3 ms·

I suspect we will end up resorting to large-scale geoengineering, certainly once people in wealthy countries start dying in high enough numbers, and I don't opp

I suspect we will end up resorting to large-scale geoengineering, certainly once people in wealthy countries start dying in high enough numbers, and I don't oppose it. But once we go down that road I am highly skeptical that humanity will ever wean ourselves off it. As per the website: "Just one gram of our clouds offsets the warming effect of one ton of CO₂ for a year." I would wager that politicians and business leaders who read such a statement would be relieved to hear that they no longer have to worry about a cure because the symptoms are treatable.

sebmellen 3y ago
Point taken and that is certainly a risk, but the other risk is a massive anthropogenic extinction. We need fast-acting cooling solutions so that we have time to scale up long-term sustainable ones.
- asoneth 3y ago
  Agreed that it is a smaller risk. That's why I do not oppose geoengineering despite being reasonably confident that once we start that path we will be wholly incapable of quitting it.
thehappypm 3y ago
What will kill people in wealthy countries?
- M95D 3y ago
  COVID, but that apparently wasn't enough to change their mind to go vaccinate. Why would climate change deaths be any different?
- asoneth 3y ago
  A combination of stronger storms, more frequent coastal flooding, larger wildfires, and more severe heat waves. Of course these sorts of things have always killed people and right now the statistical increases are small enough that it's not unreasonable to believe that they're just fluctuations within normal historical bounds. It would take significantly larger increases in severity and intensity for many people to accept climate change as a contributing factor. So it's not just that we have to wait for people in wealthy countries to die, it's that we have to have to wait for them to die in high enough numbers that the average citizen acknowledges that there is a problem.

sebmellen 3y ago

Point taken and that is certainly a risk, but the other risk is a massive anthropogenic extinction. We need fast-acting cooling solutions so that we have time to scale up long-term sustainable ones.

asoneth 3y ago
Agreed that it is a smaller risk. That's why I do not oppose geoengineering despite being reasonably confident that once we start that path we will be wholly incapable of quitting it.

thehappypm 3y ago

What will kill people in wealthy countries?

M95D 3y ago
COVID, but that apparently wasn't enough to change their mind to go vaccinate. Why would climate change deaths be any different?
asoneth 3y ago
A combination of stronger storms, more frequent coastal flooding, larger wildfires, and more severe heat waves. Of course these sorts of things have always killed people and right now the statistical increases are small enough that it's not unreasonable to believe that they're just fluctuations within normal historical bounds. It would take significantly larger increases in severity and intensity for many people to accept climate change as a contributing factor. So it's not just that we have to wait for people in wealthy countries to die, it's that we have to have to wait for them to die in high enough numbers that the average citizen acknowledges that there is a problem.