Lyle Lewis

The solution, in this case, is more dangerous than the problem.

Scientists have a quick fix for the climate crisis. Here’s why it could spark global crisis Scientists know how to alter our atmosphere to try and fix climate change, but doing so could bring other potential unintended impacts In Danny Boyle’s 2007 film Sunshine, a desperate crew flies towards our dying star to reignite it and save humanity. In Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, a scientist must find a way to dim a Sun that has grown dangerously bright due to alien microbes. These stories play with a tantalising, Promethean premise: if we can control the Sun, we can control our fate. Now,

The normalization of planetary manipulation proposals is itself the warning sign. That’s why the Doomsday Clock keeps edging toward midnight.

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Geoengineering has the potential to destabilize all life on Earth. It could easily transcend human extinction.

The Wildest Plan Ever Imagined: He Wants to Detonate a Nuclear Bomb at the Bottom of the Ocean to Save the Planet - Futura-Sciences The climate change we continue to fuel through fossil fuel consumption poses a serious threat to our long term survival. Solutions do exist. Most require, if not sacrifice, at least meaningful changes in how we produce and consume energy. Many would likely improve our lives in the process. Still, some...

“Bold” may be one of the most dangerous words we apply to the biosphere. It often signals a willingness to gamble on planetary systems we barely understand rather than reduce the pressures we clearly do.

Sometimes I feel like the little engine and sometimes I feel like the little engine is running out of steam. I think it is part of taking on a big project.

I’m already about 4 months into the process. I’m making progress!

Mining, manufacturing, transporting, deployment, maintenance, and disposal of renewables are routinely dismissed as “least of our problems” while being part of the problem. Scaling energy “solutions” isn’t insignificant.

I’m writing another book that will explain. It’s complicated.

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Feedback loops inside feedback loops inside feedback loops.

It was not about if, but when.

Opinion | Can you spot these misconceptions around wind power? Take our quiz. The aesthetics of wind turbines are debatable. The fact of their increasing impact is not.

“Cats kill more birds” is ecological whataboutism. It’s like arguing we shouldn’t address air pollution because heart disease kills more people. Multiple stressors matter.

Al Gore understood the problem, but not that the planet was finite.

There is zero evidence that higher yields spare land. Over the past century increased chemical use and agricultural expansion have occurred simultaneously because demand keeps rising. Efficiency increases capacity, but outcomes are what matter.

But if you admit that on social media, someone much more ignorant will immediately fill the vacuum left by humility, uncertainty and recognition of complexity.

Paradise has its limits.

COVID lockdowns caused methane surge: Study reveals air pollution paradox - oregonlive.com The European Space Agency had more than 40 scientists working on why methane surged to the highest level in the atmosphere that researchers have seen since measuring began in the 1980s at 16.2 parts per billion per year.

Scientists have found that fewer emissions of one pollutant may have allowed methane to linger longer.

As warming increases wetland emissions, the system becomes even harder to predict.

Understanding keeps increasing right along with our inability to act on that knowledge.

I didn’t know exact numbers. Frightening!

That’s ideology, not ecology. No system is failure-proof, especially chemical agriculture. Outcomes depend on context and scale.

Sri Lanka isn’t proof that reducing ag chemicals fails. It’s proof that sudden policy shocks during economic crises destabilize food systems. Transition requires time and planning, not overnight bans. A misleading oversimplification. 👇

We’re incapable of focusing on the issues that really matter because people no longer know what they are.

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Evolution causes overpopulation. What’s the hook?

Never

Introducing complexity where there is none. It’s how we roll.

Economics has failed on the climate crisis. This complexity scientist has a mind-blowing plan to fix that Doyne Farmer says a super-simulator of the global economy would accelerate the transition to a green, clean world

You can model every company on Earth in exquisite detail.

But economics doesn’t fail because it lacks complexity.
It fails because it assumes growth inside a finite system is negotiable.

That, too, but it deserves a book……not an essay. I’m working on that, too.

There have probably always been a very small percentage of the population who could “see” what the implications of our actions. The same is true today. Unfortunately, they are always a tiny minority.

Bringing the "functionally extinct" American chestnut back from the dead Wiped out in its native range by invasive pathogens, the trees may make a comeback.

Even if we successfully genetically engineer blight-resistant chestnuts, the original specialist insects, soil fungi, predator relationships, and forest structure are gone.

Genomes can be sequenced.
Coevolved relationships are impossible to resurrect.