79 Ken Caldeira - Can Geoengineering Save the Planet? by Inquiring Minds published on 2015-03-27T04:47:18Z On the show this week we talk to Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist working for the Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University. He investigates issues related to climate, carbon, and energy systems. In the interview, we focus on geoengineering—the process of making big changes to the Earth’s climatic system in an attempt to solve issues related to climate change. iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/inquiring-minds/id711675943 RSS: feeds.feedburner.com/inquiring-minds Stitcher: stitcher.com/podcast/inquiring-minds Tumblr: http://inquiringshow.tumblr.com Genre Science Comment by robert dresdner ans: nope. 2015-09-17T18:07:36Z Comment by robert dresdner Shakey super costly highly risky heavy tech geoengineering expensively blows! Far smarter: biochar. 2015-06-25T22:44:16Z Comment by ankushnarula Launching stuff into space vs messing with the atmosphere - very different risk scopes 2015-03-31T16:49:16Z Comment by Kishore Hari @scottyoung-4: We actually talked about ocean acidification briefly, but it didn't make the final cut. I was heading that way when talking about ocean science, but he caught me a bit off guard on how the ocean "isn't in a congressional district", so I followed a policy question path from there. Honestly, I thought the well-covered reports were lukewarm on geoengineering at best, so I really just wanted to cover the history and his thoughts on the future. 2015-03-29T04:05:38Z Comment by ScottYoung As I wrote on Twitter before I discovered this site, the podcasters missed the opportunity to ask the guest about the ocean acidification he mentioned. Placing particles into the atmosphere would reduce global temperatures, but is hardly the panacea about which Indre seemed to be so gleeful. The elevated CO2 is absorbed into the oceans leading to acidification. We are already seeing the effects on coral reefs. How this acidification will affect life on earth is a critical question that deserved some consideration. Algae and plankton are thought to be affected and may have significant impact on food chains. As I also mentioned, you may wish to read The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. 2015-03-29T01:42:01Z Comment by Ott Geoengineering should be a last resort effort, the limits we are putting on the carbon usage are necessary but they are only a band-aide, there is only one feasible solution, we have to technologically engineer carbon out of the economy. And the odds of that happening are rather good, it is highly likely that solar power will be the cheapest energy around in a decade or so. If we can get cheaper batteries, and that is also likely, then the problem will be solved by good old greed, people just want the cheapest energy around and won't pay for relatively costly fossil fuels. 2015-03-28T08:20:05Z Comment by allenIII There is only one book on the market that in part even deals with the issue of the crust's response to Climate Change. It's called 'Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes' by Professor Bill McGuire from the U.K. I think he would make a fantastic guest for your podcast. Speaking of which, a lecture he gave in 2012 on the subject can be heard here: http://oxfordscibar.jellycast.com/files/audio/Oxford%20SciBar%20Podcast%20Nov%202012%20Prof%20Bill%20McGuire.mp3 2015-03-27T22:23:07Z Comment by allenIII Outstanding interview and discussion. It was great to hear Caldeira discuss so many of the unknowns when it comes to predicting the response of the oceans due to observational blind spots. In addition to ocean response unpredictability, I believe one of the most overlooked blind spots is how the Earth's crust is going to respond to the increased heat content of the ocean and exposed land masses. I think it's unlikely that the crust won't experience some type of thermal expansion due to heat conduction from the ocean. This, I believe, is thee most dangerous aspect of a warming world as the crust may shatter in new and unpredictable ways. If a rupture in the crust akin to the Siberian Traps opens up it will mean the end of civilization as this event lasted nearly a million years and destroyed 95% of all species on Earth. 2015-03-27T22:19:33Z Comment by Chaz Cole Music 10000 hour rule 2015-03-27T09:06:17Z
