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Comment by go_elmo | Hacker News Reader

I have to really really believe in the exponential - sigmoid development of green / carbon free energy and tech for this situation to be bearable. I hope the ridiculously low solar prices cause an exponential growth of installations, causing cheap peak-solar power prices for hydrogen based products to become competitive against fossil fuels. Its my only hope for the future atm.

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Climate engineering also holds promise. We'll get it wrong a few times and a lot of people and species will die, but then we'll get it right. And we will try it, because our nature is to keep doing what we are doing until it will become the only choice. My pitch for VC is waiting until we hit that point and people stop thinking its crazy to intentionally modify the feedback loop of our climate, because the alternative will be crazier.

The cheapest, lowest risk climate engineering approach imo is to just install a f-ton of solar panels in desert regions, produce gigatons of green hydrogen and substitute fossil fuels with these. If I was the king of saudi arabia, thats what I'd do. Some australian billionaires have already such plans [0]

[0] https://www.reuters.com/markets/funds/australian-billionaire...

I can’t find a single reputable scientific organization that argues in favor of ambitious climate engineering. The Union of Concerned Scientists, for example, is wholly against it. I recommend reading their explainer on it. “A lot of people and species will die” - you gloss over that callously like it’s all fine and dandy.

Its horrifying, but we have proven we aren't going to do the things we need to until the sane options won't cut it. I agree that right now its a terrible idea, but when climate refugees are dying by the tens of thousands, and species are disappearing faster than the coastlines, climate engineering and its unforseen consequences will be what are left to us.

Sadly I think you’re right, assuming business as usual continues until it can’t. But a potential foil to that timeline would be technological civilization grinding to a halt, such that we couldn’t deploy geoengineering even if we wanted to. At that point it’s anyone’s guess.

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