Doesn't explain the hate any mention of geoengineering seems to be getting. "Unintended consequences" shouldn't be used as a generic counterargument/thought-terminating cliché. What particular consequences are we talking about, and how they stake against the problem we're sure to have?
> "Unintended consequences" shouldn't be used as a generic counterargument/thought-terminating cliché.
"Geoengineering" is itself a very generic term.
> What particular consequences are we talking about,
They would depend on the particular geoengineering technique we're talking about.
The whole point of unintended consequences is they are not or could not be anticipated before the fact.
Other than direct carbon capture i.e. geoengineering that's a direct inverse of the problem we have right now, I'm not confident we can predict everything that can go wrong with any given geoengineering solution. Even direct carbon capture is likely to have some serious downsides at scale we haven't yet considered.
Unintended consequences. Unless it's direct carbon capture, there is no guarantee we won't create worse problems.