Challenging conventional wisdom can advance society’s understanding of truth. Good. Arrogantly challenging the complex balance of nature, however, can go kablooie! Very bad.

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In recent times, there’s been an unfortunate tendency for some scientific hot shots to send society off on techno-tangents to “remake” nature, promising miracles. About 70 years ago, for example, a so-called ag-science genius promised that dumping synthetic pesticides on monoculture crops across the globe would end hunger. Chemical giants and governments rushed to do the dump, but the “fix” ultimately resulted in the ongoing poisoning of Earth’s land, water, food, and people – while enriching agricultural monopolists and allowing hunger to rage.

Unfortunately, insistence by technologists and profiteers that they can outsmart and overwhelm nature is now being pushed with cosmic vengeance. A covey of arrogant academics and billionaire backers are saying: “Trust us, we can handle that little global warming issue.”

One is named David Keith, running a $100 million “stratospheric solar geoengineering” scheme named SCoPEx. Keith proposes to solve global warming by – get this – dispensing volumes of sulfur dioxide into the Earth’s stratosphere to “regulate” the amount and location of sunlight around the globe.

Gosh, what could go wrong with that? Never mind the unknown consequences of tampering with basic nature, argues Keith, for his bold techno-fix to global warming bypasses the political difficulty of ending our fossil fuel addiction – so we should just do it.

Keith does admit he can be “inappropriately forceful – I’m intense,” he says. Well then, let’s all chip in a for some therapy sessions to help him overcome his megalomania before he makes an irreversible mess of the only planet we have that sustains life.

Do something

Looking for real environmental change? Look no further than the youth! I wrote about them in this post, but we recommend teaming up with and supporting the following groups:

• Gen-Z for Change

• Zero Hour

• Black Girl Environmentalist

• Our Children’s Trust

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