His ideas have been called “barking mad” and he’s even received death threats over them, but physicist David Keith stands firm in his belief about the potentials of geoengineering—the concept of tinkering with Earth’s climate system to counteract global warming. In fact, Keith was one of the few scientists who helped usher the idea into the mainstream in the past two decades. After years of publishing papers urging scientists to take the field seriously, he now wants to put his research to the test. In what would be one of the world’s first geoengineering field experiments, he proposed using a high-altitude balloon to release sulfuric acid into the atmosphere to scatter sunlight away from Earth’s surface. Critics warn that his audacious plan would do little to reduce overall peak temperatures and may even lead to a sudden global temperature spike. But to Keith, you won’t know unless you try
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 14:53:51 +0000