I understand the issue is complex, fraught with incentive, and has disparity between the developed and undeveloped world. But if the outcome is a clear collective benefit, why don’t we do it?
More practically. What will it take to create a world where humanity can align to help ourselves?
Ask yourself why you (apparently) prefer degrowth to this.
I have no idea what the solution is, I've already admitted it's complex. But it's frightening that the conversation immediately devolves into assumptions about one's stance, and immediate disagreement with that stance. Even on a website like HN. That's a big problem, no?
To f with nature and believe the full impact is understood in advance is human hubris.
Scientists "performing miracles" is one of the ways humanity is caring for the planet.
I'm not saying we shouldn't do research like this. But it is not an automatic good, and it must go hand in hand with proper biological field work looked at from an evolutionary lens. Or we risk making things worse with our good intentions.
We don't know the future impact of these modified corals, but we know it will be catastrophic if they disappear. IMO it would be worse to let the corals simply die.
I'm not saying this is you alone. We all do this, but this comment is particularly egregious for it.
We can only do this if humanity disincentivize getting stuck at local maxima. Another confounding factor is how humans make decisions: the highest level decision-makers are national governments and the respective administrations typically last 5-10 years at a time.
It needs to be top down action. Government regulation. Technological advancements. Influencial business people choosing to forgo profit for the sake of sustainability.
Unfortunately only a few greedy people are necessary to derail such efforts...
I'm painfully aware that the home office is much more harder to secure than regular office, but it seems like efforts to improve it have stalled since de pandemic.