Alex:
One consequence of the whole Superfreakonomics fiasco, which has been thoroughly reported elsewhere in the blogosphere, is that I’ve changed my mind about geoengineering ideas. Up until now, I was of the opinion that the various proposals to check climate change by doing various things to the atmosphere or the oceans were no substitute for reducing CO2 emissions, but they were worth at least studying in order to have an emergency reserve option. And in fact, I always liked the stratospheric sulphur one because it didn’t involve massive space structures and it was, at least theoretically, reversible – the stuff rains out within weeks to months, so it’s possible to switch the thing off.
I’ve never had much trust in geoenginering. We’ve managed to fuck up the planet enough accidently for me to have trust in doing so deliberately and it’s sheer arrogance to imagine that we know enough to start fiddling with the climate directly when our accidental track record is so bad already. History is riddled with well intentioned human interference with ecosystems, none of which worked out well — just ask any Australian.