Why We Stink at Tackling Climate Change
Global threats result from human culture outrunning human biology.
Our biologically evolved selves are
quite good at perceiving events that are prompt and threatening;
those that are slow-moving, although equally threatening, not so
much. A fire in a building and people run outside. A slow moving fire
in the Earth’s thermal budget and people hardly notice. For nearly
all of our evolutionary past, it was not adaptive to detect such
slow-motion changes, and so our ability to do so is limited.
The Risks, Rewards and Possible Ramifications of Geoengineering Earth’s Climate
Injecting aerosols into the stratosphere could help cool the planet, but scientists have yet to study exactly how such solar geoengineering would work
Researchers have proposed brightening clouds, making sea spray more reflective, or even launching a giant mirror into space to reflect extra sunlight. The most promising and affordable of these methods is stratospheric aerosol injection, which involves spewing tiny particles into the upper atmosphere. Those particles would reflect sunlight away from the Earth, effectively dimming the sun and, in theory, cooling the planet.
That's how things go, we evolve in slow-mo
where life evolved before here on Earth.
Just my opinion, for whatev' that's worth.
But all of this stuff is taking a toll.
Perhaps we'd be safer burning more coal.)
and
we never have the foggiest no-
tion
of what to expect from downstream effects
that flow from (misguided) “improvement” projects.
It's
not that complex, we're vexed by biology.
We
see no need to utter apologies
for
mistakes that were made. (Which were inevitable.)
Just wait, next time, we'll be incredible.
(I would speculate — strictly between us —
this aerosol thing is what happened to Venus(I would speculate — strictly between us —
where life evolved before here on Earth.
Just my opinion, for whatev' that's worth.
But all of this stuff is taking a toll.
Perhaps we'd be safer burning more coal.)