Geoengineering To Cool the Earth Becoming Thinkable

johkir writes "As early as 1965, when Al Gore was a freshman in college, a panel of distinguished environmental scientists warned President Lyndon B. Johnson that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels might cause 'marked changes in climate' that 'could be deleterious.' Yet the scientists did not so much as mention the possibility of reducing emissions. Instead they considered one idea: 'spreading very small reflective particles' over about five million square miles of ocean, so as to bounce about 1 percent more sunlight back to space — 'a wacky geoengineering solution.' In the decades since, geoengineering ideas never died, but they did get pushed to the fringe — they were widely perceived by scientists and environmentalists alike as silly and even immoral attempts to avoid addressing the root of the problem of global warming. Three recent developments have brought them back into the mainstream." We've discussed some pretty strange ideas in the geoengineering line over the last few years.

Comments

No they didn't

[Any Web Loco]

This is a complete myth. Read this and be enlightened - http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

Re:No they didn't

[night_flyer]

I was in school in the 1980s and that was all they were talking about, so it may have been a "myth", but they sure were pushing it for some reason...

Re:No they didn't

[theaveng]

I read the article, but I was also ALIVE at that time. I remember folks like Carl Sagan rallying the troops to stop the cooling of the planet (from suspended pollution). No article can erase the memory of the people watching their televisions during the 70s and early 80s.

Re:Like something out of Robinson's work

[spazdor]

There was an excellent TED Lecture on the topic of geoengineering, given by David Keith. It's a little over 15 minutes but well worth the time, and it skips all the sci-fi platitudes.