First, Hack The Planet, Then Let's See What Happens

0 views

Skip to first unread message

Heaven soon

unread,

Aug 9, 2010, 8:28:10 PM8/9/10

to Heavensoon

First, Hack The Planet, Then Let's See What Happens
Geoengineering would also kick in quickly—though you’d have to keep putting the stuff up there if you wanted to keep having the climate payoff. It wouldn’t, Keith emphasizes, solve all the problems of climate change. For instance, a planetary cooling would not do anything to counteract the ongoing ocean acidification that is being driven by our carbon emissions. Geoengineering doesn’t make those emissions go away, it just makes the planet chill down a little. Most of all, we don’t really know the full range of possible side effects—the unintended consequences. And we won’t before we use it. But if we’re in a climate corner, we might just go ahead anyway. We might think geoengineering is the best of our bad options. The presentations by Leinen and Keith launched a broad ranging discussion, but sitting in the room, there was a fundamental theme I couldn’t stop thinking of—the incredible gap between the importance of geoengineering as a possibility on the one hand, and the complete lack of public awareness that it’s even on the table on the other.