[Loughla]

>hopefully address before it turns into a problem.

Ron Howard's voice "They didn't."

But in all seriousness, there will be zero stomach for limiting launches for the ozone layer. I'm calling it now. Group 1 won't believe it's a problem. Group 2 will say it's just lefty elitists trying to ruin the economy. Group 3 will say there's no such thing as satellites.

Check back in 40 years. I bet I'm right.

[Xixi]

I strongly recommend Merchants of Doubt [1], it's fairly clear what happened: learning from the "mistake" of the tobacco industry financing research, the oil industry understood that producing their own honest science was a liability, not a defense. The only way to avoid being held accountable for climate change was to sneakily but relentlessly attack science to discredit it. Keep the controversy alive. Seed doubt in the mind of people.

Not just regarding climate, virtually all of science. Science itself is the target. The overlap between climate change denial and COVID denial (for instance) is documented: same think tanks, same commentators. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

[2] https://www.desmog.com/covidenial-executive-summary/

[panzagl]

It's funny, one of the benchmarks I've used when trying to decide when things went off the rails was that banning CFCs was a relatively uncontroversial thing in the 1990s. Now, I agree with your pessimism.

[foxglacier]

The same rails that failed to ban coal power in the 1990s? That controversially both did and didn't ban nuclear power? And what about satanic rituals? People rightly disagree on decisions that have unknown consequences in either direction. It's not off the rails, it's just different from your personal opinion.

[foxglacier]

You seem to assume it'll be a problem. My bet is group 1 is right and everyone agrees with them except a few nutters on the internet who like to fantasize about environmental damage from everything good.

[Loughla]

I'm moving my timeline up from 40 years now.

[bozo16]

New Zealand will be back to the top of the skin cancer list. We'll be getting the 10 minute exposure sunburns in winter too!

[cwmoore]

Well… did they or didn’t they?