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I strongly recommend that anyone interested in geoengineering read Oliver Morton's excellent book, The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World.

I strongly recommend that anyone interested in geoengineering read Oliver Morton's excellent book, The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World. I found it engagingly written, chock full of interesting science, and open-minded without being credulous. I think we're going to have to try stratospheric sulfur aerosols within the next decade or so. Yes, I know it doesn't solve the ocean acidification problem. I think we should be experimenting with iron fertilization for that purpose. It might not work, or the side-effects might be too severe, but the attitude of the scientific community has been to actively suppress any such research, and I think that's a serious mistake. It is not a choice of whether we dare to modify the biosphere, or not. We are already modifying it! That genie is not going back in the bottle. We should be learning how to modify it intentionally as well as unintentionally.

ScottBurson 10y ago
Let me say a little more to give you a taste of the book. Morton opens the Introduction with two questions: (1) Do you believe the risks of climate change merit serious action aimed at lessening them? (2) Do you think that reducing an industrial economy's carbon-dioxide emissions to near zero is very hard? I'll quote snippets: To judge by what they say, and by what policies they support, most people in favour of action on climate change are in the Yes/No camp: they want to act on the risks; they don't think that getting off fossil fuels is a terribly hard problem. [...] Most of those against action on climate are in the No/Yes camp: they don't think climate is very much of a worry; but they do think that getting off fossil fuels is very difficult, even impossible. [...] Neither of these approaches works for people like me in the Yes/Yes camp. [Added in edit] Morton goes on to support both positions. The argument for (1) is not that climate disaster is inevitable on our current course, but that the risk is too great to ignore. The argument for (2) is more involved; he lays out numbers showing how little progress has been made and pointing out how billions of people still have little or no access to energy at all. As their standard of living rises to what we in the rich world would consider the poverty level, they will inevitably burn more carbon.
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ScottBurson 10y ago

Let me say a little more to give you a taste of the book. Morton opens the Introduction with two questions: (1) Do you believe the risks of climate change merit serious action aimed at lessening them? (2) Do you think that reducing an industrial economy's carbon-dioxide emissions to near zero is very hard? I'll quote snippets: To judge by what they say, and by what policies they support, most people in favour of action on climate change are in the Yes/No camp: they want to act on the risks; they don't think that getting off fossil fuels is a terribly hard problem. [...] Most of those against action on climate are in the No/Yes camp: they don't think climate is very much of a worry; but they do think that getting off fossil fuels is very difficult, even impossible. [...] Neither of these approaches works for people like me in the Yes/Yes camp. [Added in edit] Morton goes on to support both positions. The argument for (1) is not that climate disaster is inevitable on our current course, but that the risk is too great to ignore. The argument for (2) is more involved; he lays out numbers showing how little progress has been made and pointing out how billions of people still have little or no access to energy at all. As their standard of living rises to what we in the rich world would consider the poverty level, they will inevitably burn more carbon.

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