Those pressing for immediate reductions in carbon dioxide emissions face big problems. Here’s one; the prospect of cooling the planet through geoengineering. The people working on this are serious scientists and analysts, not lackeys of Senator Robert Byrd’s (D-WVA) mountain-top removing, coal industry cronies. Rather, they include Paul Crutzen, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his ozone hole work. The prestigious journal Climate Change devoted an entire issue to the subject. And geoengineering has been featured in Science and the Mark Kleiman, of UCLA and a FREE lecturer explores this tension “…why is this [geoengineering] still a fringe topic? Partly…because of the stupidity of the anti-environmentalist right ….But largely…because the people who think Earth in the Balance was one of Al Gore’s accomplishments, rather than one of the strongest reasons to doubt his fitness to be President, really don’t want a non-Gaian, non-regulatory solution to their most precious problem.”
Dealing responsibly with our changing climate requires a portfolio of strategies, probably including geoengineering. Greens will be sorry if they dismiss this out-of-hand, for this will raise questions about credibility and sincerity. Critics will claim their real motives are to force us into austerity to atone for our environmental sins.
