[jmclean]

One problem here is that any outcome (warming or no, human-engineered or no) will impact every nation differently. Under current warming projections, some nations will see massive increases in arable land, whereas others will be completely underwater. Even within nations, some cities and regions will see detrimental effects, whereas others could even see benefits (though this is taboo to talk about, which foreshadows one variation of the problem).

It seems naively optimistic to think we will be able to geoengineer altruistically or with the general good in mind. Even the concept of an 'average good' for the earth is a little morally problematic if some nations benefit and others are hurt. When a nation acquires the ability to affect climate at a large scale, it seems likely that it will be used for political ends as much as for net positive outcomes.

[ajuc]

Yes.

Additionaly - developing countries are developing because they started to polute later. They are now punished again by being prohibited from abusing einvironment the same (cheap) way that developed countries did before.

That means rich countries will remain richer than poor countries because they can afford massive investment into infrastructure to switch to cleaner alternatives, while poor countries will need to adjust by using less power, producing less goods etc.

You basically ask poor countries to be poorer to stop effect that doesn't matter to many of them (or even could be positive).

Without artifical incentives it will be VERY hard sell. And right now the only incentives proposed are negative (tax on CO2 emmision).

What if developed countries PAID poor countries that would benefit from global warming to switch to cleaner energy sources? But that's taboo as well.

[PeterisP]

Actually, at least for the global warming issues, the poor countries are going to be the ones that generally get the worst effects and also have the least ability to mitigate those effects with limited human casualties. And the countries that are likely to get some positive agricultural benefit are the northern countries which are among the most developed countries in the world.

Netherlands has cities multiple meters below sea level. The western major coastal cities can be shielded from a few meters of sea level increase - it would cost immense (but still realistic) amounts of money, but the heavily inhabited coastal regions of poor countries will simply drown and cause many millions of displaced poor people.

The effects matter to the poor countries more than everybody else. I'd say there are two reasons why they're not doing anything to stop it - first is the tragedy of commons, as it makes no sense for, say, Bangladesh (probably risking the worst effects from global warming) to stop emissions if China isn't doing the same; and second is simply that they can't afford to pay today for a larger benefit tomorrow; in the same manner as poor people often simply can't pay $10 now to prevent a certain $50 loss in a month.

[waps]

And what makes you think that random outcomes ("natural" outcomes if you will) are any better ? I mean, didn't we stop believing in a benevolent God at some point ?

Because when I look at the green movement, my mind very quickly feels the need to point out that for the green movement to do any good at all with their pushing of nature, nature would have to be good. Nature is not good, nor is it evil, but let me point out that with very, very few exceptions murderers are not evil either (the large majority are furthering their own ends, not killing for fun or morals).

[PeterisP]

The mapping between natural features and human population/agriculture is generally near a local optimum. If a random grassland would be swapped with a random desert of the same size, from a natural viewpoint it would be nearly the same, but it would have horrible consequences for the people living there.

Any significant changes to the natural features in random direction should be expected to be harmful for us - we can be rather sure that moving 10 steps in direction A is expected to be worse than moving 1 step in direction B even if we don't know anything about the actual changes caused by those directions.

We should prefer small random changes to big changes, unless we're really, really sure that the big changes are actually beneficial.

[waps]

> We should prefer small random changes to big changes, unless we're really, really sure that the big changes are actually beneficial.

True. But natural changes in history have been anything but small.

[learc83]

> I mean, didn't we stop believing in a benevolent God at some point ?

Who is we? The majority of the world believes in a "Supreme Being". In the US, about 75% believe in God, and in the EU 51% believe in God.

[eli_gottlieb]

>Who is we?

The sensible people, who can clearly see that there's less a God than there is an Auditor of Reality, an anal, obsessive-compulsive cosmic bureaucrat who doesn't give half a damn what happens to people as long as every atom reports its spin and the paperwork is filed on every chemical reaction.

[afarrell]

> The large majority are furthering their own ends.

You sound uncannily like the misinterpretation I held of D&D3.0's moral system. The Morality of Killing people to further your own ends Is highly dependent on what those ends are.

Plus I'm pretty sure if there is a majority among murderer, it is anger problems, not slytherin

[thisjepisje]

>whereas others will be completely underwater

Feels good to live 4 metres below sea level.