u/Folksvaletti

Don't shoot me yet.

In my studies I've come across a field within the study of international relations which examines the politics of climate and earth as an ecosystem. "Planetary Politics".

In an effort to be concise, it is a field wherein humankinds effect on our globe is understood and approached at from a perspective of "we will be able to geo-engineer our globe in the future, hiw should this possibility be prepared for such that we could govern the issues that rise therein."

There is more to it, but that's the most interesting part to me, and the part that I think is most useful for this discussion.

We have changed the climate already. We can do it. We just did so initially by accident. Now there's an effort going on to reverse some of the effect we've had, but I'd argue that blindly reversing isn't necessarily the best option.

Let's say we figured out that stopping any effort for change, and maintaining, the current climate as is would result in the next ice age being postponed indefinitely. With that we could be saving lives. Wouldn't that be our responsibility?

If there was a way we could change the climate while understanding the effects (which is still far off but as a hypothetical) of that action, and that would result in reduced droughts and therefore saved lives, wouldn't that be the responsible thing to do?

Personally, I believe that at a certain point of competency it becomes your duty to help those who are in need, and that to achieve that it wouldn't matter if it meant the viking burial of 70 odd million dinosaurs more.