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Comment by Sporktacular | Hacker News Reader

I'd want there to be a 0% chance of unintended consequences before taking this seriously. And even then when there is no other choice.

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0% chance of side effects is unrealistic. A better way to think of it is like the hippocratic oath that doctors adhere to: to do no harm.

Yet just a few weeks ago a doctor cut some holes in me. That’s clearly harmful, yet in the balance I was quite glad he did so sad that way he could repair my arm. So a trade off analysis is required.

Fortunately there’s a emerging governance, e.g. from the Climate Restoration Safety and Governance Board that’s just starting up. It already has a pipeline of projects waiting to apply for regulation.

We perform operations all the time. The consequences are generally well known.

An operation on your body has consequences for you alone. You can consent to it. We won't find consensus on altering entire climates.

Or instead we should only do interventions that are easy to undo (or stop)

As opposed to the 100% chance of massive, civilization threatening consequences if we do nothing?

The contrast is illuminating.

We already know what to do.

Wait, even with a 0% chance of unintended consequences, you’d still insist on exhausting literally every other option?

These climate doomsayers are really committed to the bit.

Don’t stand in the way of their hubris.

How DARE they try to prevent the extinction of the human race!

dude stop pretending like global warming will cause our extinction or provide a source to back it up. none of the models i've read supported any conclusion like that

But CNN told me.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0

you can live in your own wishful thinking fairy tale where models make "conclusions" but over here in reality we have to live knowing that extinction is a possibility because veering away from equilibrium means you cannot predict in the first place.

your article doesn't say anything about human extinction. it talks about a "tipping point" in climate change but has no evidence to suggest human extinction. provide a source or stop claiming it will make us extinct.

Why are humans the only creatures that matter? Are we the only ones capable of suffering? If it wipes out a quarter of all species isn't that a catastrophe, even without considering our dependence on them? Myopia like yours is how humanity got here.

i didnt say that. i was responding to a hyperbolic and utterly baseless claim that climate change wpuld cause humanity to be extinct. it's an absolutely cnn-tier nonsense statement.

It's hyperbolic but there is value in its core - ecosystem collapse would bring us close. And the point below is not unreasonable - our collective response to 1.5 vs 4.5 degrees warming will not be linear. Mass migration, resulting fascism, resource wars and mismanagement, evaporation and starvation could finish those who remain.

If we're forced to live a completely different lifestyle it may be tantamount to the extinction of modern humanity.

Have you met humans? Even if climate change itself does not bring about extinction, there's a very real possibility that human stupidity in response to climate change (and other related factors) could very well start a chain of events that realistically might end with an extinction level event of one kind or another. Hell, even without climate change aggravating things, some lunatic like Putin could start something we'd all regret…

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