eBook - ePub
How to Cool the Planet
Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth's Climate
- 272 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
"Thoughtful, informative, and darkly entertaining. It's the best treatment of this important (and scary) topic you can find." —Elizabeth Kolbert
Right now, a group of scientists is working on ways to minimize the catastrophic impact of global warming. But they're not designing hybrids or fuel cells or wind turbines. They're trying to lower the temperature of the entire planet. And they're doing it with huge contraptions that suck CO2 from the air, machines that brighten clouds and deflect sunlight away from the earth, even artificial volcanoes that spray heat-reflecting particles into the atmosphere.
This is the radical and controversial world of geoengineering, which only five years ago was considered to be "fringe." But as Jeff Goodell points out, the economic crisis, combined with global political realities, is making these ideas look sane, even inspired.
Goodell himself started out as a skeptic, concerned about tinkering with the planet's thermostat. We can't even predict next week's weather, so how are we going to change the temperature of whole regions? What if a wealthy entrepreneur shoots particles into the stratosphere on his own? Who gets blamed if something goes terribly wrong? And perhaps most disturbing, what about wars waged with climate control as the primary weapon? There are certainly risks, but Goodell believes the alternatives could be worse. In the end, he persuades us that geoengineering may just be our last best hope—a Plan B for the environment. His compelling tale of scientific hubris and technical daring is sure to jump-start the next big debate about the future of life on earth.
"Goodell explores with infectious curiosity and thoughtful narration this strange, promising, and untested suite of climate fixes." — BusinessWeek
"A quick, enjoyable read through a complex, timely topic. And after you read it, you'll never look at the sky or the ocean—or Earth, really—in quite the same way again." — The Christian Science Monitor
Right now, a group of scientists is working on ways to minimize the catastrophic impact of global warming. But they're not designing hybrids or fuel cells or wind turbines. They're trying to lower the temperature of the entire planet. And they're doing it with huge contraptions that suck CO2 from the air, machines that brighten clouds and deflect sunlight away from the earth, even artificial volcanoes that spray heat-reflecting particles into the atmosphere.
This is the radical and controversial world of geoengineering, which only five years ago was considered to be "fringe." But as Jeff Goodell points out, the economic crisis, combined with global political realities, is making these ideas look sane, even inspired.
Goodell himself started out as a skeptic, concerned about tinkering with the planet's thermostat. We can't even predict next week's weather, so how are we going to change the temperature of whole regions? What if a wealthy entrepreneur shoots particles into the stratosphere on his own? Who gets blamed if something goes terribly wrong? And perhaps most disturbing, what about wars waged with climate control as the primary weapon? There are certainly risks, but Goodell believes the alternatives could be worse. In the end, he persuades us that geoengineering may just be our last best hope—a Plan B for the environment. His compelling tale of scientific hubris and technical daring is sure to jump-start the next big debate about the future of life on earth.
"Goodell explores with infectious curiosity and thoughtful narration this strange, promising, and untested suite of climate fixes." — BusinessWeek
"A quick, enjoyable read through a complex, timely topic. And after you read it, you'll never look at the sky or the ocean—or Earth, really—in quite the same way again." — The Christian Science Monitor
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access How to Cool the Planet by Jeff Goodell in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Technology & Engineering & Global Warming & Climate Change. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Index
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
A
Acción Ecológica, 154–55
acid rain, 141
Agassiz, Louis, 57
Ages of Gaia, The (Lovelock), 100
Aipilik, Inuk, 44
airplane wing analogy, 41–42
Alaska/Project Chariot
explosive power, 80, 84–85
Inupiats and, 81–82
overview, 79–83
radiation and, 81, 82, 84–85
albedo defined, 4
albedo engineering
about, 4, 17–18
painting roofs/roads white, 4, 14, 17, 221–22
See also specific methods
“Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulfur Injections” (Crutzen), 2–7, 8, 9, 17, 128
Alley, Richard, 67
American Electric Power, 150
American Enterprise Institute, 15, 110
American Geophysical Union (AGU), 34, 109–10
Anderson, Jack, 209
“Anthropocene,” 15–16
Apollo 17 earth photographs, 98, 215–16
Archer, David, 9
Arctic
David Keith and, 30, 43–44
explorers, 30–31
permafrost melting effects, 10, 103, 114, 212
polar bears, 31, 43, 127, 194, 226
rising temperatures/effects, 8–9
saving with geoengineering, 39, 45, 114–15, 126–28, 133, 212
Arrhenius, Svante, 47–48, 53
Asilomar bioengineering conference (1970s), 200–201
Aspen Global Change Institute, Colorado, 123
astronomers, seventeenth century, 50
Athabasca Oil Sands, 26
Atlanta drought/praying for rain, 69
Atomic Testing Museum, Las Vegas, 73
B
Bad Land (Raban), 54
Baffin Island, 30, 43–44
Bailey, Michael, 158
Barnum, P. T., 53
Barrett, Scott, 202–5
Battisti, David, 18
Benford, Gregory, 126, 211–12
Betts, Richard, 101
billionaires (“Greenfingers”) and geoengineeri...
Table of contents
- Title Page
- Contents
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- The Prophet
- A Planetary Cooler
- God’s Machine
- Big Science
- The Blue Marble
- Doping the Stratosphere
- A Little Cash on the Side
- The Romance of Clouds
- A Global Thermostat
- Human Nature
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author