Produced by:
KBOO
Program::
Air date:
Mon, 06/22/2015 - 10:15am to 11:00am
Challenges, pitfalls and unintended consequences of relying on geoengineering to stop climate change
THIS PROGRAM WAS ORIGINALLY BROADCAST MAY 4, 2015
Modified jets spewing sulfuric acid could haze the skies over the Arctic in a few years “for the price of a Hollywood blockbuster,” as physicist David Keith of Harvard University likes to say. That’sgeoengineering, the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment. This hazing, which mimics the cooling effect of a volcanic eruption, is so cheap that almost any country—or any random billionaire—could afford to do it, But even though it's too late to slow down the planetary warming triggered long ago by the carbon emissions of the industrial age, is geoengineering really the route we want to go?
On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with David Biello, associate editor for environment and energy at Scientific American about the challenges, pitfalls and unintended consequences of relying on geoengineering to solve our carbon emission problems.
David Biello has been covering energy and the environment for nearly a decade, the last four years as an associate editor at Scientific American. He also hosts 60-Second Earth, a Scientific American podcast covering environmental news, and is working on a documentary with Detroit Public Television on the future of electricity.
- KBOO
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