As a matter of fact, I am horrified when I contemplate climate engineering. Although there’s always been a gee-whiz part of me that likes big projects — in the 1980s I did a cover story for Esquire, “When Men Think Big,” about plans for the English-French Chunnel and less realistic plans for a super-fast subterranean train from New York to Los Angeles — I’ve also gotten a lot more skeptical of the practicality of grand schemes.
I shudder to imagine entrusting the global thermostat to the United Nations or some quasi-governmental agency (an entity that brings to my mind the U.S. Postal Service). I don’t trust today’s computer models to predict climate, much less tell us how to precisely control it. I don’t know how much the world will warm up, and I hope climate engineering won’t be necessary. As I noted, some scientists fear that artificially cooling the globe could lead to more drought and other disasters.
More here from the man who broke the New York Times Magazine record for hate mail.
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