Bill McKibben on Geoengineering – “I’m annoyed”

Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
http://ceassessment.org/bill-mckibben-on-geoengineering-im-annoyed/?share=pocket">

Thursday, Dec. 19, 2013

Author and activist Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org and a strong advocate for global action on climate change, speaks about geoengineering in new a video message.

The conversation around geoengineering is gaining steam and McKibben says, “this makes me annoyed.”

Firstly, no geoengineering ‘solutions’ address ocean acidification, a result of carbon emissions.  Acidification would threaten the planet even if the temperature rises didn’t, he tells us.

Secondly, there are renewable energy solutions “easily within our grasp.”  These are a serious reality now, he says, and geoengineering would be a distraction from the work to make those technologies better.

Finally, “psychological impulse behind it (geoengineering) is a dubious one,” he argues.  It involves avoiding hard but important and necessary work.

Maybe geoengineering could work, says McKibben, but “even so, these are the answers of junkies.”

“We’re at that moment when we could make change, and geoengineering,” McKibben fears, “gets in the way of that change.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRwth2_hCvk&w=640&h=360]

You can find a recent Rolling Stone article by Bill McKibben on the Obama Administration’s climate change record here.  You can find a blog post about this article by Washington Geoengineering Consortium co-founder Simon Nicholson here.

Statements from other noted researchers and commentators, from both in and outside the realm of climate policy, and across the full range of views, will appear on our youtube site over the coming weeks and months.