Geoengineering blunder

<i>New Yorker</i> writer takes to task the many holes found in the new book, <i>SuperFreakonomics.</i>

By

Jessica A. Knoblauch

Tue, Nov 10 2009 at 5:19 PM

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Climate Change, Greenhouse Gases, Research & Innovation

Photo: Associated Press

The new book SuperFreakonomics by authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner has experienced an almost cult-like following among climate change deniers and skeptics alike. But does their claim that geoengineering can solve the global warming issue stack up?

Not really, according to a review by Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker, who methodically knocks out the various reasons why the book’s premise is, well, full of crap.

For example, the Superfreakonomics authors contend that the global warming threat is an exaggeration and that no one really knows how the Earth will respond to rising CO2 levels, despite an overwhelming amount of scientific research that says otherwise.

Kolbert also takes issue with the authors' overall solution to avoiding climate catastrophe, which does not include renewable energy technologies like wind and solar, but instead relies on far simpler, and supposedly cheaper, climate engineering schemes.

One of these schemes includes mimicking volcanoes by shooting tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, which would then eventually turn into sulfate aerosols capable of mirroring sunlight back into space.

Global warming problem solved! The problems with this are almost too many to count, however.

For one, nobody knows what would happen if humans suddenly shoved thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. Perhaps before we unintentionally create another climate crisis, maybe we should first solve the original crisis.

Second, “a world whose atmosphere is loaded with carbon dioxide … and sulfur dioxide … would be a fundamentally different place from the Earth as we know it,” writes Kolbert, who says that one of the likely consequences of shooting sulfur dioxide above the clouds would be new regional weather patterns that could bring widespread drought to Asia and Africa.

Plus, even though the Earth may get a bit cooler from the sulfur scheme, the oceans would continue to become acidic because there's still too much carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere and absorbed by the oceans, which kills off wildlife and bleaches coral reefs.

Another big hole in the SuperFreakonomics theory is the simple fact that neither Levitt nor Dubner has any training in climate science or any science at all! Levitt is an economist while Dubner is a journalist.

But, as Kolbert explains, it’s the authors’ contention that they don’t need science. After all, “the whole conceit behind SuperFreakonomics and, before that, Freakonomics, which sold some 4 million copies, is that a dispassionate, statistically minded thinker can find patterns and answers in the data that those who are emotionally invested in the material will have missed,” writes Kolbert.

Throughout the article, Kolbert writes a thoughtful review based on facts and science, which is more than can be said for the SuperFreakonomics authors. And, in case there’s any doubt that real scientists may actually buy the authors’ opinions on climate change, check out climatologist Raymond T. Pierrehumbert’s scathing take on the book in a open letter to his University of Chicago colleague, author Steve Levitt.

Here’s just one of Pierrehumbert’s more biting comments to Levitt:

“There is a broad spectrum of opinion among scientists about the amount of aerosol geoengineering research that is justified, but very few scientists think of it as anything but a desperate last-ditch attempt, or at best a strategy to be used in extreme moderation as part of a basket of strategies dominated by emissions reductions. You owed it to your readers to present a fair picture of the consequences of geoengineering, but chose not to do so.”

Ouch.

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Comments: 2

nainoa Nov 11 2009 at 9:35 PM

Since we are discussing horse shit, the very real horse shit is how the concept of climate change dominates all discusions of fossil CO2. By its very definiton climate change is a glacially slow process, on the other hand high and rising CO2 is acting super freaking fast in the realm where it hits first. Kolbert and Gore and the Superfreakin authors all treat as a mere aside the deadly force of CO2 as it destroys life in the oceans of this BLUE planet. And worse they toss thier horse shit back and

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forth glibly debating about reducing CO2 emissions while never once speaking of the horriffic carbon bomb, the trillion tonnes of fossil CO2 already emitted and now exploding with such deadly effect in the oceans. The measured 10% loss of plant life in the Southern Ocean, the 17% loss in the N. Atlantic, the 26% loss in the N. Pacific, and the 50% loss in the sub-tropical tropical seas over the past two decades is utterly ignored. The fact that those losses have already happened as a result of the impact of only the first 1/3 of that deadly airborn carbon bomb... hey that's not something worth horse shitting or even freakin talking about. There is ONLY ONE means to mitigate the deadly effect of the airborn carbon bomb and that is to enlist the power of photosynthesis in the BLUE part of this blue planet. As fun as horse shitting is... we must replenish and restore the ocean plants before it is too superfreakin late. And it is damned near too late. Read something about this at www.planktos-science.com... Do something other than tossing superfreakin horse shit back and forth.

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Brad Arnold Nov 11 2009 at 12:52 AM

This new clean energy technology produces electricity so cheaply that the free market will cut emissions to save money, avoiding the necessity of higher taxes or legislation. As reported by both CNN and the New York Times: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1iqa0dSJO0 Check out above link to a 2 and a half minute youtube video of a CNN report. What are the odds that the independent testimony below is fraudulent (not bloody likely unless you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist)? Here is a silver bullet

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technology: clean cheap and abundant energy. In a joint statement, Dr. K.V. Ramanujachary, Rowan University Meritorious Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dr. Amos Mugweru, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Peter Jansson P.E., Associate Professor of Engineering said, "In independent tests conducted over the past three months involving 10 solid fuels made by us from commercially-available chemicals, our team of engineering and chemistry professors, staff, and students at Rowan University has independently and consistently generated energy in excesses ranging from 1.2 times to 6.5 times the maximum theoretical heat available through known chemical reactions." Also, check out this article: http://www.nytimes.com/external/venturebeat/2008/10/21/21venturebeat-bla... Brad Arnold St Louis Park, MN, USAdobermanmacleod@gmail.comwww.myspace.com/dobermanmacleod

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