John Holdren’s First Interview – Supports Geoengineering, Including Air Capture
April 8th, 2009Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
John Holdren has given his first interview since being confirmed as President Obama’s science advisor. In it he suggests that the Obama Administration is ready to consider geoengineering via particulate injection into the upper atmosphere as well as air capture, citing new cost estimates. Here is an excerpt from the AP article:
John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.
“It’s got to be looked at,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”
Holdren outlined several “tipping points” involving global warming that could be fast approaching. Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, it increases chances of “really intolerable consequences,” he said.
Twice in a half-hour interview, Holdren compared global warming to being “in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog.”
At first, Holdren characterized the potential need to technologically tinker with the climate as just his personal view. However, he went on to say he has raised it in administration discussions. . .
But Holdren noted that shooting particles into the air — making an artificial volcano as one Nobel laureate has suggested — could have grave side effects and would not completely solve all the problems from soaring greenhouse gas emissions. So such actions could not be taken lightly, he said.
Still, “we might get desperate enough to want to use it,” he added.
Another geoengineering option he mentioned was the use of so-called artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide — the chief human-caused greenhouse gas — out of the air and store it. At first that seemed prohibitively expensive, but a re-examination of the approach shows it might be less costly, he said.
Air capture, less costly than originally thought, hmmm, sounds familiar to something I’ve read before.
April 8th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Interesting anology John Holdren makes of a car on a mountain road in the fog without brakes. I’ve thought about climate change solutions in a similar way but rather than a car without breaks, I think of it more like a single lane road in the fog on a mountain with a cliff off to the right. You know you’ll avoid the worst kind of disaster if you bear to the left side of the road. However, because of the fog you don’t realize that you’ve passed through a saddle and now the cliff is on the left rather than the right. So now if you follow your safe path by bearing to the left, you actually expose yourself to much more danger.
The understanding of climate science at this time is very much like being in the mountains in a fog and your visibility is limited. People like Holdren, Gore and Hansen are certain the cliff is to the right based on climate models and want to move to the left side of the road (stop burning fossile fuels, use more biofuels and renewable energy). The skeptical folks who believe ocean cycles and solar forcings drive the climate, suspect that we’ve gone through a saddle and the danger now lies to the left from a cooling world. They would argue that actions that would deliberately mitigate global temperature increases such as aerosol injections at high altitudes would compound the danger just as converting food crops to fuel when the arable land and growing season is diminishing due to cooling. These same skeptical folks should also argue vigorously that efficiency will become more critical in a world that will demand more heat to overcome the cold. (In other words, the warmers and the skeptics would demand efficiency but for the opposite reasons.)
Its time more people realize that there are consequences and dangers in both the mitigation strategies just as their are in wasteful exploitation of a limited resource. Bearing too hard to the left or the right on the foggy road without a clear understanding of where we are the mountain caries tremendous risks.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
One would think that a wise man might consider running the federal government in a time of economic crisis with two foreign wars to be a sufficiently full plate. Especially after also deciding to run the auto industry, Wall Street, AIG and the major banks. And most especially while planning the complete restructuring of health care (1/7 of the economy).
Apparently not. His unsuccessful stint as a community organizer has convinced him he also has the ability to successfully regulate the earth’s climate as well.
Hubris doesn’t even begin to adequately describe this insanity.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Holdren has apparently been “reined in”. See Revkin’s latest today.