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Comment by exabrial | Hacker News Reader

"Green", if you exclude absolute sacrifice of an entire downstream ecosystem.

Downstream actually sees benefits from a dam, since the output of the river remains unnaturally constant even during periods of drought.

The immediate upstream from a dam, however, is another story entirely.

I think looking at the ecosystems in isolation is part of the problem. The ecosystems are connected, and affecting one affects the other. Especially for species that use both, such as salmon.

Floods are as natural as rain, wildfires, and erosion. Entire species depend on these. A good example is how we almost managed to destroy all of the sandbars on the Colorado river because we were "controlling flooding", but it took quite a while for us to realize these are only created during surge events.

That's sacrificed by growth of agriculture and resource outtake anyway. We need to ensure we make the best out of it when we terraform this place.

Unfortunately, that's the scale of our civilization, the status quo is more destruction of ecosystems.

In some cases we need to make sure we take the last bad decisions, otherwise someone else will take worse ones.

Aren't we in a climate emergency at risk of catastrophic famines and the eventual extinction of the human race?

There's not going to be a perfect solution. Probably not even a good one. Pumped storage (and hydro power in general) seems a pretty great option, compared to building ridiculously vast banks of batteries that need replacing every decade or two.

Yeah, no - I definitely do exclude claims of THE ABSOLUTE, TOTAL, AND COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF CATEGORICALLY EVERYTHING DOWNSTREAM.

Especially given that it's a centuries-old technology, installed upstream of many (perhaps "most"?) things, and yet THE ENTIRE DOWNSTREAM ECOSYSTEM (which, since all streams lead to ABSOLUTE SACRIFICE AND TOTAL DESTRUCTION), is THE ABSOLUTE ANNIHILATION OF EVERY ECOSYSTEM.

Do I need to download a new copy of TehScienceConsensus.pdf again? What page did you get this from?

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