Thanks for chiming in. :)

This is just fiction, so take it with a grain of salt regarding my own personal views about reality. That said, I certainly did salt it with some of my own views. That's what's fun about fiction, it lets us explore what's possible without having to get too bogged down in what's probable. Unfortunately, many in the real world don't have solid epistemologies and/or haven't studied how human brains work and how they consistently find meaning and make connections where there should not. For some good reads on that, check out Predictably Irrational and Thinking, Fast and Slow.

For some thoughts on scientific consensus and arguments from authority, check out this video. I've posted a couple times on climate change here and here. I currently think it's a real thing given the data I've read. Others are free to disagree with me, but when they do so on specific issues, I track down original sources (as much as possible) and look for counter arguments, then I weigh both sides to see which is more reasonable, rational, logical, probable, follows Occam's Razor, has the fewest biases, etc, etc, etc.

Unfortunately, for conversations like this, they are highly charged with emotion. If someone is claiming human activity is literally killing life on this planet, that's a serious moral claim. If others are claiming massive lying is going on to control millions of people, that's also a huge moral claim. We have trouble with these arguments and often revert to the primitive view that someone who disagrees must be immoral, ignorant, or stupid. I don't think you're any of those things and based on your kind words here, I think you've extended me the same courtesy. That said, when I look into criticisms regarding the claims about climate gate, it reminds me again of failures in human thinking and not hard, conclusive evidence. You and I could debate those finer points, but my hunch is it wouldn't matter because we've both read a lot of other stuff that supports our current positions.

To be clear:

I simply dont subscribe to their "humanity has no choice but to murder a large portion of the population" solution.

Neither do I. :) I was painting a terrible picture to explore a warped-minded justification for something which is horrible. At the same time, if I was for sure going to die, I'd probably want to die peacefully instead of in a horrific zombie-like existence... so yeah, it was just a thought I had a couple years ago about vaccines where even if they are completely safe, they still present a systemic risk if we don't know exactly what we're injecting into our bodies every time.

who are part of a new generation capable of creating everything humanity needs and taking us to the stars for the first time in human history.

I love this optimism. :)