#57 - Could Geoengineering Delay Climate Change? With Daniele Visioni

What if one idea could shift the world’s climate future? In this eye-opening episode, Marcus sits down with Dr. Daniele Visioni to uncover the surprising science shaping the planet’s temperature and the cutting-edge climate tools most people have never heard of. Clear, bold, and packed with powerful insight, this conversation opens the door to possibilities that could change how we think about risk, responsibility, and the future we’re building.

Dr. Daniele Visioni is an Assistant Professor at Cornell University and a leading climate scientist specializing in climate intervention research. With a PhD in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics from Italy, he has collaborated with more than 300 scientists and contributed to over 100 peer-reviewed papers. He also serves as Head of Data at Reflective, a nonprofit accelerating global research on climate solutions.

Connect with Daniele Visioni:
📞 Phone: +1 607-280-0525
🌐 Website: https://cals.cornell.edu/people/daniele-visioni
📸 IG: https://www.instagram.com/danvisioni/

Episode highlights:
(2:29) CO₂ as planetary debt
(5:04) What solar reflection can do
(9:14) Who caused the climate debt
(14:20) Volcanoes as natural experiments
(18:48) How stratospheric injection works
(21:30) AI tools in climate modeling
(22:08) Great Barrier Reef protection
(27:46) Risk, caution, and trust
(30:45) The fast Vs. Slow debate
(37:53) Why people struggle with global thinking
(41:00) Working with scientists worldwide
(52:52) Outro

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Chapters

• 2:29 CO₂ as planetary debt
• 5:04 What solar reflection can do
• 9:14 Who caused the climate debt
• 14:20 Volcanoes as natural experiments
• 18:48 How stratospheric injection works
• 21:30 AI tools in climate modeling
• 22:08 Great Barrier Reef protection
• 27:46 Risk, caution, and trust
• 30:45 The fast Vs. Slow debate
• 37:53 Why people struggle with global thinking
• 41:00 Working with scientists worldwide
• 52:52 Outro

Transcript

Note: The transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.

Daniele Visioni

(0:00) So we sort of have a natural experiment for what happens when you put aerosols in the stratosphere, which means they cool the planet, they eventually go away in a couple of years, so you can't rely on just doing it once, but they work. (0:17) They cool the planet because they affect the energy balance just like CO2 does, just the other way around.

Marcus Arredondo

(0:22) Today's guest is Dr. Daniela Vizzione, a climate physicist, assistant professor at Cornell University's Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science and a Cornell Atkinson Faculty Fellow whose research looks at how tiny particles in the atmosphere shape the planet's temperature. (0:36) Among his more pronounced skills is in the clear explanations of climate change through everyday language, including his analogy of carbon emissions as planetary debt. (0:44) We talk about the fear of acting under uncertainty, why innovation needs guardrails, and how local projects like the Great Barrier Reef restoration can guide global solutions.(0:52) His perspective goes beyond models and data. (0:55) It's about ethics, shared responsibility, and what cooperation on a global scale look like when risks are felt unevenly across the world. (1:03) Let's start the show.(1:04) Professor Daniela, very nice to have you on. (1:06) Thank you for coming. (1:08) Thank you, Marcus.(1:08) Pleasure to be here. (1:09) So there's a lot of areas that I want to talk about, stratospheric aerosol injection, volcanic forcing. (1:15) I want to talk about your Great Barrier Reef restoration involvement.(1:19) I want to talk about all that, but maybe I sort of wanted to understand a little bit more about carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation modification. (1:27) So I'm hoping that you maybe can give us that as a backdrop for starting to investigate and better understand the more niche-specific area of your climate research.

Daniele Visioni

(1:38) Yeah, sure. (1:39) Okay. (1:39) So I would start, I mean, our observation number one, I would say, we can all see temperatures are going up.(1:46) That is one thing we can observe. (1:48) We expected that to happen due to increasing CO2 concentration. (1:52) From a physical point of view, the reason why temperatures are going up is because the earth is what we call is in an energy imbalance, as in there's more energy going in than energy going out.(2:03) And that is also something we can measure. (2:04) We have satellites that can measure how many photons are coming out of the planet, how many photons are going in, so we can see these energy imbalance. (2:11) And that's what leads to a temperature imbalance.(2:15) The moment we stop putting more CO2, the moment CO2 concentrations stop growing, it's the moment in which the temperature imbalance will slowly catch up and the planet will re-equilibrate itself due to these increasing temperatures. (2:29) So over a long timescale, the only thing that we can do is to stop increasing CO2 concentrations to make sure we also eventually stop warming the planet. (2:40) But that's going to take time.(2:41) It's taking time. (2:42) It's not going anywhere. (2:43) Actually, I would say in the sense that emissions are going up year by year.(2:48) So at that point, one can say, what can you do? (2:51) Well, one thing you can do is adapt to that, one way or another, as much as you can. (2:55) But how much we can adapt to this new world, that's a big question.(2:59) So the second thing you can do, of course, the second thing you can do is reduce concentrations through emissions. (3:06) But then what you can do is try to capture some of that excess CO2 out of the air. (3:11) So the sooner, the faster, the more you do that, the easier it's going to be for the planet to catch up and the easier it's going to be for the planet to re-equilibrate.(3:19) So if we had ways to capture the CO2 or other greenhouse gases right out of the air, that would help us restore the planetary balance. (3:29) Problem is that we don't have any ways to do that at scale right now. (3:35) Whether we're assuming really technological ways, direct air capture, so really capturing air and removing CO2, that takes a lot of energy.(3:45) Right now, energy is expensive and we need energy for other stuff. (3:48) So they're really unclear where that could work, except a few places where geothermal energy is very abundant, like Iceland. (3:56) You could think about enhancing the land carbon sink.(4:00) So for instance, in layman terms, growing more trees, but trees take time and trees also burn down when there's a fire. (4:09) So that kind of carbon storage is not really that permanent. (4:13) And the other thing you could do is do something like increase the ocean capacity to capture carbon.(4:21) And that is something that people are looking into, but how much that is feasible to do, how much you can reduce the ocean acidity to make sure that you can capture more carbon from the air, that is also one big question. (4:36) How feasible is that? (4:38) And at that point, if emissions are going up, temperatures are going up, and you don't have a way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, you can ask yourself, okay, what do we do in the meantime?(4:48) Especially if as temperatures go up, risks go up, right? (4:52) And extreme weather goes up, but in general, all kinds of exposures go up. (4:59) Well, at that point, you can say, can we intervene somewhere else in this energy balance?(5:04) And that's where SRM, solar radiation modification, sunlight reflection methods come in. (5:09) The idea that the other part of the energy balance that we can affect is the amount of incoming energy. (5:15) So the energy that we get from the sun.(5:18) And if we were able to reflect a tiny fraction more of this incoming solar radiation, we could restore the planetary balance some other way. (5:26) Now, that is not a solution. (5:28) That is not a solution for the long run, because the more CO2 you have, the more you're going to need to reflect, the more you're going to need to cool.(5:36) So the better thing is still to reduce CO2. (5:40) But in the meantime, this could be a way to avoid some of the major risks from climate change.

Marcus Arredondo

(5:45) So there's two things that I'm sort of going back to. (5:48) One is a comparison to the body, which is, you know, if you're getting overweight, there's two things you can do, either eat less or work out more. (5:56) And they tend to go hand in hand.(5:57) And I'm looking at the Earth the way you're describing it in terms of CO2 production. (6:03) It's either we find a way for CO2 to get removed, or we reduce the CO2 we're actually consuming. (6:09) I'm going to table that for one second.(6:11) I'm also going to talk about a reference, something that you had in some of the research that I was doing, you referenced the scheduling, how long we have to figure this out. (6:23) And the idea that we can solve it more sustainably is different than solving it immediately. (6:30) And, you know, within the world of real estate, I always go back to there's this project management triangle, it's, there's three things, it's schedule, budget and quality that tend to work hand in hand.(6:41) But you can tend to have two, not all three together, meaning in this case, you can have high quality CO2 reduction, but it might come at a high cost and a long time frame. (6:52) I'm using this as a hypothetical, something that you can critique. (6:56) And so between those two things, you know, there's the micro, then the semi micro, then sort of the semi macro, and then the full macro being what's happening in your village, what's happening in your region, what's happening in your state, what's happening in your country, now what's happening in the world.(7:13) So I'm sort of going in a few different directions. (7:15) But I wanted to get your take on, I don't think that this is something that should be political. (7:19) There's a number of other issues talking about you're in the US now.(7:23) Our healthcare system should not be a political conversation. (7:27) I'm not opposed to getting political as it relates to this. (7:31) But let's for the time being just assume that most listeners, most audience members are taking for granted that climate change is here.(7:42) It is dissimilar to prior climate changes in historic contexts, that it is a more severe imposition on our future well being and our likelihood of survival. (7:53) So let's just take that off the table. (7:55) How do we start to navigate solutions more sustainably between countries and regions?(8:04) And I'm sort of thinking like, you know, if I'm not mistaken, the largest producers of CO2 would be the biggest population countries, right? (8:13) I mean, China and India are the ones that sort of surface to mind, but they're by no means the only perpetrators of this, right? (8:21) So where do you help us understand bridging the gap between the academia and what we can do, you know, within the political system, but as a plebeian, as a layman, supporting our local infrastructure to start implementing this?(8:40) Sure, we can start to drive electric vehicles, but how much is that going to really do? (8:43) We can eat less meat. (8:45) How much is that going to really do?(8:46) Is it recycling more? (8:48) I'm throwing a lot at you, but I just wanted to give you a little tapestry that you might be able to pick from. (8:54) And we can start to dive in more idiosyncratically as it relates to the work that you've done.

Daniele Visioni

(9:00) Yeah, okay. (9:00) Yeah, that's a lot. (9:01) But let's see where I could start.(9:04) So I would say, starting from one of the few last things you said, right, I would say, you know, in a way, climate change is a bit like debt. (9:14) We've incurred a debt with the planet. (9:17) Understanding who incurred that debt is important.(9:20) It doesn't solve anything, but it is important, right? (9:22) And you can say, well, who did that? (9:24) And the fact is that once we put the CO2 up in the atmosphere, it stays there fundamentally, most of it forever.(9:30) So it doesn't matter only who spent more today. (9:34) It also matters who incurred that debt 100 or 50 years ago. (9:40) So what matters is to look at cumulative emissions.(9:43) So how much not countries are emitting today, but how much they emitted in the past too. (9:48) And so if we do that, the main, in a way, groups that incurred the debt are Western countries, the US first, and then Europe. (9:57) Right now, per capita, and in many cases per country, the emissions of the US and Europe are lower than the ones of countries that, sorry, not per capita, but in general, the emissions of most of Europe are lower than China, Russia, India, sorry, not Russia, but China or India.(10:17) But per capita, so for how much each single person is emitting, the values for Canada, the US, Europe are still higher than everything else. (10:27) The fact though, is that, and the point of most climate policy or most in general, international policy has been also acknowledging the fact that, well, the reason why we've emitted more, and the reason why we are where we are is partly because we've grown as a society and as a civilization, and we emit more because we also have more wellbeing. (10:47) And we definitely have more in Europe or in the US than people on average do in China or India, or in Africa for that matter, or anybody else, or any other developing country.(11:00) And so those countries want to get to the same level of wellbeing that people have in the Western world, and that's going to lead to more emissions, unless we break the loop between emissions and wellbeing. (11:13) How do you do that? (11:14) Well, you use energy that doesn't come from fossil fuels, and that is also cheap at that.(11:21) That was always the point of renewable energy, not just a way to reduce CO2 emissions, but also as a way to have energy that is cheap and available as much of the time as possible. (11:32) So on the first part of identifying the problem in a way is also, yes, finding out that kind of solution, the fact that we can build a society in which everybody has more, but also one that doesn't keep incurring debt with respect to the planet. (11:51) But it's still important to also know, well, if you are in a country that has never emitted that much, so you're not part of the problem, you're not the person or the group who caused the debt, but still you are one of the countries getting hurt more by climate change.(12:07) You're a country that's seeing more hurricanes like the one that is happening right now, or a country that is seeing more droughts. (12:15) What do you do, right? (12:16) Somebody still, in a way, has quote unquote to pay for this debt.(12:21) And so acknowledging who was the main culprit is also useful for that to understanding, okay, but if I am a country that is poor and is getting whacked by climate change, and I also then have the capacity to adopt, why should it fall only to me to develop and do it in a sustainable way? (12:37) Maybe other countries that have developed before me and incurred most of this debt, they have to be the ones helping me out. (12:45) Okay, so this is sort of on the last part that you mentioned, but ultimately we all live in the same planet, so whoever emits CO2, the planet doesn't care.(12:54) What matters is only the amount at the end.

Marcus Arredondo

(12:57) That's sort of where I was going with this, because even if say India turns around and reverses course and somehow manages to halt their CO2 production by 80%, something unfathomable, that is going to do a lot, but not enough, right? (13:17) I mean, as it relates to the entire global community. (13:20) And so I'm sort of, you know, maybe this is a good time to talk about stratospheric aerosol injection and volcanic forcing.(13:28) So in the research I was looking at, you alluded to this in one of your TED Talks, but Mount Pinatibo in 1991, is that the correct pronunciation? (13:39) I think it was in, yeah. (13:41) There was four that were sort of noted that in my research, El Chichon, Tambora, and Krakatozoa.(13:48) That goes back to 1883, 1815, 1982, 1991, where there were measurable differences in that region for, let's just use Mount Pinatibo, and I could be incorrect, but for half a degree Celsius for one to two years, which is about a degree Fahrenheit, give or take. (14:07) And that's pretty staggering to think of for that region, but how does that apply on the global scale? (14:14) What is that really, is that a drop in the bucket or is that meaningful overall?

Daniele Visioni

(14:20) You mean in terms of the coolings? (14:22) Yes. (14:23) So that cool, so roughly the planet after Mount Pinatibo erupted, the planet cooled around 0.3 to 0.4 Celsius globally.

Marcus Arredondo

(14:34) Oh, okay. (14:34) So that was global. (14:35) So it was a more universal- Yes, it was global.

Daniele Visioni

(14:37) It was global. (14:37) It was global. (14:38) Yes.(14:38) Over the next two years of the eruption. (14:41) Yes. (14:41) That's how long the cloud stayed.(14:43) So it's actually a third of all the climate change that we experienced in the last hundred years. (14:48) Roughly now we're at 1.2, 1.3 Celsius of warming. (14:52) So that would be a third to a fourth of all of warming that we experienced happening because of a volcanic eruption, which are just very sporadical.

Marcus Arredondo

(15:01) So we can't- So how are you using that? (15:03) I mean, because that's really the volcanic eruptions are what started the stratospheric aerosol injection idea, that concept, right? (15:11) Yeah.

Daniele Visioni

(15:12) The concept is, so right after Pinatibo happened, there was actually a very famous paper from, well, somebody who's not pretty famous himself, Jim Hansen from NASA, who at the point in 1993 wrote a paper and said, our climate models, we didn't build them to assume the existence of volcanic eruptions. (15:33) And yet if we are able to predict how much cooling there will be after Pinatibo, that means that that's sort of an acid test. (15:40) It means that our models work pretty well, that the physics underlying these climate models work.(15:46) And indeed, those were the first climate model simulations of volcanic eruptions. (15:50) And they said that the planet was going to cool by a specific amount. (15:53) And that's the amount that indeed we observed in the real world.(15:57) So we sort of have a natural experiment for what happens when you put aerosols in the stratosphere, which means they cool the planet. (16:06) They eventually go away in a couple of years. (16:08) So you can't rely on just doing it once, but they work.(16:13) They cool the planet because they affect the energy balance, just like CO2 does just the other way around. (16:19) And so there were multiple people that started discussing whether this was something that could be replicated by humans to reduce temperatures in a more stable way. (16:30) Of course, it would mean having to do it not just once, but continuously.(16:34) But the point that many people made over the years, all the way down to a famous paper from who was the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discovery of the ozone hole. (16:46) And he said, considering how slow we're going towards mitigation, maybe this is worth looking into as a way to bridge the gap. (16:55) Tell us how that works.(16:58) How it would work? (17:00) Fundamentally, so volcanic eruptions, they throw a lot of stuff in the atmosphere all the time. (17:06) But only a few of them are what we call explosive volcanic eruption.(17:11) And so they release a lot of material not in the troposphere. (17:14) The troposphere is a relief, and that's where there's clouds. (17:17) And so if you throw aerosols in the troposphere, they come down with the rain pretty fast.(17:23) That's fundamentally the problem with pollution and with acid rain, right? (17:26) That we put aerosols all the time in the atmosphere, but they don't have enough time to cool the planet because they are washed out by rain and by clouds. (17:36) Once these volcanic eruptions explode and they throw stuff all the way up to the stratosphere, the stratosphere is 15 to 20 kilometers above our head.(17:44) There are no clouds. (17:45) There's almost nothing there. (17:47) There's no turbulence.(17:48) And so if you put stuff up there, it stays there and only very slowly moves poleward due to the circulation and then falls down. (17:58) So in an explosive volcanic eruption, you get the same material that you would get normally from an eruption, but it doesn't affect the climate as much. (18:07) But in this case, these aerosols, these particles that are released by the eruption, they stay in the air for a year or two.(18:15) And as they stay in the air, they are exactly of the size, the perfect size to reflect incoming solar radiation because they're the same size of a wavelength of visible light. (18:24) So around alpha micron in size. (18:27) And so they're perfectly well suited to reflect solar radiation and they affect the energy balance.(18:33) They cool the planet. (18:35) And the idea behind stratospheric aerosol injection would be, okay, could we replicate what volcanoes do and just do it artificially to make sure that we counterbalance the increased absorption from the CO2?

Marcus Arredondo

(18:48) So that's like if there's two processes, one is applying the brakes, the other is going in reverse. (18:54) That's sort of applying the brakes. (18:56) Going in reverse would be the removal of the CO2.(18:58) Yes, indeed. (18:59) Yes. (19:00) Yes.(19:01) So what have you encountered in terms of experimenting with this? (19:06) I would imagine that there's some fear about what this does to our atmosphere in general. (19:12) Is it a sustainable thing?(19:13) Are there consequential damages down the line? (19:18) I don't know. (19:19) I mean, I don't know what I don't know here, but what have you experienced in putting this out there, in stress testing this and from the public?

Daniele Visioni

(19:27) So, yeah, the point itself of researching in this space is not to try to sell this or to try to claim that it works, but actually to figuring out would it actually work, right? (19:36) Of course, there's this big test that happens once every 30 years of a volcanic eruption, but would this actually work in practice? (19:43) Which means understanding everything, all of the potential implications, the risks, and maybe even the potential benefits.(19:51) And of course, just like you said, well, once you set out to research something, you don't know what you don't know, right? (19:57) And so the point is also to making sure that you don't do this kind of research siloed in just a couple of people, but to do expand the disciplines that are looking at this, the amount of people that are looking at this to try to understand all of the things we might be missing out on, right? (20:13) And yes, for something like this, and this also connects with the public, right?(20:18) Because of course, a normal person will not have the understanding or expertise to understand this, but he might also not believe one single person or one single scientist. (20:28) But if you get many, many people looking at this and trying to understand based on their expertise, what impact would this have, then you start building sort of a trusted source of understanding that can help you eventually decide, is this something worth thinking about, right? (20:43) Eventually, even for governments or governmental official policymakers, they don't have the capacity to understand deeply every single solution or thing that is proposed to them, right?(20:54) Eventually they will be like, okay, is this something that is worth thinking about or investing some time, or maybe even arguing with some other countries over? (21:02) And the only way you can do that is saying, yes, look, this is the amount of research that we've done. (21:06) This is how we've stress tested it.(21:08) This is what we understand. (21:10) And then it's pretty clear, and it has to be always clear that it's not the scientists making the decision about whether something like this would ever actually happen in real life or not.

Marcus Arredondo

(21:21) Are you seeing any benefits to the use of, I guess, the greater powered AI components in doing any data modeling here?

Daniele Visioni

(21:30) We are definitely starting to explore that. (21:32) I mean, we have a couple of projects trying to understand how you could use machine learning based model surrogates that are much faster than the climate models that we use right now to speed up or accelerate any of this research, for sure. (21:44) We still sort of, research in this field is still emerging.(21:47) So pivoting to a new thing, it's pretty hard, but I've had multiple discussions. (21:52) I have a few research plans exactly on this. (21:55) Yes.

Marcus Arredondo

(21:56) So can we transition to the Great Barrier Reef restoration project? (21:59) Sure. (22:01) So can you just tell us a little bit about what that project is, how you got involved?(22:05) And then I have questions about where we're at.

Daniele Visioni

(22:08) Yeah, sure. (22:09) So the entire project is fundamentally one of the things we are observing, when it comes to climate change, is the fact that if you have warmer air, you also have warmer oceans, especially at the surface. (22:23) And essentially corals and coral reefs are kind of boiling alive and dying, especially when you get massive heat waves that are much warmer than before.(22:32) And coral reefs are, they're a boon for many ecosystems, especially the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, but also in Florida. (22:41) There are plenty of places that benefit a lot from the Barrier Reef. (22:44) They're the equivalent of forests in a way on land.(22:50) So they let a lot of animals be in there, they capture carbon, they regulate the ocean in many different ways. (22:56) So they're important. (22:56) Plus they're beautiful and they're useful.(22:58) So when Australia started seeing what was happening to their Great Barrier Reef, they started asking more directly the question, okay, what do we do about this? (23:08) And again, this is not something you can say, well, we'll reduce emissions because reducing emissions doesn't stop the problem right now. (23:16) And so there have been multiple proposals of things that could be done to try to help out these corals.(23:24) Amongst them, one of them was also the idea of spraying clouds over the Great Barrier Reef to make them brighter. (23:31) This is another method of solar radiation modification called marine cloud brightening, where we know that if you add sea salt to clouds, they nucleate more. (23:39) So there are more particles, there are more cloud nuclei, and these clouds become more reflective.(23:46) So the idea is, could you do that and produce a small scale, very regional shading pattern that could avoid the corals from boiling alive by reducing the amount of sunlight that you get. (23:57) There are also other proposals. (24:00) It's not like I have a big role in all of these, but the only thing is that the Australian government has this risk review board for a lot of these proposals that have been done to try to protect or restore the Great Barrier Reef.(24:15) And I'm one of the experts that sits in this board and evaluates the trade-offs and the risks that might come with many of these proposals. (24:24) So at this point, none of these proposals are being tested at large scale. (24:30) They're all in the phase of trying to understand whether they would work or what would be the risk if they were to be applied.(24:38) And the point of having a risk review board, risk review assessment panel, is to have expert and say, okay, but have you thought about this? (24:47) Have you thought about this other thing? (24:49) And sort of trying to assess the risks that would come with these proposals.

Marcus Arredondo

(24:53) So you got your PhD and your master's in Italy, and I have to give you a lot of credit. (24:59) I've watched several of your speeches and you speak English terrific. (25:03) But to think that you're now conversing in this very unique language within English, that being physics and climate study.(25:16) I'm just curious, have you encountered, and I'll backtrack for a second because this is sort of how I'm looking at it, but I'm not fluent in any other language, but I have studied other languages. (25:26) And by virtue of having studied other languages, I think two things. (25:30) One, I learned how to speak English better because I just understood how the words functioned with each other from a better perspective because they function differently in Italian or in Spanish or in French.(25:43) But also, I think more importantly, by way of learning at least parts of other languages, you start to understand the way that community thinks or views the world in some way. (25:56) And having, I mean, I know you've worked with over 300 scientists on a number of peer-reviewed papers. (26:02) I have some questions about how you do that type of research and reporting with that many people.(26:09) But before we get to that, I am curious, do you see any regional lines of thinking that you seem to have transcended just by virtue of traveling and doing research from more than one continent? (26:24) But in working with other scientists, like on the Great Barrier Reef Restoration Project, are you seeing commonalities or methodologies that are unique to these different regions?

Daniele Visioni

(26:39) Yeah, I feel like, so, well, starting from the Great Barrier Reef, I think the main thing is the huge emotional attachment that people there have towards it. (26:52) And so, when you're trying to think about something that is, again, so local, like the risk, danger is global, right? (26:59) Again, there is nothing that an Australian can do against a marine heat wave.(27:03) And so, this concept of something local, you can do at least to save something, or at least to save some of that. (27:09) I think it's a really interesting, (27:11) one of the main reasons why I joined this board is because I was really intellectually curious to (27:14) understand how this project and the way in which the Australian government is very carefully (27:19) doing engagement also with the local public, as in also with indigenous communities that have (27:25) lived around the Great Barrier Reef for hundreds of years, how everybody understand this.(27:31) And I already had, well, I haven't been that board for a while, but I already had a couple of very interesting insights in somebody sharing that their perspective as well, almost we were discussing risks and benefits. (27:46) And this person shared something like, normally in my experience, it's always about the risks, never about the benefits. (27:52) Ultimately, the benefits are secondary, but what people care about is the risks.(27:58) But also, on the other hand, sort of thinking, but are we letting all of these worries about risks bogging us down and slowing us down when what we should be finding is the solution? (28:09) So, there's this tension between moving fast or moving too slow and being careful. (28:16) And I find that that is one of the things that it's really different regionally.(28:20) And I would say, again, as a European that now has been in the US for a while, there's really a huge difference in the way this is perceived. (28:27) The move fast and break things of the West Coast versus the more cautionary approach of European countries and Europeans in general. (28:41) And I think that this idea of SRM is really the one in which this tension becomes the strongest possible, because you have this concept of, we could be doing something, not just preventing something from happening, but maybe doing something.(28:55) And it does come with its own risks. (28:57) Nothing is risk-free, that's true. (28:59) But at one point, you have to decide whether some risks or trade-offs are acceptable to you.(29:05) Understanding that if you decide to do nothing, that is also going to have its own impacts. (29:10) And maybe they're going to be larger. (29:12) So, how do you decide whether something is acceptable or not?(29:16) I think it's really hard. (29:17) And this is the one that I'm finding that different communities have really different perceptions. (29:24) For instance, there's also been...(29:25) I also worked with a lot of colleagues and scientists from the global South, from Africa and from Southeast Asia. (29:30) And there's also been a lot of research being done with the perception that people, for instance, in Africa have about these kind of technologies, this kind of SRM. (29:40) And a lot of times, the way they respond is like, well, we didn't cause this problem.(29:44) So, why are you asking us whether we should be fixing it or not? (29:49) You created this problem, you should be the one to fix it. (29:52) But in this, I would say that definitely also in between the US and Europe, there are some different perspective of what it means to fix the problem.(29:59) And to go back to the first example that you had, you can say, well, we could be building... (30:05) If you build a house too fast without caring about quality, the house is just going to crumble on your head. (30:10) But if you take 30 years and you have nowhere to go in the meantime, you're going to live 30 years under the weather, which is not great.(30:17) So, balancing out these things and what's your acceptable level of risk, it's really hard. (30:23) And really, I'm finding that, yes, the Germans will have a different perception of that compared to the Americans, compared to the British, compared to the French. (30:29) And I think it's really interesting to see and observe.

Marcus Arredondo

(30:32) Can you give me an example of what you said about the West, which is, I think you said, do things fast and break them? (30:40) Yeah.

Daniele Visioni

(30:41) Move fast, break things, the Silicon Valley. (30:43) Yeah. (30:45) Right.(30:45) And I think this is exactly right. (30:47) So, when it comes to Serum, again, there has been a small company called Make Sunset from the Bay Area that essentially said, okay, so you're saying that these things work? (30:58) Cool.(30:58) Then we're just going to sell cooling credits where people will pay us to launch balloons from San Francisco and they will pay us to launch these balloons and we assure them that there will be some cooling. (31:10) And they just thought, well, who cares about side effects? (31:13) Who cares about legitimacy or any of that?(31:15) Let's just do it. (31:17) And that's, I think, the quintessential West Coast, Silicon Valley way to proceed in many ways. (31:26) You do something and then you think about the risks or the problems after.(31:33) But on the other hand, there is also a lot of danger in the opposite, which is, well, nothing in this world is 100% certain, nothing we do. (31:41) Every kind of decision we make, both at the small scale and at the large scale, at the government scale, will always come with some form of uncertainty. (31:48) But there is a point in which you can get uncertainty paralysis.(31:51) Like you say, oh, I'm never going to be able to perfectly predict whether these actions will have the consequences I intend or whether there are unintended consequences. (32:01) Therefore, I will not take this action. (32:03) And in a way, that has been partly the European approach in many different realms.(32:09) But this comes with its own problems. (32:12) Just as an example, during COVID, during the first waves of COVID, I was already in the US and I got vaccinated all three doses before my parents in Italy, they were in their 60s, could get their first dose. (32:27) And that was because the European approach to the risk assessment of vaccine took a lot more time.(32:34) And ultimately, it's a trade-off, right? (32:36) Because it is a trade-off in that case, as it is in every other case.

Marcus Arredondo

(32:41) What do you think, like, I think of, (32:44) I'm not sure if you're familiar in California, Title 24, which was passed, (32:49) I don't know, it had to have been probably 15 years ago, maybe a little bit more, but it was (32:54) a standard under which new construction needed to meet that was some form of LEED certification, (33:01) basically, to reduce energy consumption by way of the lights turning off automatically when you (33:09) leave or enter the room, having more circulation within the building so that there's a better (33:14) cooling effect. (33:15) That became a little bit of a standard that other states started to replicate in some format. (33:22) I use that as a little bit of an example, because there's a common theme in two things that I'm going to bring up, but it's about bringing it back to something local and then extrapolating that into something more macro.(33:32) And I think of these sort of markers of goals, and I can't help but think of the Paris Climate Accord, and withdrawing, whether it was right or wrong, that's not even what I'm sort of asking about. (33:49) But my point in what I'm interested in is (33:53) that 20-year, 30-year sort of horizon, where there's a percentage reduction, (33:59) there are some goals that are set that I think actually, when implemented into more regional (34:05) areas, allows for appropriate lab modeling, so to speak, right, where you have a bunch of different (34:12) regions all experimenting, providing different levels of incentives to hopefully stimulate GDP (34:18) at the same time of reducing these types of greenhouse gas effects, allows sort of, you know, (34:28) thousands of different case studies that sort of can showcase what's working and what's not working (34:34) as effectively, that then gets sort of trickled back up into a more cross-pollinizing type of user (34:43) Where do you think we go? (34:44) I mean, that's sort of like what seems to make the most sense among international diplomacy relative to finding some alignment, right? (34:53) You can't say, you know, your distinction at the very beginning of our conversation about our cumulative CO2 emissions versus our per capita, I think is a meaningful discussion point, right?(35:06) You know, it's very easy for Americans to say that China and India have so much more going (35:11) on, but when you compare it per individual, you start to realize, well, you know, personally, (35:16) I am contributing more on an individualized basis, and so the second thing I'm sort of thinking about (35:22) is that it seems like a branding problem in a lot of ways, because I'll say I'm a lot more (35:28) in tune with this because I see plastic bags, cigarette buds when I'm surfing, and it's (35:38) something that you, I have a tactile, immediate relationship to seeing just litter, right?(35:45) Coming into something I use every day, and so there's a little bit more of a bond I have with our natural environment just by virtue of doing that, but if I were living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I might not have that same experience, and so, you know, the hurricane-ridden Florida regions are having a very different dialogue than somebody in Omaha, Nebraska. (36:09) How do we, so there's two separate ideas here that I'm sort of combining, but one is branding, and one is sort of how to integrate this in a broader sense. (36:20) These two are connected because how do you take something so global and make it unique and local, where there's a better alignment of what we want on the ground and how that connects to the global cosmos, you know, the global heartbeat.

Daniele Visioni

(36:37) You see where I'm going with this? (36:38) Yeah, I think, yeah, I think I do. (36:40) I think, as you said, I would refer him to say one thing that definitely humans are bad at is global thinking, right, or both in time, both in space and in time.(36:53) Right, but I think that that applies to everybody, and also like long-term thinking, as in you can understand and perceive the consequences of your own action at this point. (37:01) So if you were to throw trash and the trash would not go anywhere but stay close to your house, then you would suddenly notice pretty soon, right, how much trash is accumulating. (37:11) But the fact that, you know, there's the wind and things move means that maybe you can forget about the consequence of your, the consequences of your own action.(37:18) And in part, the U.S. has been isolated from some of the consequences of climate change, just because, for instance, always use air conditioning, or in general, it's a pretty rich country that can adapt. (37:31) But already, I think if you go, I don't know, in Europe where air conditioning was never a big thing, and there was always a bit of a conception of, oh, you have to suffer through the summer. (37:41) And now more people are realizing, wow, some of the summers are getting really unbearable.(37:46) So there is a point in which, yes, nobody can perceive climate change through global mid temperatures. (37:53) And that was probably one of the main problems with the Paris Agreement, right, that these 1.5 degrees above per industrial, it doesn't mean anything to most people. (38:00) People can mainly understand the things they can perceive, right, and the things they care about.(38:07) And how does this impact these things that I care about, whether it's, you know, the forest that I walk around, or the Great Barrier Reef, or how will this affect anything else, right? (38:21) And trying to connect it, and for trash in a way, and for pollution, this is a bit easier, because it's more easier to perceive also visually, but it isn't for climate change. (38:32) So there's always been the problem with climate change, which is the CO2 I put now, it's only marginally going to affect me, because I have all of the ones before me.(38:41) But the three generations from now, that CO2 is going to be so important. (38:46) But I can't be asked to make decisions. (38:49) I mean, generally, people find it hard to be asked to make economic decisions based on the merit of something 50 years down the line.(38:57) So there's always been the struggle. (38:59) And in a way, one of the main worries that people have about something like SRM was the fact that, well, if you also hide this warming behind this reflection, these increased reflection, people are really going to have no incentive to mitigate whatsoever. (39:16) Except people haven't had this incentive based on their perception for most of the times, because again, most people don't really perceive these risks yet.(39:25) And so I think that is not a worry I really buy in that sense, but really something where we can start thinking about, okay, but how do we explain to people why this matters? (39:36) And now I think we're seeing pretty much a lot of realms of the rich. (39:40) And even in the US, again, you can see cost of insurance going up, sea level rise threatening many states, hurricanes getting stronger.(39:48) There's a lot of things that right now we are starting in the US are starting to perceive more. (39:53) And where the question is, and the perspective would just be, well, whatever, we're just going to adapt, right? (39:59) We're just going to spend more money, and we're going to make do.(40:02) But can we do that really and forever? (40:05) Can we just spend our entire time catching up? (40:09) As you said, you build your house and you'd have to worry, okay, I want my house to have enough air conditioning to make sure that if the temperature goes on average 102 Fahrenheit, then I'm still comfortable the whole summer.(40:22) But what if the temperature in the summer in 15 years is 104 Fahrenheit on average, then I'm going to need way more energy. (40:29) And will my energy system be able to catch up? (40:31) Will my infrastructure be able to catch up?(40:33) And what if this temperature goes to 110? (40:35) What if there's a heat wave, and it's 110, and you're 70, and your body can't cool down that much, and a lot of mortality in that age is led by things like heat waves. (40:47) How do I plan for that in advance?(40:49) And partly you can't, but you can make sure that the damage is as small as possible to begin with maybe.

Marcus Arredondo

(40:55) So I want to get back to your writing in your research papers. (41:00) How are you working with this many different researchers and scientists collaborating and coming to any consensus on what you actually publish?

Daniele Visioni

(41:11) I think it's not as hard as it sounds. (41:14) You just let the science speak for itself. (41:16) I mean, for most of the things, a lot of what I've done in my research is really like, okay, we have these results from climate models.(41:25) These are the outcomes. (41:26) But what do you care about? (41:28) And how would you go about finding out?(41:29) So I've collaborated with a lot of ecologists over the years. (41:33) So they're saying, oh, I would be concerned to understand how changes in diffuse radiation that heat the canopy would affect plants. (41:41) Cool.(41:41) Let's go look at that. (41:42) Or how would this affect marine heat waves and fishes? (41:46) All of these things, you most of the time just let the science speak for itself.(41:51) Sure. (41:51) You also have to get to a point where you're like, well, is my voice more important than what the science is saying? (41:59) So you sometimes have to take the loss and say, I would say this differently, but I'm more interested with hearing your opinion than my own.(42:08) So I'm fine with having this. (42:10) This is easier when there's science involved, but I've also collaborated with social scientists and trying to think through things that you can't necessarily quantify. (42:20) And in that case, it's really like, I think that it helps to acknowledge the fact that there's a common concern.(42:27) And then that you might get towards a resolution to that concern in different ways. (42:31) But to say, I am concerned about climate change, just like you are. (42:36) What's the common ground that we can find?(42:38) How can we push this forward?

Marcus Arredondo

(42:41) Do you find, though, that by virtue of being arguably the preeminent geoengineering scientist that you get less pushback than you might otherwise?

Daniele Visioni

(42:52) Well, from within maybe our own small community, because again, the community of people that are looking at this is pretty small compared to the climate community. (43:04) But I can tell you that most of the climate scientists, they have no problem letting me know what an awful person I am, because I'm looking at these issues. (43:12) And this just honestly happened.(43:14) On Saturday, I posted something on Blue Sky about the research that I do. (43:20) And one of the foremost preeminent climate scientists in the world, I guess, he wrote a lot of books. (43:25) He replied back saying, you should be ashamed you're doing this research.(43:29) My answer was, fuck off. (43:32) But aside from that, the fact is that aside from the personal, the fact that this field, that this topic of research makes people so mad, means also that it's a good thing. (43:46) As in, if the people that are opposed to this research, the most they can say is, you should be ashamed, but they cannot find any physical pushbacks.(43:59) It means that it's good, but I want them to look at it. (44:02) I don't care if they hate me or if they hate the topic of SRM. (44:05) I would love for them to get in and do the research as well and show me where I'm wrong.(44:10) If I say, we've looked at this for a while now, and it is the thing that could, in the quickest way possible, cool down temperatures and prevent many risks. (44:21) If I'm wrong, show me. (44:23) I would be happy to be shown I'm wrong in the sense that it wouldn't be on me anymore.(44:28) Go ahead and show me. (44:30) But in general, people haven't really managed to do that. (44:35) Let's put it that way.

Marcus Arredondo

(44:36) Well, you're actually bringing up something that I wanted to bring up. (44:39) I want to talk about running because I read that that's a nice place where you get your research ideas and your snarky comebacks. (44:46) But before I talk about it, I want to talk about historical fencing and why that might be historical to you.(44:51) Okay. (44:52) So what is it in general? (44:56) Yeah, what is it and why is it significant to you?

Daniele Visioni

(44:59) Oh, yeah. (45:01) So I've been fencing for, I don't know, now probably 15 years. (45:06) I don't know.(45:06) I've lost count. (45:07) But the kind of fencing I like doing is what we call historical European martial arts or historical fencing, which is essentially fencing going back to the source. (45:16) So people have been writing manuals about how to fence since the 13th century.(45:21) And it was a life and death matter. (45:23) So they were pretty detailed in describing how to fence. (45:27) And fencing has evolved over the centuries due to technological advances.(45:31) And the fencing that we see now at the Olympics, it's what we call modern fencing. (45:36) It's essentially fencing that has been stripped from the original idea of, well, you're trying to survive on the battlefield or on the field in general. (45:46) And it has also evolved because swords got longer and thinner.(45:52) And so it was harder to cut. (45:54) And there are many different things. (45:56) And so historical fencing is this idea of trying to go back to the sources.(46:01) Many of them are Italian, so that's easy for me, but some of them are German. (46:05) So there are translations and try to understand how was fencing in the past. (46:10) And I find it very funny.(46:12) And also I find fencing to be kind of, well, aside from the fact that it's great as a stress release, but also for me, one of the things is you learn pretty soon, especially with current swords, it's not like you can parry a blow and then just stay, you can't apply too much force because the swords bend a lot, but swords didn't used to be that way. (46:37) So there was a lot of what we call sort of getting close to the opponent and binding as in you're trying to figure out your sword is on the opponent's sword. (46:45) And what do you do?(46:46) Do you push against your opponent's sword to try to have to win, but your opponent, what they could do was just to let you push and essentially use your own strength against you. (47:00) And just let the blow pass and then attack you back. (47:04) So I think there's a lot in there in terms of, sometimes you have to parry the blow and sometimes you just let the blow go and then bide your time.(47:13) So yeah, it's a bit like, I like it.

Marcus Arredondo

(47:16) Yeah. (47:17) What's different about historical fencing as compared to modern fencing?

Daniele Visioni

(47:21) So the main difference, and we have- For visual purposes, right?

Marcus Arredondo

(47:26) For the audience to think about, what is different about this?

Daniele Visioni

(47:29) So first of all, we have a historical fencing club here at Cornell. (47:32) So we do that here at Cornell too. (47:36) I think the main difference is the fact that right now in modern fencing, the person who hits even a fraction of a second before gets the point.(47:45) But in the real world, if I stab you and your blow is charged, your blow still has enough time to fall on me. (47:54) So the main difference in a way is sort of being more defensive than offensive, because when you're attacking, you have to not just think, will I get there a fraction of a second before, but is my opponent also going to reach me, right? (48:07) And I want to stay alive.(48:08) So that's one difference. (48:09) In a way, this leads to, so the biggest difference is that normally you will also have a defensive weapon in your offhand. (48:16) Either you have a larger sword, like a two-handed long sword, or you have a defensive weapon in your offhand.(48:22) So a buckler, a paring dagger, a cape, something. (48:28) So I would say that that's... (48:29) And then, of course, the main difference is that the swords that we use are sort of the right weight and shape as the historical counterparts, except they're not sharp, of course.(48:38) But still, so our protections are a bit more padded than the ones...

Marcus Arredondo

(48:42) I was going to say, but you're still, you got a mask?

Daniele Visioni

(48:44) We have the mask. (48:44) We have the 1700 Newton mask that it's a bit stronger than the normal fencing mask, but it's pretty safe. (48:52) And then we have just padded jackets and padded pants, also because you can eat below the belt.(48:57) Oh boy. (48:58) Yeah.

Marcus Arredondo

(48:59) But they're not eppies that bend.

Daniele Visioni

(49:02) You can, essentially the eppies are kind of the side, the sort of late renaissance sword, so you can fight with things that are sort of intermediate to that. (49:16) But no, normally are like more like side swords, so they don't bend as much. (49:20) They still bend a bit, but they're mostly for cutting rather than...(49:23) But this is also where you met your husband.

Marcus Arredondo

(49:26) Yeah, yes, yes. (49:27) Who was in part, I think, from what I was reading, what allowed you to come to the U.S. or helped you to come to the U.S., but was that during the pandemic?

Daniele Visioni

(49:38) No, it was right before. (49:39) It was in 2018. (49:40) Actually, this is seven years I've been in the U.S. I arrived in the U.S. on the 27th of October of 2018. (49:50) Yeah, this is, yeah, because I just finished my PhD. (49:52) Yeah, thank you. (49:53) I celebrate that.(49:55) I finished my PhD at the end of October, and I wanted to start my postdoc immediately after, so I came here so that I could start on the 1st of November. (50:07) Yeah, I often think that moving across the ocean was a pretty big deal and definitely was helped by knowing I had some support.

Marcus Arredondo

(50:17) A stabilizing force helps you to be able to focus on what you need to do. (50:22) So how did that change? (50:23) Like, first of all, not just an entire—I mean, look, the U.S. is so dissimilar to a small town in Italy, and Ithaca is a unique place that is not forgiving in the winter, that's for sure. (50:40) How did that shape your research and how you were looking at your future career? (50:48) But coupled with once you entered the pandemic, how did that shape how you collaborated and taught?

Daniele Visioni

(50:58) Yeah, so, I mean, I come from a small town in Italy, which means that I really like Ithaca because I like the small-town vibe. (51:08) Not during the winter, that's harder, but in general, I really like the small-town vibe. (51:12) So when I came here, I was immediately like, okay, I think this is where I want to stay long-term.(51:18) So I put a lot of effort into making sure that I could stay long-term here. (51:23) Let's put it this way. (51:25) But yes, I mean, a year in my time at Cornell, the pandemic started, and first of all, I had never worked from home ever in my life.(51:35) I was always kind of an office kind of person. (51:38) And when the pandemic started, I was like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this, as in to sort of keep my discipline and keep working. (51:50) So that was tough.(51:52) But on the other hand, yeah, it was also the way in which you could say, oh, but I can talk to all of these people. (51:57) I can just email people and have a chat and talk to them remotely. (52:02) So overall, it was a tough period, but it did help.

Marcus Arredondo

(52:06) All right. (52:06) Well, Eni, I appreciate your time. (52:09) I think this is eye-opening for a number of people.(52:12) I don't think I really fully understood geoengineering. (52:14) I mean, to be honest, I still am only just scratching the surface. (52:17) But to think that there's other systems beyond just our systemic use of energy and consumption, at least gives me some optimistic hope that there are other levers that can help accelerate some of this reversal.(52:38) I hope so, too. (52:39) Yeah. (52:40) I appreciate you illuminating this.(52:43) And so I want to be sensitive to your time. (52:44) But thank you again for coming on. (52:47) Any closing thoughts or things you think we might have missed?(52:50) No, I think we covered a lot of ground. (52:52) Well, I really appreciate your time, Professor, and keep doing your work. (52:57) Thank you.(52:57) Appreciate it. (53:01) Thanks for listening. (53:03) For a detailed list of episodes and show notes, visit scalesofsuccesspodcast.com.(53:07) If you found this conversation engaging, consider signing up for our newsletter, where we go even deeper on a weekly basis, sharing exclusive insights and actionable strategies that can help you in your own journey. (53:17) We'd also appreciate if you subscribed, rated, or shared today's episode. (53:20) It helps us to attract more illuminating guests, adding to the list of enlightening conversations we've had with New York Times bestsellers, producers, founders, CEOs, congressmen, and other independent thinkers who are challenging the status quo.(53:32) You can also follow us for updates, extra content, and more insights from our guests. (53:37) We hope to have you back again next week for another episode of Scales of Success. (53:41) Scales of Success is an Edgewest Capital production.