Comments on: Is it super freaky?

By: dilbert dogbert

dilbert dogbert — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:17:21 +0000

The smartest guys in the room are the Geo Engineers rather than the Financial Engineers?

By: Braden

Braden — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:46:54 +0000

I especially like the proposal to create a 17-mile long pipe that pumps sulphur into the upper atmosphere. Thankfully, only a minimal amount of it will fall to the Earth as sulfuric acid, which is nice. And, if we create the pipe in the southern hemisphere the damage that this acid will do to humans, livestock and agricultural products will be limited to the southern tip of South America, Australia, and southern Africa. I’m sure they won’t mind if we simply go ahead and do it, since they’d probably give us permission anyway.

Delong’s broader point is that making these types of decisions unilaterally is exactly what will likely lead to armed conflict. If China decided to release sulphur over the Pacific and it fell as sulfuric acid on Hawaii my guess is that we’d threaten to retaliate (at least I hope we would).

By: bartman

bartman — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:09:32 +0000

The biggest beef that Joe “Hack” Romm and his ilk have with this book is that, allegedly, it paints geo-engineering in a fairly positive light. The synod of the high church of AGW doesn’t want geo-engineering solutions to address climate change, because that would allow us to forestall or ignore the behavioral modifications that the synod demands.

AGW may or may not be a problem, but to most of the activists, it is merely a vehicle to the collectivist social engineering that they have been heretofore unable to impose upon the rest of us.

Any moderately rational individual who has taken a serious look at this subject knows that abatement is not a solution, and that adaptation and engineering are better ways to address climate change. But for the above reason, they are vilified beyond reason.

By: Fat Man

Fat Man — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:37:41 +0000

I have thought that Leavitt is the most hated man in Academia. He made money off some dry as dust stuff, and that must surely aggravate other economists.

DeLong is amusing:

“Change to no longer dismiss out-of-hand global agreement on climate policy. … Reaching global agreement is a very reasonable prospect.”

My understanding of the Chinese and Indian positions at Copenhagen is that they will sign a treaty, as long as it doesn’t impose any obligations on them. See, global agreement.