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Climate Change Emergency: Solar Radiation Management

"With anxiety among climate scientists rising, and the global community still unable to agree to a program of emission reductions, the gap between what must be done and what is being done grows wider each year, and it seems only a matter of time before the political floodgates are opened to geoengineering" (18).

Hamilton, Clive. "Geoengineering and the Politics of Science." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 70, no. 3, May 2014, pp. 17-26.

"We're at the point where I think it's essential that we start experimenting with all types of geoengineering, because if we can't save the Arctic, then arguably, we can't save the climate system" (244).

Durwood Zaelke quoted in Drollette, Dan. "What If the Arctic Melts, and We Lose the Great White Shield? Interview with Environmental Policy Expert Durwood Zaelke." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 75, no. 5, Sept. 2019, pp. 239-46.

"We argue that geoengineering cannot be tested without full-scale implementation. . . . [W]eather and climate variability preclude observation of the climate response without a large, decade-long forcing. Such full-scale implementation could disrupt food production on a large scale" (530).

Robock, Alan, et al. "A Test for Geoengineering?" Science, vol. 327, no. 5965, Jan. 2010, pp. 530-31.

"If humans adopted geoengineering as a solution to global warming, with no restriction on continued carbon emissions, the ocean would continue to become more acidic, because about half of all excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is removed by ocean uptake. The ocean is already 30 percent more acidic than it was before the Industrial Revolution, and continued acidification threatens the entire oceanic biological chain, from coral reefs right up to humans" (15).

Robock, Alan. "20 Reasons Why Geoengineering May Be a Bad Idea." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 64, no. 2, May 2008, pp. 14-18, 59.

"If we begin to engineer the climate, whose hand will be on the thermostat? And how do you stop a lone actor — armed with good intentions or bad — from screwing up the climate for all of us?" (193).

Goodell, Jeff. How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth's Climate. Mariner Books, 2011.

"Stratospheric aerosol injection is often framed either as an emergency measure or as an (arguably cheap) stopgap approach to buy time for mitigation. . . . Stopgap measures to buy time for longer-term action carry the particular risk that the initial objective is forgotten, and eventually maintaining the stopgap becomes the goal. Alternatively, there is a risk that the time that is bought is not used efficiently, which makes it necessary to perpetuate the stopgap" (1, 4).

Holly Buck, et al. "Pandemic Politics: Lessons for Solar Geoengineering." Communications Earth & Environment, vol. 1, no. 1, Sept. 2020, pp. 1-4.