@quinn I remember the first push about climate change was in the early 1970s. So we've known for 50 years.

@quinn

Replace the last 'we' by 'Rich as eff billionaires' and you might be onto something.

@quinn we must destroy the planet to save it.

@quinn sorry, I can't hear you over the noise, I have to build a nuclear power plant to get enough energy for my climate-fixing AI-Datacenter

@quinn
I think that discourse could be useful, though

For instance, anyone who says we need AI to solve climate change is a prime target for expropriation

@quinn The part I find frustrating about climate discourse is that everyone talks about it as if it's the planet that's in danger. The planet doesn't care. The ecosystem will adapt. The thing at risk is our survival. We're not "fighting for the planet" we're fighting for our own survival.

@quinn But if AI says it, then... well... the billionaires would probably outlaw AI completely, and I guess that would be a win, sort of.

@quinn

More than a hundred years. The amount of time we have known about burning carbon is longer than the amount of time, since we began the industrial revolution until we were warned.

co2 warning history, 1800's

https://daily.jstor.org/how-19th-century-scientists-predicted-global-warming/

Sarcastic Cynicism(?)

@quinn
I mean, *we* want to, but the people saying they need AI to give them a different answer, one they prefer, don't want to.

We also know what to do about those people to stop them deciding we can not do anything about climate change if they don't like how it has to be done, but they don't like that answer either.

@quinn I think "decade" should be "century" in your post. Other than that, I agree!

@quinn it’s like me trying to figure out how to lose weight but without any exercise or diet… maybe AI can help with this as well?

@quinn True. And not true ;)

We definitely can solve the part we've caused, but one of the realizations from climate change research is not only what our CO2/methane emissions do, but also a lot more insight into the natural part.

There is some misconception that as long as we fix our emissions climate will be "stable". It never has been. Thus we should do climate adaptions _in addition_ to halting emissions.

(Don't build houses in flood valleys/Plant trees in cities/Don't build close to the coastlines/Make sure rain has _equal_ ability to get soaked up on land we've built on ... etc)

@quinn What they mean, of course, is that some technomagical hyperintelligence will find a solution where everyone can keep doing whatever they do, the rich and powerful can keep their power and wealth, and nothing really changes at all.

@quinn
People push technological solutions to social problems because they don't want to solve social problems.

@quinn it's just a way to dilute the argument and weaken support for any solution, if you can add ever more "but ifs", in order to both-side & all-sides, and hand the destructive status quo a win.

@quinn I'm old enough to remember a wave of posts about using blockchain to...do something...that would solve global warming. At least it gave me lots of people to block on LinkedIn.

@quinn Exactly. Take the billions away from the billionaires, use them to solve the problems.

Well then, let an LLM tell them to stop burning oil. The correct answer isn't going to change, no matter who delivers the message.

@quinn 40 years, more like. And we're halfway through doing it already.