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> My prediction is that geo-engineering will be done when a certain death/disturbance threshold will have been reached People seem to be accepting "the new nor

> My prediction is that geo-engineering will be done when a certain death/disturbance threshold will have been reached People seem to be accepting "the new normal" very fast. I'm not sure geo-engineering will be popular, since the status quo bias that's currently preventing us from reducing fossil fuels, will also stop any "artificial weather manipulation".

Timon3 3y ago
But let's be fair - "reducing fossil fuel consumption" and "artificial weather manipulation" are on completely different levels in regards to dangers. Nothing bad will happen if we suddenly stopped all fossil fuel consumption and replaced it with renewable energy. We don't know what kind of bad things can happen with artificial weather manipulation, because we haven't really done that before, and you can't really test the impacts in a closed experiment.
- phreeza 3y ago
  I think it's not really clear that nothing bad would happen if we stopped fossil fuel consumption right now. It would be pretty massive perturbation on a complex system. I think we should still do it because the alternatives are even worse, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking there are risk free paths out of the pickle we are in.
  - Timon3 3y ago
    It seems reasonable to me to assume that nothing bad would happen if we stopped fossil fuel consumption right now. The ecosystems on our planet have only had fossil fuel emissions added for around 200 years, and in that time these emissions have had a very negative effect on the whole system. If we stop adding these we return to the normal which has been ongoing for millions of years. It's not a perturbation, it's stopping a perturbation. By what mechanism would you expect something bad to suddenly happen?
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      By the mechanism of starvation. You can't produce (and distribute) the amount of food that we need without the use of fossil fuels. Up-thread, you said "and replaced it with renewables", but we can't do that right now. Bluntly, if we hard-stop the use of fossil fuels today, a large chunk of the human population are going to die.
      - Timon3 3y ago
        Yes, if you change the parameters of my hypothetical, the results change. What's your point?
        AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        I thought I was adequately clear. If you need me to make my point more clear, here you go: > > > It seems reasonable to me to assume that nothing bad would happen if we stopped fossil fuel consumption right now. For what most people mean by "right now", something bad happens - many, many people die. You chose that phrase; I didn't. So within the normal meaning of the phrase, you are very wrong.
        Timon3 3y ago
        And I thought I was adequately clear when I initially specified: > Nothing bad will happen if we suddenly stopped all fossil fuel consumption and replaced it with renewable energy. Do you really need me to repeat this for every subsequent reference to the hypothetical? You yourself acknowledged it in your first comment, so you obviously understood it. But if you need me to, fine, replace the sentence you quoted with: > It seems reasonable to me to assume that nothing bad would happen if we stopped fossil fuel consumption right now and replaced it with renewable energy.
        AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Right. (I was actually coming back to edit my post to acknowledge that you said that.) But... We can't actually do that right now. When can we? 10 years? With all the combines, and all the tractors, and all the semis having to be electric? Can we even do it then? We maybe can in 20... If it's 20 years from now before we can do it, that's not "right now". The problem with the way you said it is that it makes it sound like we could do it now (for reasonably normal values of "now"). We can't.

Timon3 3y ago

But let's be fair - "reducing fossil fuel consumption" and "artificial weather manipulation" are on completely different levels in regards to dangers. Nothing bad will happen if we suddenly stopped all fossil fuel consumption and replaced it with renewable energy. We don't know what kind of bad things can happen with artificial weather manipulation, because we haven't really done that before, and you can't really test the impacts in a closed experiment.

phreeza 3y ago
I think it's not really clear that nothing bad would happen if we stopped fossil fuel consumption right now. It would be pretty massive perturbation on a complex system. I think we should still do it because the alternatives are even worse, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking there are risk free paths out of the pickle we are in.
- Timon3 3y ago
  It seems reasonable to me to assume that nothing bad would happen if we stopped fossil fuel consumption right now. The ecosystems on our planet have only had fossil fuel emissions added for around 200 years, and in that time these emissions have had a very negative effect on the whole system. If we stop adding these we return to the normal which has been ongoing for millions of years. It's not a perturbation, it's stopping a perturbation. By what mechanism would you expect something bad to suddenly happen?
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    By the mechanism of starvation. You can't produce (and distribute) the amount of food that we need without the use of fossil fuels. Up-thread, you said "and replaced it with renewables", but we can't do that right now. Bluntly, if we hard-stop the use of fossil fuels today, a large chunk of the human population are going to die.
    - Timon3 3y ago
      Yes, if you change the parameters of my hypothetical, the results change. What's your point?
      - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        I thought I was adequately clear. If you need me to make my point more clear, here you go: > > > It seems reasonable to me to assume that nothing bad would happen if we stopped fossil fuel consumption right now. For what most people mean by "right now", something bad happens - many, many people die. You chose that phrase; I didn't. So within the normal meaning of the phrase, you are very wrong.
        Timon3 3y ago
        And I thought I was adequately clear when I initially specified: > Nothing bad will happen if we suddenly stopped all fossil fuel consumption and replaced it with renewable energy. Do you really need me to repeat this for every subsequent reference to the hypothetical? You yourself acknowledged it in your first comment, so you obviously understood it. But if you need me to, fine, replace the sentence you quoted with: > It seems reasonable to me to assume that nothing bad would happen if we stopped fossil fuel consumption right now and replaced it with renewable energy.
        AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Right. (I was actually coming back to edit my post to acknowledge that you said that.) But... We can't actually do that right now. When can we? 10 years? With all the combines, and all the tractors, and all the semis having to be electric? Can we even do it then? We maybe can in 20... If it's 20 years from now before we can do it, that's not "right now". The problem with the way you said it is that it makes it sound like we could do it now (for reasonably normal values of "now"). We can't.