Danish Think Tank Calls to Focus on Geoengineering Solutions to Global Warming:
The Copenhagen Consensus Center, a controversial Denmark-based think tank focused on the environment and international development, proposed Thursday that world leaders should focus on a geoengineered solution to climate change in the near term rather than mandating cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
The group, headed by statistician Bjorn Lomborg, issued a report by five economists that suggested it made more sense to spend money on marine cloud whitening research and green energy development than to protect forests, clean up diesel emissions or significantly raise the price of carbon.
"You need to find a short-term way -- meaning the next 50 to a hundred years -- to deal with climate change," Lomborg said, adding that making artificial clouds by spraying seawater into the atmosphere could address global warming at a cost of $9 billion. Theoretically, these clouds could reflect sunlight back into space and, therefore, curb global temperature rise. "If it's that simple, we would want to do it. We need to check out if it's that simple."
Didn't I say a while back that there were dangers in going this route? You'd better know damn well what you're doing. All this bell-ringing and shouting is going to convince people that a unilateral "simple" solution --one that could be done by even a second- or third-rate power-- will solve all our problems at a blow. Unintended consequences, folks, unintended consequences...
Technorati Tags: climate change, unintended consequences
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