Duality in Climate Science
The value of science is undermined when we adopt questionable assumptions and fine-tune our analysis to conform to dominant political and economic sensibilities.
The value of science is undermined when we adopt questionable assumptions and fine-tune our analysis to conform to dominant political and economic sensibilities.
Geoengineering has become known as the US government’s “Plan B” response to climate change.
We also must remember that generals have always dreamed of controlling the weather.
Reports on climate change evidence and causes, legislation, and geoengineering.
Clive Hamilton, an Australian, has written a number of books about climate change. In the recently published ‘Earthmasters’, he tackles the subject of attempts to manage the climate by geoengineering. I found this book well researched, well documented, clearly written…and alarming.
The notion of using geoengineering is moving from a fringe idea to mainstream discussion. Powerful corporations and governments of developed nations are the ones with the budgets and technology to execute geoengineering schemes. There is no reason to trust they will have the rights of more vulnerable states or peoples in mind,and the risk to the planet’s ecological integrity is great.
Interview with one of the world’s top geoengineering scholars.“The potential risks are enormous… and it’s attracting a flood of interest from scientists, venture capitalists and oil companies.”
•China agrees to impose carbon targets by 2016 •Warming to hit half of plants, a third of animals •Geoengineering: Can We Save the Planet by Messing with Nature? •Climate Denial’s Death Knell: 97 Percent of Peer-Reviewed Science Confirms Manmade Global Warming, Consensus Overwhelming •Climate disasters displace millions of people worldwide •For Insurers, No Doubts on Climate Change
For all who love a conspiracy, geoengineering has it all. The oil companies, far-right think-tanks, nuclear weapons scientists, and even Bill Gates.
What has the atomic number of 16, and is liable, in the form of a compound, to be spritzed into the stratosphere by the mega-ton? You’d be right if you said sulfur. That’s one of the interventions suggested by geo-engineers to reduce global warming, along with such initiatives as making biochar, "sequestering" CO2 under the earth, brightening clouds by spraying water upwards, and dumping iron powder in the sea. A sulfur compound injected into the middle atmosphere would mimic a massive volcanic eruption, which is known to reduce the mean surface temperature.