FWIW, not trying to troll. I grew up with and was in favor of 90s environmentalism, which seems to mostly have been a success [0]. The latest environment doom and gloom doesn't have the impact and persuasive power that the previous environmental crusade had. Maybe it's just that I had school indoctrinating me then and don't have that now. But I like to believe that's not the only factor here. There's something lacking about the biodiversity and climate change outrages of the late. Some scientific persuasive power, some rigor missing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm generally supportive of the fundamental argument that we ought not to change anything too fast because the consequences are terrifyingly unknown -- that's what makes me a conservative, in fact. However, there's a damn good reason to make that gambit: the elimination of global food scarcity, lifting the developing world out of poverty through industry, allowing developing worlds to be self-sufficient and not dependent on the West. If we lose the Amazon in the process and sea levels rise many meters, as a hyperbolic example, maybe that price is worth paying until we figure out how to not do that. We definitely don't know how to not do it yet. I don't know, and neither does anyone else. Well, that's only half true. We could force every country on the planet to build nuclear fission reactors and electric vehicles at threat of war. But nobody's willing to do that, so it seems like climate change must not actually be that pressing.
In summary, it's risk, and it's scary, but I guess my biggest problem is the idea that it's likely to be bad for us. The opposite seems true, in the medium term. I mean... If Coruscant is devoid of naturally grown life and is fed exclusively from hydroponics, is that planet instrinsically bad?
Sorry for the shallow response and analysis in this post, but I wanted to respond with something before my busy afternoon today. I'll be back.
I addressed your questions as cogently as I could. Your reply ignored all of that. I didn't downvote you but you deserve it.
Maybe you're right. If you're wrong though, many people's lives may be far different than they'd like. People like you give me no hope for the future, having sold it for an easy life in the present.
Let me try this again. Seriously today was busy as hell.
I'm not sure exactly the point with respect to the soil and soil nutrients. The dust bowl area isn't unfarmable, it's a goddamn breadbasket. And if the Amazon, if it's a cloud forest goes more arid, that's (a) not intrinsically bad, and (b) might make it a farmable breasbasket of South America instead of the hostile, relatively uninhabitable place it is now. Although, if it does become more arid, which still seems unlikely, I'll admit the probability that biodiversity will be replenished is low. We might lose some cancer cures or whatever, but gain the elimination of South American food scarcity.
I'm just fucking tired of the doom and gloom that has no room for seeing the potentials for exploitation. The good kind. The kind where South America might be able to turn into a high standard of living, developed world power, for example.
> I'm not sure exactly the point with respect to the soil and soil nutrients
If you're referring to the megafauna + phosphorous point, I said "This does not answer your question". It was mentioned as a fascinating point about the interconnection of things, and how consequences can be so unexpected.
The amazon is not a cloud forest as the tiniest bit of knowledge would have told you. I gave that as an example of when an ecosystem is damaged it can't recover.
WRT the dustbowl, from the wiki link
"In many regions, more than 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s. Land degradation varied widely. Aside from the short-term economic consequences caused by erosion, there were severe long-term economic consequences caused by the Dust Bowl.
By 1940, counties that had experienced the most significant levels of erosion had a greater decline in agricultural land values. The per-acre value of farmland declined by 28% in high-erosion counties and 17% in medium-erosion counties, relative to land value changes in low-erosion counties.[25]:3 Even over the long-term, the agricultural value of the land often failed to recover to pre-Dust Bowl levels. In highly eroded areas, less than 25% of the original agricultural losses were recovered"
If you can't see the relevance, that's on you.
> I'm just fucking tired of the doom and gloom
And here we get to the heart of it. You posted originally
> And [bounce heterodox ideas off you is] totally worth it. I'd like to understand why I don't understand the biodiversity concern
So I gave you 25 mins of time to dig up some details and post a useful reply, but what you got wasn't what you wanted and now you're pissed off. Reality doesn't respond to your moods. Like I said, people like you sap my hope.
Don't get me wrong, I'm generally supportive of the fundamental argument that we ought not to change anything too fast because the consequences are terrifyingly unknown -- that's what makes me a conservative, in fact. However, there's a damn good reason to make that gambit: the elimination of global food scarcity, lifting the developing world out of poverty through industry, allowing developing worlds to be self-sufficient and not dependent on the West. If we lose the Amazon in the process and sea levels rise many meters, as a hyperbolic example, maybe that price is worth paying until we figure out how to not do that. We definitely don't know how to not do it yet. I don't know, and neither does anyone else. Well, that's only half true. We could force every country on the planet to build nuclear fission reactors and electric vehicles at threat of war. But nobody's willing to do that, so it seems like climate change must not actually be that pressing.
In summary, it's risk, and it's scary, but I guess my biggest problem is the idea that it's likely to be bad for us. The opposite seems true, in the medium term. I mean... If Coruscant is devoid of naturally grown life and is fed exclusively from hydroponics, is that planet instrinsically bad?
Sorry for the shallow response and analysis in this post, but I wanted to respond with something before my busy afternoon today. I'll be back.
[0]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/01/what-happened-to-90s-e...