Hi all,
I think I ought to clarify what I am trying to do and repose the question,
as well as respond to all the replies.
What I am attempting to do is this: Under low probability scenarios of
nuclear war with high SRM burden (maybe due to a large warming, either
because of high emissions or
Dear Gideon, I think that you are grabbing the wrong end of the stick. The problem is that once nations have nuclear arsenals and are engaged in nuclear weapons races which require competing military industrial complexes and permanently expanding economies to fund these then there is an
To address nuclear winter, consider this paper, Daniel Heyen, Joshua
Horton, and Juan Moreno-Cruz. 3/20/2019. “Strategic implications of
counter-geoengineering: Clash or cooperation?” Journal of Environmental
Economics and Management, 95, Pp. 153-177.
This offers a possible way out. Equipment to
Of course there are more minor conflicts possible with less severe outcomes…
though if it’s a regional war that doesn’t itself end civilization, I don’t see
why one couldn’t restart SRM in a year or two if desired.
Gideon, you write: “I understand why there is aversion to me exploring such
Hi Doug,
Apologies for misinterpreting. Its a statement like this that I have been
looking for.
When you suggest it isn't appreciably worse, is that a suggestion that
either:
- The death toll/ the ability for society to recover would be no different
given the double catastrophe than the single
All of the above, with qualifiers… yes the climatic response would be
different, but personally I think 6B dead is so bad that whether it’s 6.01 or
6.1 or 6.5 isn’t something that I feel matters particularly (nor do I think it
is particularly answerable). What decisions would depend on the
If you consider the residual human population, the difference is huge.
Losing 0.1 of the last billion people alive would be losing 10pc of the
entire global population. Further, that might not be evenly distributed.
For example, it might mean the death of all - or almost all - of the
surviving
I think this is going to get into more general philosophy/ethics around
Existential Risks, Longtermism and Global Catastrophic Risks, which whilst
interesting and useful, probably a bit orthogonal to what people are
turning to the geoengineering google group for. But basically, a difference
