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Climate engineering—which could slow the pace of global warming by injecting reflective particles into the upper atmosphere—has emerged in recent years as an extremely controversial technology. And for good reason: it carries unknown risks and it may undermine commitments to conserving energy. Some critics also view it as an immoral human breach of the natural world. The latter objection, David Keith argues in A Scientist’s Case for Climate Engineering, is groundless; we have been using technology to alter our environment for years. But he agrees that there are large issues at stake.
A leading scientist long concerned about climate change, Keith offers no naíve proposal for an easy fix to what is perhaps the most challenging question of our time; climate engineering is no silver bullet. But he argues that after decades during which very little progress has been made in reducing carbon emissions we must put this technology on the table and consider it responsibly. That doesn’t mean we will deploy it, and it doesn’t mean that we can abandon efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But we must understand fully what research needs to be done and how the technology might be designed and used. This book provides a clear and accessible overview of what the costs and risks might be, and how climate engineering might fit into a larger program for managing climate change.
David Keith has been profiled in the Boston Globe Magazine, Der Spiegel, Foreign Affairs, Science, Slate, The Economist, and The Washington Post.
David Keith, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, is author of A Case for Climate Engineering.
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The Judge Rotenberg Center, a Massachusetts school, still uses electric shock therapy to punish disabled students. How can an entire field of mental health accept this as fine?
Because it hinges on who will accept blame for causing climate change, there’s never been so much at stake in the naming of a geological era.
A sweeping new history of humanity upends the story of civilization, inviting us to imagine how our own societies could be radically different.
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