[Roark66]

So don't do a bloody tripple bypass with a butter knife. Just stop the bleeding. Jeez, this conversation is the best illustration of everything that's wrong with geoengineering ideas.

Indeed we have practiced quite a bit. Read on the catastrophe that was geoengineering attempts resulting in what is now happening with the Sea of Azov.

[fredrikholm]

> Just stop the bleeding.

Is that enough? AFAIK all paths forward to avoid the worst outcomes includes becoming net negative ASAP.

That's stopping the addition of 37,000,000,000 tonnes of CO2 anually.

For context, a modern CCS captures some thousands of tonne, which is a comparatively tiny, tiny number.

Unless magic happens in the next decade, it appears that geoengineering is something we can't avoid, sans the suffering and death of billions.

I'd love to be wrong here.

[aziaziazi]

> geoengineering is something we can't avoid

With all its inherent uncertainties geoengineering has many chances to make living conditions even worse.

It appears that the best think we can do is to stop doing thinks. I concede magic will be needed to make boomers accept that.

[concordDance]

> Just stop the bleeding

Convincing every country in the world that they don't need fossil fuels isn't possible.

Blocking some sunlight from reaching the Earth is.

[aziaziazi]

Why being an absolutist? We don’t need to convince every country. Just the top ones that drive the most consumption/pollution.

[fastball]

Because the top ones won't be convinced if you don't convince the others. Tragedy of the commons and all that.

[aziaziazi]

In that vision we never can’t do anything because leaders needs to be leaded by others.

People do change their habits, donate, volunteer, make concessions and work hard for the good of society in its whole.

[jacquesm]

There are a number of problems that all interlock. Democracies with their relatively short election cycles will naturally find it hard to deal with problems that last much longer than those election cycles and that have the bulk of the problems downstream of us. Voters are motivated by their personal issues first, local issues second and global issues dead last. Countries are going to have to collaborate in a very strict manner in order to deal with global issues.

Throw all of those in a blender and it's easy to see why democracy and global problems are not going lead to an actual solution. Individuals are going to make some minor difference but not enough to offset the larger trends as long as it isn't a solid majority doing this.

[aziaziazi]

I agree we shouldn’t count on our liberal democraties to handle that. Individuals will do the job and the majority is coming, just wait for the boomers to evade in their fantastic plastic graves.

[realusername]

> So don't do a bloody tripple bypass with a butter knife. Just stop the bleeding.

We're way past that point, the choice is quickly became to try geoengineering or die and I'm not going to take the dying option, no thanks, no matter how immoral you think the other one is.

[fastball]

I don't think hilariously strained analogies are helpful in this discussion.

The incredibly multi-variate nature of this problem effectively prevents any comparison that is at the scale of an individual.