Many of us think of scientists experimenting in a lab during the hypothesis-testing phase, but for scientists studying how the Earth works, their lab is the planet.

You would purge the planet of industrial civilisation, at the cost of billions of lives, only to discover that you have not invoked "a saner world" but just another phase of destruction.

Mercury will be retrograde this month, but if you are careful to sidestep the downsides of this planet out of phase, you can still make a lot of progress.