Eli Kintisch - Hack The Planet

Politics and Prose for a Sunday afternoon unpacking break. This book is from a science journalist covering the various forms of geoengineering. I have always found this topic fascinating, maybe from playing Sid Meier's Civilization once too many times. There are two major classes of geoengineering: taking carbon out of the atmosphere and preventing heat from entering the atmosphere. Examples of the former include inducing massive algae blooms in the arctic ocean. Examples of the latter include spraying particulates on clouds to reflect more sunlight and hence heat.

I think there is enormous potential in the private sphere for absorbing carbon dioxide through algae or other fast growing plant pulp. I say that because the CO2 should be pretty measurable and hence could fit into a global carbon pricing scheme. I actually asked the author about whether the current international laws accounted for geoengineering but he was unsure.

His book explains some of the known approaches and then talks about the politics and whether it is a good idea. This has been a fairly taboo subject among the serious set for quite some time, but some of those barriers are eroding because of the seriousness of the problem. Basically, people are opposed to it because it provides an excuse to those opposed to addressing climate change not to act, because if you have to stop whatever solution you come up with for some reason, the carbon problem would have been exacerbated in the interim, and because there is always the potential for something going wrong on a truly global scale. All that said, if we do nothing about climate change which looks more and more likely, the need for a drastic solution will be more critical. I look forward to reading this.