Fantastic to hear at last some of your thoughts on environment, Avi, thanks for posting.

Just as well you qualified above with the assurance that you still mean we have about a billion years to go before the end of all terrestrial life.

I am not sure if you have noticed, but there is a growing school of common thought that believes there is a kind of elite conspiracy going on, for a few "Lucky" folk to exit Earth, leaving everyone else to perish in the fumes, or even nuclear pollution on Earth. If I recall correctly, I remember Freeman Dyson lamenting on a documentary that they had to end his Orion project when it became apparent that the fallout from the nuclear powered "Arc" function spacecraft they had in mind would probably end all life remaining on Earth, and he had to accept that was probably correct.

The thing is, what I don't get about folk as obviously clever as Freeman was, and you also are, why does planning for the end of Earth seem to be more on your minds, than saving the Earth?

As said, I've spent about the last five years working voluntarily on a Systems Engineering analysis and subsequent solution to the issues, including with stakeholder analyses, even including various religions, and the effects of those on mindsets, and it looks pretty clear to me that modern single deity religions seem to bring with them the end of the world, whereas more ancient spiritual and multi-deity religions seem to be more oriented on the idea that our environment can sustain us forever, if we just treat it right.

By the Engineering analysis, it looks confirmed to me that there is indeed a way out, by using the energy of the sun, the same way as plants do, but it also confirms we will end very soon, if we do not use the energy of the sun.

Could it be possible that the thing affecting our mindsets most, those of us who were brought up with mono-deity religions, is our tendency to take what was said, too literally? For example, the end times. I now see how, by being meant more abstractedly, that we would have had to evolve to understand abstractedly, this could have meant an ultimatum, more than something which would happen in any case.

The ultimatum looks to me like we have to recognise the real power in our solar system, or perish on a burning planet ridden with armageddon.

Look, a third of Pakistan is/was underwater, with millions of souls on the line there. That was only one of many events, and only the start.

When we do the systems analysis it all traces to energy use via the mechanisms of money, tracing to a grand energy ponzi, which means we now have an energy debt to our planet, which we recognise as financial debt, rather than energy debt like we should.

The splintering of knowledge into professional specialisms, causing loss of truly multidisciplinary thinking, like that displayed by folk like Da Vinci, and some of the ancient greek "Philsophers", is itself driven by profit, as appears to have happened around the time of "The enlightenment".

This misconception looks fatal for our species to me, and yet completely unnecessary, it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of energy, all of which comes from the sun.

Could that not be the mono-deity which we were/are supposed to recognise, and honor, at penalty of extinction if we do not?

You will be a little familiar with orbital trajectories. If we look at the forces involved on Earth, we see solar pressure, gravity, and centrifugal force.

Those are currently in delicate equilibrium, any significant change in distance from the sun, off of our usual path around it ends in rapid loss of orbit, either outwards, or inwards, due to the nonlinear square law of the gravitational force.

Imagine we put up a "Geo-Engineering" sun shield. This would increase solar pressure, without changing any other forces, so in theory, our path would deviate, outwards, breaking our orbit.

Then we become a dark planet, possibly fusion powered, which would give ultimate power of the planet to whoever the biggest baddest dictator was, but no longer with sun.

That shield would have been driven by VC investors, who can be talked into investing in absolutely anything, given an appropriate sales pitch, which is effectively just propaganda, part truth, but with the missing truth part having far bigger consequences than any profits that could be made.

What we would have done, for the sake of profit, would be to send us to a kind of dark hell, for the sake of profit.

This wouldn't be happening in thousands or even hundreds of years, it would be happening this year, or maybe next, after a few more disasters like the ones now hitting Pakistan, and Florida, when investors get desparate enough. Some of our top Unis are working on it right now, VC funded as always.

If we were to say there is a kind of natural religious rule of nature, it would be that Nature is the grand authority, her currency is energy. The sun is the only issuer and enforcer of it, and we have to use it, or burn.

If we are cheeky enough to try to put up a shield to that burning, instead of putting it to use, then the sun will kick us out of the solar system, literally.

What do you think of that?