The dangers of geoengineering cannot be overstated
Certainly the risk of geogineering is potentially more catastrophic than anything else humans have done, including use of nuclear weapons (short of all out Armageddon). However we’re screwing up our response to climate change badly enough that we’re already heading there. That last desperate hope is starting to appear like our only hope, even among those who think they understand the risk.
5-10 years ago, I would have agreed: just say no to geoengineering. The risks are way too high. But we keep getting worse at climate change, not better. A lot of the technology we need to reduce output impact on the climate has been developed, is affordable and practical, yet there are still so many obstacles to building it out. As a tech guy I relish the challenge of figuring out a tech solution, but we have many partial solutions yet society won’t budge and I don’t know how to fix that. It’s so frustrating and hopeless.
It’s time to consider our last desperate hope. Time to try to figure out a way. Time for serious investigation, including pilots. We may never want to take that risk, but it’s starting to look like we’ll have to