Interview: Researching the Potential and the Pitfalls of Geoengineering

Many scientists have shied away from the subject of geoengineering — the large-scale, deliberate manipulation of the Earth’s climate system — because they feel it is a wrongheaded and dangerous path to pursue. But climate scientist Ken Caldeira has not been so dismissive, in part because his climate modeling has demonstrated that some geoengineering schemes may indeed help reduce the risks of climate change. In fact, few scientists have thought harder about the moral, political, and environmental implications of geoengineering than Caldeira. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Caldeira discusses the complexities of geoengineering and also talks about how he has recently become a focal point in the controversy surrounding the publication of Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s SuperFreakonomics, the follow-up to their previous best-seller, Freakonomics. A chapter of the book that deals with geoengineering circulated on the Internet prior to the book’s publication and has been widely criticized for its distortions and its cynical, contrarian perspective. Caldeira says the authors misrepresented both his position and mainstream climate science.

Read the interview