Geoengineering and Super Freakonomics

This guy is just hoping someone does something.

“While there is a lot of room for a lot of legitimate debate about many aspects of global warming, let us say one thing here: we believe that anyone who reads our chapter without an agenda wouldn’t even find it particularly controversial.”

The quote above was taken from a blog post written by Stephen Dubner on the Freakonomics blog. I have to agree. The chapter doesn’t put forth any assertion that I found ridiculous. Of course, there are lots of people out there that knew and understood the problem and the science behind it much better than I do.

On some level, these guys are trying to be controversial. If you write something controversial, it gets people talking about it. When you hear people talking, it makes you want to read it. In fact, in the introduction of the book – the authors admit that they expect the book to bring up things that you don’t necessarily agree with.

Geoengineering is one of these controversial topics. Lauren Morello of ClimateWire wrote an excellent piece for the NY Times about some of the things at issue with regard to geoengineering and climate change. One of the arguments offered in Super Freakonomics is that we’re not going to be able to stop global warming by simply reducing greenhouse gases, because it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to cut them enough to make a significant difference. Plus, we’d have to get developing countries, like China and India. This will be a tough sell. Their qualm will be that the United States has burned energy all the way to their economic powerhouse, and now you want us to cut back?

If cutting greenhouse gas emissions won’t be enough, some scientist are offering geoengineering as an alternative. Geoengineering is basically just manipulation of conditions to affect the weather, or, in this case, climate change. Some scientists, believe, for instance, that adding a small amount of sulfur dioxide to the stratosphere would help cool the earth. Or, more simply, if you can create more clouds, you block more sunlight, and allow less heat to make it to the earth. If you read the chapter, you’ll get a much better explanation of what is being called Budyko’s Blanket. This entire theory has its opponents, namely Al Gore, who thinks pretty much all of geoengineering is nuts. Gore has become the de facto face of the entire movement, mainly because of An Inconvenient Truth.

I should let you know that this is way, way outside my circle of competence. I would love to see discussion on the topic from people that understand the issues and have read this particular chapter of the book. I meet the second criteria, not necessarily the first. I’m interested in any good articles or data on the topic. Thanks for reading.