WASHINGTON — Tinkering with Earth’s climate to chill runaway global warming — a radical idea once dismissed out of hand — is being discussed by the White House as a potential emergency option, the president’s new science adviser said Wednesday.
That’s because global warming is happening so rapidly, John Holdren said in his first interview since being confirmed last month.
The concept of using technology to cool the climate is called geoengineering. One option raised by Holdren and proposed by a Nobel Prize-winning scientist includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.
Using such an experimental measure is being thought of only as a last resort, Holdren said.
“It’s got to be looked at,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury . . . of ruling any approach off the table.”
His concern is that several “tipping points” could be fast approaching. Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, it increases chances of “really intolerable consequences,” he said.
The 65-year-old physicist is far from alone in taking geoengineering seriously. The National Academy of Sciences is making it the subject of the first workshop in its new climate challenges program. The British Parliament has also discussed the idea. The Associated Press
