[jeffjobs4000]

Geoengineering projects should be getting far more attention in the public eye. There are serious alternatives to letting society crumble due to climate change. People are choosing not to have children and citing climate anxiety as the reason. Just today, two teenagers in London ruined a Van Gogh for a climate protest. It's absurd. If you apply any amount of rational thinking to the problem, you'll realize that it's incredibly likely that we'll solve climate change.

The paper cited here is from a U of Arizona professor who previously won a MacArthur "genius" grant, and develops the optics for some of the largest telescopes in the world. Not a quack. Harvard has a Geoenigineering department. Smart and credible people are working this problem out. We should give them our attention, money, and talents. The paper in this post lays out a plan to reduce climate change for under 0.5% of world GDP in 2006. The price of launching weight into space has plummeted in the 15 years since this paper was written.

If you're worried about unintended consequences of geoengineering, then contribute to reducing risk by helping to develop AI. Then we'll be better able to model its effects and mitigate risk through increasingly accurate simulation. We need to tell people to study materials science or something that will actually help if they're concerned about the climate.

Climate Fatalism is so mid.

[soulofmischief]

> ruined a Van Gogh

Ok, I'll bite. Let's read up on this claim. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/14/1129098184/van-gogh-sunflower...

> Climate protesters threw soup over Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers" in London's National Gallery on Friday to protest fossil fuel extraction, but caused no discernible damage to the glass-covered painting

[jeffjobs4000]

Well that's good news. Thanks for correcting me. I think the attempt still makes my point that people are doing drastic things because of the prevailing narrative on the subject.

I also don't mean to rag on the kids, I appreciate their passion. I just think it's misguided, and that if the wider array of potential solutions were better known then people could be more productive working on solving the problem. I think the fatalism about the topic is sad and unnecessary. I didn't mean the comment to be a cultural war "pick a side" post. The passion around the subject is justified, but I think it could be channeled more productively.

Many people use to agree with Malthus in the 1800s that the world was about to run out of food. Then the Haber-Bosch process was discovered, and problem solved. More mental energy should be put into finding a similar solution for climate change versus this century's equivalent of "the world needs less people because of food limitations".

[DocTomoe]

> ruined a Van Gogh for a climate protest

tried to ruin. The painting was protected by a piece of protective glass. Doesn't mean these kids shouldn't be prosecuted, but the good news is that a priceless piece of cultural heritage was NOT destroyed by teenagers.

[TaylorAlexander]

> If you apply any amount of rational thinking to the problem, you'll realize that it's incredibly likely that we'll solve climate change.

Funny because lots of very rational climate scientists [1] who spent quite a bit of time thinking rationally about climate science suspect that we are on track for several degrees of warming (2, 3, or 4 deg C) and express concern that we’re not doing enough to mitigate things getting worse.

Ex: Paul Beckwith https://youtu.be/2HZsUhAzSDc

[GolfPopper]

>If you apply any amount of rational thinking to the problem, you'll realize that it's incredibly likely that we'll solve climate change.

I think that confusing can with will is a good way to increase the chances of won't. "Solving" climate change seems to be within our technical capabilities, but we currently appear to lack the collective will.