on the industrialized world, and we'll just blow it off, or (2) Some country is going to intervene directly in the climate.

connorgutman 3y ago
"If you believe that anthropogenic climate change is going to be a global disaster, you should probably reasonably assume that some country in the world is going to allocate serious resources to mitigating it." Not when mitigating it requires ending and reversing economic growth. You're assuming there's a single nation on Earth run by good-faith actors. Furthermore, if climate-drive austerity doesn't occur, the Earth will kill billions of people until it reaches a new equilibrium.
- tptacek 3y ago
  My understanding of the point being made is, if anthropogenic climate change is a global catastrophe threatening countries around the world, each of those threatened countries will, at some point, have no choice but to invest in the implementation of geoengineering projects. There won't be a choice. So the only real question is, when the moment comes that the first sufficiently industrialized country is pushed to the edge by climate catastrophe, what options will they have available to them? If the only options are bad things that are likely to cause more harm than good, that won't matter --- it'll still happen, because what else could happen?
wizofaus 3y ago
What sort of geoengineering project could a country the size of NZ undertake on its own though? Certainly nothing that will make any difference to global climate - at best they might find ways to control cloud-cover and/or rainfall over its own territory. And "legal permission" mightn't be an issue, but if one country decides to undertake a geoengineering project that's fully expected to have a significant negative impact on other ones, they can certainly expect military retaliation.
- tptacek 3y ago
  Those are two coherent rebuttals. "But it will do harm than good" or "it will have unintended consequences", on the other hand, aren't. But in the thought exercise here, consider that military retaliation just pushes the moment that a climate-threatened country will respond with geoengineering into the future --- to the point where the cost of military intervention is lower than that of climate change. I don't know, though, I'm just noodling.

rednerrus 3y ago

Isn't that exactly what's happening with limiting the sulfur output of ships?

idlewords 3y ago

I don't know, the rural poor in America used to all get malaria and intestinal parasites, and now they don't anymore. And it's rare now to lose a child to disease, where it used to be normal. Our current rosy view of nature is skewed by the fact that so many generations of people worked to rid ourselves of its worst shortcomings, and largely succeeded.