Episode 138: Geoengineering Our Way Out of Climate Disaster

With the world’s progress toward reducing carbon emissions fitful at best, people are slowly waking up to the possibility of not meeting international targets and staring instead at potential worst-case scenarios. Enter geoengineering, in which we deliberately manipulate the Earth's climate system to stave off planetary ruin. Is artificially reflecting sunlight away from the planet or sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere our last, best hope, or is it a reckless distraction from ongoing climate mitigation efforts? Joe and Mark review the forms of geoengineering under consideration, how feasible they are, and whether they’d do more harm than good.

Transcript

Mark
00:00
Welcome to Mansplaining, a podcast about the interesting things you can discover if you just take the time to learn.

Mark
00:06
My name's Mark.

Mark
00:07
I'll be your host for this week.

Mark
00:09
And as always, I'm joined by Joe, an old friend from college.

Mark
00:13
Together we'll explore what's on our minds and hopefully figure out a thing or two about a thing or two.

Mark
00:19
Joe, this has been a year where the headlines have been full of stories about heat waves on the East Coast and in Europe, where people really suffer.

Mark
00:27
Through the heat.

Mark
00:28
And maybe that was the occasion for the story that caught my eye in Wired, the headline of which was dimming the sun would lower the risks of El Nino.

Mark
00:39
And that brought to mind a topic that I've been wondering about for a while.

Mark
00:42
It's always been one of those ones that I thought maybe I'll ask about this on man's planning, and that is the topic of geoengineering.

Mark
00:48
And for those who are not familiar with the term, geoengineering refers to the attempt to engineer the Earth's climate in order to deal with some sort of crisis.

Mark
00:58
And particularly within the context of climate change, which we touched on a couple of times in this uh podcast, on the one hand there's an argument to be made where

Mark
01:06
It doesn't look like anyone's gonna stop driving their cars.

Mark
01:10
We can't even manage to shut down coal fired power plants

Mark
01:14
So it seems unlikely that we're gonna be able to, on a global scale, reduce emissions to a level where it's gonna stop or reverse climate change.

Mark
01:22
And so from that standpoint, maybe geoengineering is our last or possibly even our only hope.

Mark
01:29
But it's kind of that tool that you're not sure that you should use.

Mark
01:33
So I am curious about it and I'd like to learn more.

Mark
01:36
So I set you off with the request that you look into the suggestions for geoengineering that are out there right now, what the proposals actually are

Mark
01:45
how feasible they might be, and now that you've dug into the details, whether you think geoengineering would actually do more harm than good.

Mark
01:53
So I look forward to hearing what you learned.

Joe
01:55
Yeah, and I learned a lot, and I was, you know, at the end of the last episode kind of excited to get into this because uh it's something I've read about only sketchily, and I now have a pretty firm

Joe
02:08
foundation of geoengineering and I'm excited to tell you about it.

Joe
02:13
So the one thing I don't need to tell our man's

Joe
02:16
Audience about is the risks of climate change because we've been there before.

Joe
02:21
We visited this topic a few times already.

Joe
02:24
But I want to start this episode with a few not fun facts about the climate situation we face now, kind of set the table for geoengineering.

Joe
02:35
A 2021 study in the Lancet Planetary Health showed that 9.

Joe
02:42
43% of global deaths can be attributed to extreme temperatures

Joe
02:48
That's about five million extra deaths every year.

Joe
02:52
It goes without saying that the best way to mitigate the undeniable effects of climate change is for the world to collectively lower its carbon emissions.

Joe
03:02
within the parameters laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Joe
03:08
And I'm going to keep coming back to that last thought I just put out there.

Joe
03:13
We need to lower emissions

Joe
03:15
As of 2026, 194 nations are formal signatories of that agreement, and only four are not.

Joe
03:26
Iran, Libya, Yemen, and yes, the United States.

Mark
03:32
The US as always marching in lockstep with Iran and Yemen.

Joe
03:38
Yep, with its ideological allies.

Joe
03:41
It's the coalition of the unwilling.

Joe
03:44
As you pointed out in your question, the world's major polluters are not fully committing to the targets set out in Paris.

Joe
03:52
And this applies especially to the US, which not once but twice elected President a climate denying dimwit who pulled us out of the Paris Accord

Joe
04:04
So I agree with the premise of your question, Mark, that it's going to be hard for the world to live up to its Paris commitments.

Joe
04:12
It's tremendously expensive and it's politically difficult.

Joe
04:16
Trying to persuade every nation and multinational corporation to stop using fossil fuels in the near term is a pipe dream.

Joe
04:25
In that context, deliberately re-engineering the climate is seen as a highly controversial backup plan to shave the peak off temperature rise

Joe
04:36
while the world slowly and fitfully moves to clean energy.

Joe
04:41
Americans have been trying to scientifically control the weather since at least the eighteen thirties

Joe
04:48
when the U.

Joe
04:48
S.

Joe
04:49
Army hired a meteorologist to figure out whether humans could make it rain.

Joe
04:54
In the 1890s

Joe
04:56
The U.

Joe
04:57
S.

Joe
04:57
Department of Agriculture tried to remediate drought conditions by developing a rain machine that detonated giant water balloons.

Joe
05:07
I would have loved to see that experiment.

Joe
05:10
By the 1920s, the military had turned its attention to displacing fog to allow for tactical incursions.

Joe
05:19
After World War II, initially to aid farmers, scientists at General Electric conducted the first cloud seeding experiments to induce rainfall

Joe
05:30
and those efforts were continued by the Army through the Vietnam War.

Joe
05:35
Today geoengineering means the large scale, deliberate manipulation of the Earth's climate to counteract global warming.

Joe
05:45
Two types have been proposed, solar radiation modification and carbon dioxide removal, and I'm going to explain both.

Joe
06:02
But that's our acronym alert

Joe
06:05
Claxon, which means that acronyms for all these geoengineering methods will be coming fast and furious for a while.

Joe
06:13
So buckle in, folks

Joe
06:16
Solar radiation modification or SRM, also known as solar geoengineering

Joe
06:24
refers to the technique of dimming the sun by artificially reflecting about 1 to 2% of sunlight away from the earth

Joe
06:33
It comes in a few different flavors.

Joe
06:36
The most researched method with the best chance of being implemented any time soon is stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI.

Joe
06:47
which uses balloons or aircraft to disperse microscopic reflective particles like calcium carbonate, titanium dioxide, or sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere

Joe
07:01
Which is between 7 and 30 kilometers high, depending on whether you're at the poles or the equator

Joe
07:08
In 1974, US and Soviet scientists first proposed SAI to maintain climate levels.

Joe
07:17
As one study put it, quote, the prospect of changing the Earth's albedo, and that's surface reflectivity

Joe
07:25
to reduce CO2-driven warming has been recognized since the nineteen sixties based on cooling observed from volcanic eruptions

Joe
07:34
and burning sulfur-bearing fuels.

Joe
07:37
End quote.

Mark
07:38
Yes, in fact, um I believe the most recent ice age, at least within Europe, was triggered by a volcanic eruption.

Mark
07:46
that sent so much ash into the atmosphere that it significantly cooled the Yes, that's exactly right.

Joe
07:53
And that's the next thing I I wanted to say.

Joe
07:56
Um SAI, this strategic aerosol injection, mimics volcanic winter, the cooling effect

Joe
08:04
of major eruptions like the one at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, which, get this, this surprised me.

Joe
08:12
It caused global temperatures to drop by about half a degree Celsius for about two years as the sulfate slowly dissipated

Joe
08:23
So one of the ironies here is that the burning of fossil fuels over the past 150 plus years

Joe
08:30
injected tons of sulfur dioxide into the lower atmosphere, which reduced global average surface temperatures by about.

Joe
08:40
66 degrees Celsius

Joe
08:43
As we develop cleaner energy sources and move away from fossil fuels, that smoggy coolant effect diminishes.

Joe
08:51
which accelerates warming.

Mark
08:53
That's quite a double bind there, isn't it?

Joe
08:55
Yes.

Mark
08:55
Moving to cleaner energy actually makes climate change worse.

Joe
08:59
Yes.

Joe
08:59
Yes.

Joe
09:00
So the second most studied SRM method, solar radiation modification in case you forgot, is called marine cloud brightening, or MCB

Joe
09:12
also known as cloud seeding, which proposes spraying fine sea salt particles into low-lying ocean clouds

Joe
09:20
The microscopic droplets measuring about one seven hundredth the thickness of a human hair act as an aerosol

Joe
09:29
Attracting water vapor that creates dense white clouds that reflect more sunlight back into space

Joe
09:37
The effect is like so-called ship tracks generated when ship exhaust fumes unintentionally increase the reflectivity of clouds along their routes

Joe
09:48
Unlike SAI, which can only work globally, MCB can potentially be used regionally, which makes it easier to implement because it requires less international cooperation.

Joe
10:02
China has been testing cloud seeding technologies for at least a decade.

Joe
10:08
Testing has also been underway since at least 2011 in the US and Australia, and since 2024

Joe
10:15
in the heat sensitive ecosystem of the Great Barrier Reef.

Joe
10:20
From twenty twenty one to twenty twenty three, the UK launched balloons that injected a few hundred grams of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.

Joe
10:30
It's controversial.

Joe
10:32
SAI field tests scheduled in Sweden in 2021 and in Alameda, California in 2024 were cancelled.

Joe
10:42
by local officials due to public opposition.

Joe
10:45
And as you read in Wired, Mark, a recent study used climate modeling to examine the prospect of using cloud seeding

Joe
10:54
to dim the sun in the Pacific Ocean as a way of mitigating the effects of the El Nino Southern Oscillation

Joe
11:02
a periodic phenomenon that often leads to more extreme temperatures and weather events.

Joe
11:08
The study showed that cloud seeding would have a significant impact.

Joe
11:13
But there's also research suggesting that employing it in one place could lead to higher temperatures in other places.

Joe
11:21
MCB's prospects might ultimately hinge on the performance of sprayer technologies that have yet to be perfected, meaning the technology is still in the testing stage and not yet ready for prime time.

Joe
11:36
One article I read said this research was still in its infancy.

Joe
11:41
As the El Nino Studies co-author, UC San Diego climate scientist Catherine Rickey put it, quote,

Joe
11:48
There's a lot of things we need to figure out from models before trying it in the real world.

Joe
11:54
End quote.

Mark
11:55
And I can only imagine how complex those models would need to be in order to come anywhere close to

Mark
12:02
successfully modding modeling the complexity of a global weather system.

Mark
12:07
You're not going to get there with like some simple simulation.

Mark
12:10
This would have to be enormously, enormously detailed and complex.

Joe
12:14
Yes, and after I lay out all the forms of geoengineering and put them all on the table, then we're going to talk more about the testing that's going on and how close or not close to fruition those tests are.

Joe
12:28
But first let me mention the third SRM method.

Joe
12:32
So we're tilt we're still talking about solar radiation modification, you know, deflecting the sun's rays.

Joe
12:39
And that third method is called cirrus cloud thinning, which reduces those wispy clouds that act as a heat blanket and trap greenhouse gases

Joe
12:50
It absorbs their infrared radiation by introducing tiny particles that enlarge the ice crystals in the cirrus clouds so that they fall out of the atmosphere.

Joe
13:02
We don't have a lot of research on this method yet, only simulations that show conflicting results, so it's still far away from implementation.

Joe
13:12
Another highly theoretical method would be to use massive arrays of strategically placed space mirrors as orbiting sun shades to intercept sunlight before it reaches the Earth.

Joe
13:27
This was seriously considered by President George W.

Joe
13:30
Bush's science advisors until they learned it would cost trillions to design

Joe
13:36
and maintain and would take at least a quarter century to build at a global climate altering scale.

Joe
13:44
Finally with SRM methods, here on Earth's surface there are things we can do

Joe
13:49
like planting crops with more reflective leaves, installing white or blue roofs on buildings, and making land and sea cover changes

Joe
14:00
those things might move the needle a little bit, especially to reduce the heat island effect in cities.

Joe
14:08
But that's also very costly and impractical

Joe
14:12
In 2011, a Peruvian NGO whitewashed a small portion of an extinct glacier peak to help restore its melting ice

Joe
14:22
And I saw a photo of it.

Joe
14:23
It was pretty freaky.

Joe
14:25
It looked like an art exhibit.

Joe
14:28
The other type of geoengineering under consideration right now is carbon dioxide removal, or CDR.

Joe
14:36
I told you there would be a lot of acronyms in this episode.

Joe
14:40
And that describes a range of techniques to extract greenhouse gases from the air.

Joe
14:46
There are natural methods like ocean fertilization, which involves intentionally introducing nutrients like iron or nitrogen into the upper ocean

Joe
14:56
To stimulate phytoplankton blooms, which absorb atmospheric CO2 through photosynthesis and then transfer it to the deeper ocean when they die and sink.

Joe
15:08
There's afforestation, which is the planting of new trees on land that hasn't been forested recently to capture CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

Joe
15:20
and then store it in the tree's biomass and soil.

Joe
15:24
We can enhance ocean alkalinity by adding crushed minerals like lime to seawater to accelerate its natural ability to absorb

Joe
15:34
and permanently store CO2 as dissolved bicarbonate.

Joe
15:39
And there's macroalgae cultivation and artificial upwelling

Joe
15:45
which uses nutrient-rich deep ocean water to boost the growth of seaweed that naturally absorbs CO2 and then sequesters it when it sinks to the seafloor

Joe
15:57
Then there are more industrial methods like direct air capture that uses large fans and chemical reactions to suck CO2 directly from ambient air

Joe
16:09
for permanent storage underground or reuse in products.

Joe
16:13
And you're going to hear a giant sucking sound of the Exactly.

Joe
16:17
CDR strategies are more expensive than solar geoengineering, and, like ongoing climate mitigation efforts, would take decades rather than months or years to make an impact.

Joe
16:30
But unlike solar geoengineering, the huge upside of CDR is that it perfectly counteracts climate change with few to no side effects

Joe
16:42
And that teases the side effects that I'm going to tell you about shortly of the solar geoengineering.

Joe
16:49
Implementing solar geoengineering in our lifetime is possible

Joe
16:54
and that's why I'm going to focus mostly on it from this point forward.

Joe
16:59
Strategic aerosol injection and marine cloud brightening are expected to be technologically feasible within the next few decades.

Joe
17:09
SAI is the farthest along.

Joe
17:12
The research I've read suggests that after factoring in all the important variables, including cost, scalability, performance, and development time,

Joe
17:23
Which itself comprises research, modeling, manufacturing, and deployment, the most feasible scenario is to inject sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere

Joe
17:35
which some folks believe can be operational well before mid-century.

Joe
17:41
Besides its relative quickness to implement,

Joe
17:44
SAI is also remarkably cheap compared to the estimated $275 trillion required to decarbonize the global economy by 2050.

Joe
17:57
For example, SAI delivered by fleets of specialized aircraft that technically don't yet exist

Joe
18:05
with larger wingspans and engines powerful enough to reach the stratosphere, is estimated to cost in the tens of billions of dollars annually

Joe
18:16
a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions required for climate mitigation.

Joe
18:22
SAI would also impact global temperatures much faster than the decades it would take for emission cuts in CDR.

Joe
18:31
As with Mount Pinatubo's eruption, regular deployment of SAI could act as a solar umbrella, producing a measurable cooling effect within a year

Joe
18:43
But here's the catch.

Joe
18:45
Once SAI is up and running, to achieve sustained cooling, it would have to be maintained for multiple decades, if not centuries.

Joe
18:54
That's because the carbon we've already emitted since the industrial age began remains in the atmosphere for a very long time.

Joe
19:04
Even if all carbon emissions cease today, the carbon we've already produced will continue to warm the climate and will therefore need to be remediated long into the future.

Joe
19:17
Think about that for a second, Mark.

Joe
19:19
Geoengineering's most viable solution is to simulate, for hundreds of years, the effect of continuous volcanic eruptions.

Joe
19:29
a 24-7 Pompeii without the ash, or, if you prefer, a nonstop controlled demo of the effects of the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs

Mark
19:42
It does underscore the profound difficulty of that implementation that it's not just us deciding to do it.

Mark
19:49
It's not just our children or our grandchildren or our great grandchildren deciding to do it

Mark
19:54
It's generation after generation after generation after generation that would be on board for maintaining the effort.

Joe
20:00
That's right.

Mark
20:01
And nothing can stand in the way of that, not war.

Mark
20:04
Not disease, not famine, not depopulation.

Mark
20:07
It would need to be continuous no matter what.

Joe
20:10
Yes.

Joe
20:10
And now you're anticipating some of the cons of this technology, which I'm going to get to very shortly, but

Joe
20:17
Keep that thought because it's right on point.

Joe
20:20
But first I want to say that to further enhance its viability of strategic aerosol injection,

Joe
20:28
is that it's not the focus of the public sector alone.

Joe
20:31
At least two private startups received funding in recent years.

Joe
20:36
One has been using balloons to deliver sulfur dioxide gas to the stratosphere since 2022.

Joe
20:44
A second reported last year that it had received $75 million in seed money

Joe
20:50
to develop and test aircraft-based aerosol deployment.

Joe
20:55
Large donors have also been getting involved.

Joe
20:58
According to the Wikipedia page on solar geoengineering, as of 2025, 48% of research funding had come from philanthropy.

Joe
21:09
Silicon Valley, including the Rogues Gallery of Elon Musk, Peter Teal, Bill Gates, and Sam Altman, has also taken an interest in it.

Joe
21:20
Groups like the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Union of Concerned Scientists all support further research.

Joe
21:31
I want to drill down on the risk-benefit calculus of geoengineering, for here the scientific consensus is mixed

Joe
21:41
Proponents of geoengineering argue that we're running out of time to fix the climate, and that desperate times call for desperate measures.

Joe
21:50
Inaction on climate change has its own grave risks that are already starting to manifest themselves in all the wildfires, droughts, and superstorms we've seen in recent years.

Joe
22:02
Proponents also think the critics of geoengineering are being overly timid while the house is already on fire.

Joe
22:10
And that solar geoengineering is the only thing that can save us from the catastrophic three degrees Celsius warming and sea level rise that is projected to happen as soon as the twenty fifties.

Joe
22:23
At the same time, most experts agree that geoengineering is far from a perfect solution.

Joe
22:30
I've already touched on a few benefits of SAI.

Joe
22:34
But just to reiterate this, implemented successfully, the immediacy of its cooling effects could temporarily stabilize the downward spiral of climate change we find ourselves in now

Joe
22:47
by buying the world a few decades to fully transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy as we scale up carbon removal

Joe
22:57
It could potentially avert the worst climate disasters in the short term, reducing the frequency and intensity of heat waves in vulnerable, poorer regions.

Joe
23:08
slowing down the melting of the polar ice caps and the collapse of glaciers, and mitigating the sea level rise that's threatening many low lying areas, including places in the US like New Orleans, Miami.

Joe
23:22
and my hometown of New York City.

Joe
23:26
Smart Geoengineering, where we figure out how, when, and where to do it

Joe
23:32
could act as an emergency break to avoid the catastrophic climate tipping points that we've heard so much about

Joe
23:39
The reduction in heat-related infrastructure damage and human mortality brought about by geoengineering might significantly outweigh its direct costs.

Joe
23:51
But if implemented, will solar geoengineering have unintended consequences?

Joe
23:58
Yes, almost surely

Joe
24:01
For one thing, it doesn't remove CO two from the air, and therefore does nothing to stop things like ocean acidification, where the world's oceans absorb twenty five percent of the CO two humans emit.

Joe
24:15
a process that threatens marine ecosystems by lowering the pH of seawater.

Joe
24:22
In fact, SAI might add to the acidification

Joe
24:26
because all those sulfates we inject into the stratosphere will eventually come back down in the form of acid rain that alters the chemical balance of both land and water environments.

Joe
24:39
In other words, geoengineering doesn't directly address the root causes of climate change or the warming effects of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere.

Joe
24:50
and could lead to what some experts call mitigation deterrence.

Joe
24:56
That has serious implications around the concept of moral hazard

Joe
25:02
Moral hazard describes situations where the people taking on excessive risk are shielded from the resulting fallout because they know another party will bear the cost of any negative consequences

Joe
25:15
Climate experts wonder whether the prospect of a technological quick fix might lead to over reliance on it and the consequent weakening of the political will required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Joe
25:30
For example, in years past, some right-wing politicians like Newt Gingrich promoted geoengineering as a substitute for reducing emissions

Joe
25:41
Today, President Trump promotes the continued overuse of fossil fuels.

Joe
25:47
What might he do if he thought there were a magic bullet to curb climate change without ever having to move away from coal, oil, and gas?

Mark
25:56
Yeah, I certainly see that point, and I do not doubt that some politicians would make hay with any opportunity to pretend that no um long-term mitigation is required.

Mark
26:07
I just wonder what the critics are imagining to be the alternative, because there currently is no real will to reduce greenhouse emissions on the scale that they need to happen.

Mark
26:19
In my mind, the only thing that would create that will is some large scale Keat disaster and by then the situation would be so much worse.

Mark
26:28
So it feels like there's an element of the perfect at war with the good to this.

Mark
26:33
And you know, that's a damaged metaphor because there's nothing about SAI that's good, it's just less bad.

Joe
26:40
Yes

Mark
26:40
But I feel like the critics are imagining some some future scenario in which we all join hands and agree to stop driving cars.

Mark
26:49
And I do not believe that's gonna happen.

Mark
26:52
And so

Mark
26:53
them saying, well, don't do the thing that is that might help a little bit because it's not gonna solve the problem.

Mark
27:00
Yes.

Mark
27:01
Like

Mark
27:01
They the analogy that comes to my mind is a tourniquet, right?

Mark
27:05
If there's a spurting wound, you put a tourniquet on that limb and you don't say, oh no, don't use the tourniquet, that's not going to solve the problem.

Joe
27:18
Yes, I hear what you're saying.

Joe
27:20
And in fairness, we're just about to launch into the many arguments that the

Joe
27:25
critics make.

Joe
27:25
So I'd be really interested if if you still feel the same way after I get done.

Joe
27:30
But just to tee this up, I think the critics' argument is that you don't want to make things inadvertently worse.

Joe
27:38
through these heroic efforts that spectacularly fail.

Joe
27:43
And I'll tell you how they can fail right now.

Joe
27:47
Scaling geoengineering techniques to a planetary level is daunting in and of itself.

Joe
27:54
Deploying millions of tons of aerosols or setting up thousands of massive plants for direct air capture requires an unprecedented level of effective

Joe
28:05
an equitable global coordination, cooperation, and oversight.

Joe
28:11
So I want to stay with this point because I think it's really important.

Joe
28:16
At present, there's no international framework regulating who controls Earth's thermostat and how.

Joe
28:24
It's a policy-making void that cries out for international governance.

Joe
28:29
In 2023, Mexico banned solar geoengineering after a U.

Joe
28:35
S.

Joe
28:35
startup

Joe
28:37
Which and that sounds too official to call it a US startup.

Joe
28:41
It was really two dudes, and one of them had a mohawk.

Joe
28:45
They released two balloons containing sulfur dioxide and helium over Baja California, which is Mexican territory, without the consent or the knowledge of the Mexican government

Joe
28:58
In the U.

Joe
28:59
S.

Joe
29:00
, federal oversight is limited and polling suggests that most Americans view solar geoengineering research negatively

Joe
29:08
though for wildly different reasons.

Joe
29:10
Right-wingers, because they think it's a nefarious plot to poison them, a la chemtrails.

Mark
29:17
Yeah.

Mark
29:17
Or turn them gay.

Mark
29:18
Don't forget about that aspect of the control conspiracy thinking.

Joe
29:23
And left wingers because of knee-jerk NIMBYism.

Joe
29:26
See in another one of my pet peeves, as we discussed on an earlier episode of this podcast.

Joe
29:33
As a result, several states have preemptively enacted bans on solar geoengineering.

Joe
29:39
At the global level, it takes only one nation or one rogue billionaire unilaterally deploying these technologies to spark a geopolitical conflict

Joe
29:50
if another country experiences a drought or crop failure that they blame on that action.

Joe
29:56
We saw what happened when Elon Musk cut off Ukraine's access to Starlink satellites

Joe
30:02
to conduct offensive operations against Russia in Crimea.

Joe
30:07
If you think it's unlikely that a private actor would experiment with geoengineering, consider this piece of trivia from Columbia's Climate School.

Joe
30:17
And I quote, Today in the US, anyone who wants to shoot aerosols into the sky simply needs to fill out a one page form for the Commerce Department and NOAA ten days beforehand.

Mark
30:32
Yeah, and our Crack federal government will be sure to review that that document very carefully.

Joe
30:37
Yes.

Mark
30:38
Yes, absolutely.

Mark
30:39
If a company is raising shareholder funds to uh develop

Mark
30:44
SI technologies, there's going to be a a great deal of pressure for them to at least test that, if not actually deploy it, because if they don't, then that investment is worthless.

Mark
30:54
But I also it occurs to me that at the national level, it doesn't take a rogue state necessarily to go ahead and do something like this.

Mark
31:02
It just it takes a country that feels like it's suffering

Mark
31:07
from climate change.

Mark
31:08
Yes.

Mark
31:09
And that doesn't need to be the US or China or Russia.

Mark
31:11
It could be India, for instance, where if monsoons just go crazy.

Mark
31:15
Yes.

Mark
31:16
And in that case, it's hard to imagine any sort of international apparatus that's gonna be able to stop them

Mark
31:23
if they feel that their people are dying or their crops are failing.

Mark
31:26
And they're just gonna do it.

Joe
31:27
Yes, I agree with you.

Joe
31:29
And that's why I think that point I just made about the lack of international oversight and some coordinating mechanism

Joe
31:37
is really important here and really something we need to worry about uh uh vis-a-vis solar geoengineering.

Mark
31:45
Well, if you think right wingers hate chemtrails, they hate if one world government talk even more.

Mark
31:51
So any sort of

Mark
31:53
Yes, uh you know we have a government that is convened in Brussels and is going to tell you whether or not you can seed your clouts.

Mark
32:00
That uh that would stir up the voter base in a like a bee's nest.

Joe
32:05
Absolutely right.

Joe
32:06
So many critics of geoengineering are just cautious scientists who think proponents are essentially playing God with little regard for the consequences.

Joe
32:17
They view these proposals as a giant distraction from the challenge of reducing global emissions.

Joe
32:23
Reckless, half-baked ideas that are bound to backfire spectacularly

Joe
32:28
As I said a minute ago.

Joe
32:30
Now I'm going to put some meat on those bones.

Joe
32:32
They argue that tinkering with Earth's complex climate systems

Joe
32:37
could trigger unexpectedly severe or even irreversible ecological consequences in addition to the huge geopolitical risks that we outlined a minute ago

Joe
32:49
To give some examples, injecting sulfur into the stratosphere could have potentially dangerous side effects like further depleting the ozone layer, which increases UV radiation exposure

Joe
33:02
or affecting photosynthesis and diminishing sunlight, which could lead to lower crop yields.

Joe
33:09
One of the startups I referred to earlier, a company called Stardust,

Joe
33:14
claims to have invented a unique particle that can be used for SAI without triggering ozone depletion and acid rain.

Joe
33:23
I'm sure we'll hear more about that soon because that would be a game changer

Joe
33:27
Artificially reflecting sunlight doesn't perfectly simulate a cooler atmosphere.

Joe
33:33
It risks disrupting weather patterns and regional monsoon cycles

Joe
33:39
Potentially causing severe droughts and famines in places like sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia, which threatens food and water security for billions of people.

Joe
33:50
There's your Indian example that you just gave.

Joe
33:55
Some geoengineering proponents liken these fears about side effects to harping on the negative effects of chemotherapy

Joe
34:03
without acknowledging that it's used to treat cancer.

Joe
34:06
And that's my version of your analogy about the tourniquet.

Joe
34:11
They point instead to a 2024 study that included a cost-benefit analysis indicating that the reduction in mortality from using SAI to cool the planet

Joe
34:22
would be at least 10 times larger than the increase in mortality from known side effects of SAI like air pollution and ozone loss.

Joe
34:33
The long implementation timeline for solo geoengineering raises intergenerational equity concerns, which you also mentioned a few minutes ago, in that it commits

Joe
34:45
future generations to a path that they didn't choose.

Joe
34:49
And there's also a phenomenon that I read in every article uh about this that I study for this episode.

Joe
34:57
It's called termination shock.

Joe
35:00
And it describes a situation where if a geoengineering technique were to be deployed and then halted abruptly due to, say, a mechanical failure or a war or political instability

Joe
35:14
All plausible scenarios.

Joe
35:16
The suppressed warming would likely rebound rapidly, resulting in a spike in global temperatures of perhaps several degrees in just a decade.

Joe
35:26
a rate of warming that ecosystems and human societies might not be able to survive.

Joe
35:32
Of course if we do nothing to mitigate climate change, we're headed to termination shock levels of warming anyway.

Joe
35:40
But even without a termination shock, one country's unilateral deployment of geoengineering in an unbalanced way could trigger international tensions or even war

Joe
35:52
since the optimal climate for one country or region might lead to drought conditions for another.

Joe
35:59
Because of risks like these

Joe
36:01
Certain United Nations committees and major scientific bodies see geoengineering as nothing more than an emergency fallback rather than a replacement for global action on carbon reduction.

Mark
36:15
And but again, going back to my earlier comment, I just no don't know how we would stop.

Joe
36:20
Yeah.

Mark
36:21
I don't know if you mentioned it or if I read it, but uh China's been working on

Mark
36:24
No, you mentioned it.

Mark
36:25
That China's been working on cloud seeding for at least a decade.

Joe
36:28
Yeah.

Mark
36:29
So who's going to tell China to stop?

Joe
36:31
Right.

Mark
36:32
If if India feels like

Mark
36:35
or Indonesia, say, feels like you know sea level rise is an existential threat.

Mark
36:40
Who's gonna go in and stop them

Mark
36:43
from SAI within the region.

Mark
36:45
Yes.

Mark
36:45
And so I just I cannot imagine the feasibility.

Mark
36:49
Like are paratroopers going to like be dropped over some some third world country?

Mark
36:56
cruise missiles are gonna be sent in to eliminate some facility.

Mark
37:00
Like what is the the scenario in which we stop a country that feels desperate from acting on that desperation

Joe
37:07
Yeah, but even though you're speaking kind of toward the inevitability of geoengineering and kind of in a supportive way, the examples you're giving show the potential

Joe
37:18
consequences of half-cocked geoengineering being done by countries without coordination.

Joe
37:25
So it truly is a daunting problem.

Joe
37:28
But I w I want to say something about a word I used uh a minute ago.

Joe
37:32
I just used the word unbalanced to describe an adverse use of geoengineering.

Joe
37:38
And I want to say more about what I mean by that, because this is another important point.

Joe
37:44
Any successful use of SAI would need to be geographically balanced.

Joe
37:50
If you inject particles into the atmosphere unevenly, like only in one hemisphere, or only over the poles.

Joe
37:58
You get lopsided climate implications like potentially drying out major farming regions, throwing off seasonal rains like the monsoons, or shifting global wind patterns

Joe
38:11
any or all of which might create severe drought in some places while causing freezing or flooding in others.

Joe
38:19
You might also get a thermometer problem

Joe
38:22
in which geoengineering efforts stabilize global average temperatures, but the average masks extreme regional differences, where you're overcooling one region while overheating another

Joe
38:36
If SAI ever happens, it'll likely involve injecting particles near the equator to allow wind currents to spread them evenly toward the polar regions.

Joe
38:48
It might also mean injecting at multiple symmetrical latitudes, like plus and minus 15 degrees from the equator, to maintain the natural temperature difference between the equator and the poles.

Joe
39:02
Scientists are still debating how to do this perfectly, but one thing's for sure, it'll require intense global cooperation.

Joe
39:11
Without it, one country's or region's panacea could easily become another's disaster.

Joe
39:18
At present, the climate science community seems to be split into two large factions.

Joe
39:25
One group of scientists in countries has called for a moratorium on solar geoengineering testing and deployment until its risks are better understood

Joe
39:36
Other academics and climate organizations argue that greater testing is necessary to understand the full range of risks.

Joe
39:45
One point everyone seems to agree on is that solar geoengineering is not considered a substitute for climate mitigation efforts

Joe
39:55
Most experts don't support its immediate use, but many do support accelerated R<unk>D that helps us to understand its precise mechanisms and risks.

Joe
40:07
so that if the world someday reaches that break glass apocalyptic moment of climate emergency, we have the data necessary to make an informed decision, rather than acting out of desperation.

Joe
40:21
I read one 2024 research paper that identified the problem with RD efforts to date

Joe
40:28
Quote, research has progressed despite limited funding, but has lacked the scale, coordination, or linkage needed to realistically probe SRM's promise or risks.

Joe
40:41
End quote

Joe
40:42
That same paper underscored a different danger, while the research, quote, shows the possibility that SRM, if appropriately deployed, can reduce near-term climate risks

Joe
40:55
and bring large, widely distributed net benefits for people and the environment.

Joe
41:00
The possibility of such benefits provides no guarantee they will be realized.

Joe
41:06
since decisions will be made not by a global welfare maximizer, but by real political actors.

Joe
41:14
End quote

Joe
41:15
For the technology to benefit everyone, those political actors will need to act in concert for the greater good, and that might be the scariest proposition of all

Joe
41:27
Which, you know, is what you've been saying the last couple comments you've made.

Mark
41:32
I one hundred percent agree that

Mark
41:34
something like this should not be implemented unless it's implemented with a holistic viewpoint where you're thinking about the impact not just locally but also globally.

Mark
41:44
Right.

Mark
41:45
And keeping a sharp eye out for unintended consequences.

Mark
41:49
And I do not see any sort of apparatus that has the the power to do that.

Joe
41:54
Yeah.

Mark
41:55
I'm not opposed to a one world government.

Mark
41:57
It kinda sounds like a good idea to me.

Joe
41:59
Yeah.

Mark
41:59
But uh that is just anathema

Mark
42:02
to some people within this country and probably in other parts of the world as well.

Joe
42:06
Yes.

Mark
42:07
And so yeah, it's hard for me to imagine that.

Joe
42:10
I don't see that apparatus either, but I was just

Joe
42:13
thinking to myself while you were saying that, you know, in nineteen sixty, who would have seen an apparatus that would take astronauts to the moon, you know

Joe
42:22
Like humans are capable of amazing things when they put their minds to it.

Joe
42:26
So that's why we're even talking about this subject

Mark
42:30
But circling back on the uh the moratorium on testing, A I cannot imagine how anyone would determine what the risks are if they're not allowed to perform any tests.

Mark
42:40
Like you would need incredible modeling and I just don't believe that's

Mark
42:45
computer modeling is that accurate, particularly when you're talking about something as complex, as I mentioned before, as complex as the global climate

Joe
42:52
Right.

Mark
42:53
And then the second the the effect of a moratorium on testing research just means that if someone does just

Mark
43:01
p haul off and do it, then you're guaranteeing that they do it without any research behind it, without that insight

Mark
43:09
without understanding of the possible side effects.

Mark
43:12
So in a way, it hopes that no one will do something, but if someone does do something, it guarantees that it's it's more likely to be extremely damaging on a global scale

Joe
43:22
Yeah, I agree completely.

Joe
43:25
And while I'm open in theory to the idea of a moratorium on deployment until risks are better understood.

Joe
43:33
It just seems crazily self-defeating to put a moratorium on testing, right?

Mark
43:40
Yeah.

Mark
43:41
Yeah.

Mark
43:43
Not less.

Joe
43:44
Yes.

Mark
43:45
And I suppose the thinking is if you test, it's like loading a gun.

Mark
43:49
If if you test something, eventually you're gonna use it.

Mark
43:51
Yes.

Mark
43:52
And so they don't want us going down the road of testing because that makes it easier to deploy.

Mark
43:56
But I just think it's kind of short-sighted in a way because ultimately the the outcome is likely to be bad for everybody.

Joe
44:02
Yes.

Joe
44:03
I think it's two things.

Joe
44:04
The the point you just made.

Joe
44:06
If you're g if you're testing a gun, you're going to use it someday

Joe
44:09
But also in the testing of that gun, how many people are gonna get shot accidentally, right?

Joe
44:16
True.

Mark
44:16
Yeah, you you're kinda testing the gun by firing it into a crowd.

Joe
44:19
That's right.

Joe
44:20
Yeah.

Joe
44:21
Cause as you said, computer modeling can only do so much.

Joe
44:24
If you want SAI to work, you're gonna have to shoot it into the air and see what happens.

Joe
44:29
And what's that gonna do to

Joe
44:32
the countries who are underneath that, you know.

Joe
44:36
Last year you asked me about whether we should reconsider nuclear energy to address climate change.

Joe
44:43
And that's episode one eleven for anyone who's interested.

Joe
44:47
I think that discussion was analogous to this question.

Joe
44:51
And upon reflection, my conclusion is pretty much the same.

Joe
44:56
It seems obvious to me that in a warming world where so many nations are dragging their feet and every bit of remediation is desperately needed.

Joe
45:07
Exploring innovative solutions like next-gen nuclear energy and geoengineering gives us a potential additional tool in our climate action toolkit.

Joe
45:19
If you think about it, climate change itself is a form of unintentional geoengineering.

Joe
45:27
While the risks of deploying intentional geoengineering anytime soon outweigh its benefits, the risk to humanity of completely ignoring the technology

Joe
45:38
May become too high at some point in the future.

Joe
45:42
Writing in the Atlantic, Alexander C.

Joe
45:45
Kaufman made another relevant analogy, and I'm quoting Kaufman here

Joe
45:51
Back in the early 2000s, many climate activists vocally opposed funding adaptation infrastructure

Joe
46:00
Seawalls, raised streets, and other measures meant to mitigate the impacts of a changing climate

Joe
46:07
They argued that these undertakings would prove ineffective and worse would remove the will to decrease emissions.

Joe
46:16
More than two decades later, emissions are still rising, and the cost of adapting to climate change has increased by the billions each year.

Joe
46:26
Now, virtually no serious people involved in climate policy still oppose adaptation funding.

Joe
46:34
End quote

Joe
46:35
we may soon have the same experience with geoengineering.

Mark
46:39
Yeah.

Mark
46:39
My son says and I've been hitting it all along is that geoengineering isn't ever anything that we need to like.

Mark
46:46
But we might need to make our peace with it.

Mark
46:49
Yeah.

Mark
46:49
Because within as within the analogy you use, the toolkit that we can use to address climate change.

Mark
46:57
It's not going to be just one thing.

Mark
46:59
It's not going to be the the climomatic that we switch on and that solves everything.

Mark
47:04
It's going to be an array of solutions and probably geoengineering has

Mark
47:09
some place within that, at least within you know the first few decades.

Joe
47:14
Yeah.

Joe
47:15
So I'm with you on that.

Joe
47:16
And let me just put my conclusions out there and then we can discuss it.

Joe
47:22
As I've said, the best case scenario is for the world to come together to reduce emissions without needing to resort to geoengineering.

Joe
47:32
But that's hard to imagine right now while the US is run by a guy who campaigns successfully on drill baby drill

Joe
47:40
And that's why my best guess is that geoengineering will be employed, possibly as a last resort.

Joe
47:48
Only when the world's half-hearted efforts to stave off climate calamity prove insufficient.

Joe
47:56
Contra Newt Gingrich

Joe
47:58
The latest UN report on climate change emphasizes how solar geoengineering is not a substitute for emissions reductions

Joe
48:07
Quote, there is a high agreement in the literature that for addressing climate change risks, SRM cannot be the main policy response to climate change.

Joe
48:18
and is at best a supplement to achieving sustained net zero or net negative CO2 emission levels globally.

Joe
48:26
End quote.

Joe
48:27
Whichever geoengineering methods prove to be the safest and most effective will likely be implemented in addition to, rather than instead of, decreasing carbon emissions.

Joe
48:41
In short, geoengineering might help us delay, but can't and won't eliminate the need for all of us to do the slow, hard work of bringing net emissions down to zero.

Joe
48:56
So, to your final question of whether it would do more harm than good, my response is, compare to what?

Joe
49:04
In a world that's united in its determination to address climate change, a world that does not currently exist,

Joe
49:14
Implementing geoengineering as a shortcut might do more harm than good.

Joe
49:20
But in the world we live in today, where nations are not meeting their commitments to cut emissions

Joe
49:27
We will probably have to roll the dice with geoengineering someday and then see what happens.

Mark
49:34
Yeah, I fundamentally agree with you on that.

Mark
49:37
I think like I said before, I don't think it's something that we have to like.

Mark
49:41
It's definitely something we should be concerned about.

Mark
49:44
But I don't see any likely future scenario in which it doesn't play at least a part

Mark
49:51
in mitigation scenarios.

Mark
49:53
Yes.

Mark
49:53
Because because if we don't do that, people are gonna die sooner rather than later.

Joe
49:58
Yes.

Mark
49:58
And then decisions will be made from emotion instead of from calculation.

Joe
50:03
Yes.

Mark
50:04
And uh the outcome of that is likely to be bad.

Joe
50:06
Yeah, and as we said in the nuclear energy episode, you know, the answer here is not an either-or proposition.

Joe
50:15
It's a both and proposition.

Joe
50:18
We need everything.

Joe
50:19
We need these geniuses and entrepreneurs to come to us and and and governments funding

Joe
50:26
basic RD need to come at us f from all angles with every possible solution and and that's the way we're going to find our way out of this catastrophe.

Joe
50:38
So I think we came to ultimately the same conclusions, right?

Joe
50:43
I mean you were stating my conclusions like 20 minutes before I got to them, but yeah, we're we're on the same page on this one.

Mark
50:51
Yeah, yeah, this fruit to me seems like something that we hold our nose and we do it because the outcome of not doing it is likely to be worse.

Joe
50:59
Yeah.

Mark
50:59
It's not something that I'm like, oh good, that that solves everything.

Mark
51:03
It solves nothing

Mark
51:04
But it lengthens the runway for the the longer term solution.

Joe
51:08
Right.

Mark
51:09
And sorry to future generations who have to keep it going

Joe
51:12
Yeah, well, just because they have to keep it going and it wasn't their decision doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do.

Joe
51:18
Like, future generations are gonna have to keep the United States going too.

Joe
51:22
But the United States is a pretty damn good idea for

Joe
51:25
for a way to organize politics, you know, so some things are worth preserving.

Joe
51:31
Okay, I've got a question for you for next time.

Mark
51:34
Okay, I'm ready for it.

Joe
51:36
My question is about standardized testing.

Joe
51:39
You know the ACT, the SAT, the state exams we took as kids, and the kids are still taking today

Joe
51:47
This question is prompted by a recent New York Times article in which it was reported that New York City's most selective public high school

Joe
51:57
with 777 seats in its incoming class, offered places to only 21 Hispanic students, and three, three,

Joe
52:09
black students, based on the results of its own entrance exam, the specialized high school admissions test.

Joe
52:17
This, even though 62% of the city's public school population is black or Hispanic

Joe
52:24
So my understanding is that standardized tests were designed as an objective way to spot a student's talent and potential regardless of her background

Joe
52:35
We like to talk about education as a pure meritocracy where hard work equals success, with standardized testing as the ultimate proof of that

Joe
52:45
But when we look closely at the data, we see something very different.

Joe
52:51
So I'd like you, Mark, to give us a little history of standardized testing in the U.

Joe
52:57
S.

Joe
52:58
And then answer this question.

Joe
53:01
If it's truly supposed to measure talent and potential, then why is her family's zip code and her parents' income level

Joe
53:11
The single biggest predictor of a high score.

Mark
53:14
Okay, yeah.

Mark
53:15
And kind of inadvertently this question hits

Mark
53:18
close to home because I have always been uncomfortably aware of the fact that my success in life is closely linked to how good I was at tests.

Mark
53:27
Like I was the king of standardized tests and that served me so very, very well

Mark
53:32
Yes.

Mark
53:32
But yeah, um very, very interesting question, and I look forward to uh digging into it.

Mark
53:37
So I will go off for two or three weeks to look into standardized tests and come back with an answer to Joe's question.

Mark
53:43
While I'm out, our listeners can enjoy the warm weather and maybe reflect on what is making it so warm the summer.

Mark
53:52
And uh what perhaps we will need to inject into the atmosphere to make it a little bit less warm when it starts to become dangerous.

Mark
53:59
And uh then we can all have some son, uh slightly better tens when we reconvene.

Mark
54:06
But until then, that was Joe and this is Mark.

Mark
54:09
And we'll talk to you soon.

Joe
54:11
Stay tuned for the Toe Tapping Mansplaining House Band entry on this subject, and talk to you soon.