At Ugo's place:

The Sunflower Paradigm

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5 comments:

    k-dogAugust 20, 2023 at 8:31 AM

    Geoengineering is inconsistent with capitalism. It produces no profit. Imagining a planet which has not outlawed war cooperating to implement geoengineering is crazy. Toy geoengineering projects might be built to justify business as usual. Built as smokescreens.
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        Ugo BardiAugust 20, 2023 at 8:44 AM

        Sorry, k-dog, but that's not true. Think of a war: it produces no profits if you sum up all the costs. But some people profit handsomely from it. It is enough to make wars common.
        OlivierAugust 20, 2023 at 10:00 AM

        Shale oil produces no profit either...
        k-dogAugust 20, 2023 at 6:53 PM

        I'm open to being shown wrong, but you will have to show me a solid mechanism by which a profit is made through geoengineering.

        Weapon makers do make great profits from war, but I don't see a good comparison here. Too many differences. Weapons unlike geoengineering components have great use value to the buyer, who has no choice but to buy weapons in a war. In a war a weapon makers have captive buyers. Geoengineering unlike fighting a war once it starts, remains an optional activity. It can always be shut down.

        Geo-engineering is a project without any end. Once begun wars actually do end. Wars are unstable arrangements. They don't end quick enough, but wars do end.

        Geoengineering is a project without any end, and I don't see that anyone has seriously considered this implication.

        Geoengineering is not like a Manhattan Project or the Moon Landing. The atom bomb was demonstrated at Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project ended. Niel Armstrong set foot on the moon. Mission accomplished.

        What if a requirement of the Moon Landing were to return every year for a hundred years and missing any year meant that something terrible would happen on Earth. An impossible thought experiment that would have made the moon landing foolish.

        But this foolish every year requirement directly applies to Geoengineering. Once started people will become dependent on geoengineering and such projects can thus NEVER be suspended. But a point will come when changing politics will shut down any geoengineering project that has begun. Then a world which that now DEPENDS on geoengineering to keep cool goes hot at a speed that will startle even Guy McPherson.

        Geoengineering makes the climate of the world DEPENDENT on human wisdom and good judgement. Mature states of mind, which in a world now going populist can not possibly be maintained.

        Near me a very large apartment complex is being built. Wood frame construction. Years ago cinder block fire walls would have been required to divide the huge square buildings internally for fire protection.

        Now with modern fire alarm systems cinder block fire walls seem not to be required. People are now going to live in giant wood boxes that have no firebreaks because the fire alarm circuitry and a fast fire department response will keep them safe.

        And it will, until it does not. When someone does not maintain the system the way it is supposed to be maintained. When a wire comes off, or a battery goes dead. When somebody has too much on their mind to be responsible. Then there will be a huge fire that will burn a hundred people to death.

        Depending on technology is dangerous.

        Technology created the climate/resource crisis. Medical technology facilitated overpopulation. People fetishize technology and consistently ignore the externalities of its use. Geoengineering is technology. The same oversights will be made.

        Geoengineering will intensify the crisis we already have, there will be no pressure to change the way we live with its use. Geoengineering can create all new problems.

        Geoengineering can justify a shale oil revolution of low EROEI fossil fuels. Governments will pledge to clean the air as fast as they pollute it, claiming there is now no need to abate CO2 emissions since we have 'technology'.

        Geoengineering will be used to maintain business as usual. Until a war comes along to shut Geoengineering down, cooking everybody.

        Promises will not be kept.

        * Shale oil will become profitable when other fossil fuels are gone. Poking holes in whales to keep lamps burning was once profitable, until kerosene came along. Cooking rock for lamp oil will be profitable too. Shale oil is not profitable yet. Only because we still have fracked oil for a few years.
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    OlivierAugust 20, 2023 at 9:59 AM

    I had a similar reasoning Ugo in this LinkedIn post/rant of mine earlier this year: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/olivierguyot_i-do-not-know-whether-there-is-any-better-activity-7081921928784953345-kj5x

    Have you already watched the Apple TV series Extrapolation? There's two episodes about geoengineering.
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