Climate II: The Media, the Scientists and the Planet
Published Date: 03/11/2010
Length: 53:16
Couldn’t get past the first 15 minutes. Most of it was chicken little propaganda. “99 percent of all climate scientists...” Hogwash.
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Global Climate Change, Global Experts
Posted on: 12 March 2010 by Meredith Martin
A funny thing happened on my way to producing a program for The Agenda’s four part series on climate change. None of the geoengineering experts I talked to were anywhere near Toronto where our studio is located. David Keith, who is Canadian, was in Washington for most of the week, Alan Robock, who teaches at Rutgers in New Brunswick, New Jersey, would be in Paris at the time of the broadcast and John Stone who lives and works in Ottawa was teaching on Friday and unable to make it Toronto for the taping. Why does this matter you ask? Well, speaking as a producer I feel the conversation is more dynamic and engaging when people speak face to face. Also, Steve gets lonely in the studio all by himself.
Be that as it may tonight’s discussion on geoengineering is an important one. It’s a huge topic and the term geoengineering - manipulation of Earth's climate - can mean many different things to many different people. Most of what you read in the papers is about headline grabbing projects that make for good stories like giant mirrors launched into space, but have not been seriously considered by any governments. Another misconception you may have read about is the idea that geoengineering could be the answer to global climate change. I learned that this is simply not the case. In order to prevent the earth’s temperature from rising too rapidly we must reduce emissions and we may eventually also use geoengineering to help that along, but it is only being considered as something to do in addition to reducing green house gases, not instead of it.
One person I looked at booking who has very serious concerns about geoengineering is Diana Bronson from the the Etc. Group, an environmental organization based in Montreal. They have published a report called Retooling the Planet: Climate Chaos in a Geoengineering Age. However, the entire staff of the Etc. Group is at an annual meeting in Mexico City right now.
Finally, some extra research you might be interested in examining:
A TED Talk featuring David Keith
A Policy Statement of the American Meterorological Society on Geoengineering the Climate System