> Oddly I sympathize with both of Heiko's extremes, but in either case
> it is very long term thinking.
>
> I think most of us can agree that we DON'T want an abrupt and
> involuntary population collapse in the current century or the next. It
> seems that goal is quite enough to keep us occupied for the present.
Few would disagree with that. Maybe I chose a bad example. Let me
choose another one. You can also be for or against greening the Sahara
mainly on the basis of the geopolitical impact. You could for example
be against / for the scheme, because you think it'll do something
about terrorism. My point was that not everything is a strictly
scientific question where there is one right answer only. A question
like whether the Sahara should be greened by big water schemes differs
fundamentally from say "what is the speed of light?". For the latter,
you don't take ten class room answers and choose something in the
middle, one person can have it right and nine wrong (and if the one is
an astronomer and the nine are car mechanics ...). For the former,
democratic, political value choices do matter, and it is rather
annoying when some scientist comes along and says "I am the expert and
if I say this is a good/bad idea, it is so, and non experts should
trust me, because this is a scientific question with only one right
answer with no need for them to provide input for coming to a decision
as to what needs to be done".
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