The issue is the problems they were trying to solve required boiling the ocean. They did manage to boil a good bit of it, but didn’t see it thru all the way — their tech was very expensive and not that good in the end.
There's also the problem of what to do with the high salinity waste water that is generated from the process. Simply dumping it back into the ocean can cause environmental problems.
IIRC These can have thier own host of problems because the 'brine' byproduct doesn't mix well back into the ocean and can settle/pool and create marine dead zones. Although suppose that will be less of a priority if people are thirsty.
That's basically my point, though. The problem with the ocean is that this sort of solution has not been implemented and may in fact be very difficult to implement. The ocean is difficult to fence off, and the actors are basically states who have no superior authority that can truly enforce such things.
It's not a global problem but a local one. Locally increased salinity and temperature can be a problem. You can drop a whole bunch of hot brine in the middle of the ocean to little effect, but the same is not true of a mangrove swamp or a bay.
Boil the ocean is an expression meaning do the impossible, so I don't think it matters much if we have a responsibility to do something we are incapable of. It does matter if we do the next best thing, and that's where the trade offs come in.
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