

Will the techno-optimists save the world? - mwhite
http://paulgilding.com/cockatoo-chronicles/will-the-techno-optimists-save-the-world.html

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redwood
While I would never deny that the climate is changing, I think you do see an
intellectually dishonest approach used by the climate change-focused
community: and that is to frame the coming challenge as a point of no return
wall that we're quickly approaching.

I understand why this technique is used: it compels action now, because when
problems only get worse over time, and there's little short-term gain to
taking painful action in the short term, you need to compel it through some
kind of strategy. However sometimes I think this approach backfires, because
people can feel that the world they live in does not behave in this way.
People see rapid change all the time, and the pace of change may increase. But
this is not the same as a sudden earth death scenario.

I think this is where techno-optimists come in as necessary reminders that
_no_ if we don't do something to stop climate change today, we _will_ somehow
survive. Maybe we'll survive with a lot more deserts or a lot more flooding,
and a lot more extinctions. But we will find a way to survive.

I think a good thought experiment is climate change adaptation. Let's say we
see active flooding happening in a place: would we be better served to use the
tool we have _today_ \--- fossil-fueled machines --- to terra-form, build
levvies, save people, etc?

I recognize the thought experiment above is misleading in that it's not an
either or --- we can reduce emissions and still use fuels in life/death
situations etc. But if the thought experiment becomes an allegory for the
world of today: that is a place where we're working hard to keep 7 billion
people alive, through a global infrastructure that _today_ requires fossil to
function. Aren't we using fossil just to fuel our own survival right now? Even
the developing world is (I'm sitting here in Bangladesh right now where they
use petro-ferts and rely on trucking and shipping like everyone else).

Technologies will change when economics make sense, governments can help and
probably should help more. But we need to be intellectually honest to be taken
seriously by the masses.

~~~
orlandob
The counter-research to the climate change hysteria movement suggests that the
solar cycle has everything to do with global climate. Of course we need to be
mindful of our capacity to pollute our environment to limit harmful effects of
industrialization.

