Ken Caldeira talks to The Ecologist about geoengineering

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Atmospheric scientist Ken Caldeira, a world authority on geoengineering from the Stanford Carnegie department of global ecology and a keynote speaker at the IPCC expert meeting in Lima, suggests that geoengineering is already being taken too seriously.

Rather than governments or green groups issuing strong statements of support or condemnation, he recommends adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude – except where it comes to transforming the world’s energy system into ‘one that does not use the atmosphere as a waste dump’.

‘At this stage ideas of reflecting sunlight away from the Earth to offset greenhouse-gas heating of the planet are appropriate subjects of investigation for climate scientists. But while there is some chance that such approaches could reduce climate risk, and in some circumstances climate damage, they add all kinds of new risk. It is premature to consider sunshade-geoengineering a viable policy option that should be advocated or condemned.’

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