How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth's Climate [Hardcover]

Jeff Goodell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2010

Climate discussions often focus on potential impacts over a long period of time—several decades, a century even. But change could also happen much more suddenly. What if we had a real climate emergency—how could we cool the planet in a hurry? This question has led a group of scientists to pursue extreme solutions: huge contraptions that would suck CO2 from the air, machines that brighten clouds and deflect sunlight away from the earth, even artificial volcanoes that spray heat-reflecting particles into the atmosphere. This is the radical and controversial world of geoengineering. How to Cool the Planet, Jeff Goodell explores the scientific, political, and moral aspects of geoengineering. How are we going to change the temperature of whole regions if we can’t even predict next week’s weather? What about wars waged with climate control as the primary weapon? There are certainly risks, but Goodell persuades us that geoengineering may be our last best hope, a Plan B for the environment. And if it is, we need to know enough to get it right.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Product Description
When Jeff Goodell first encountered the term "geoengineering," he had a vague sense that it involved outlandish schemes to counteract global warming. As a journalist, he was deeply skeptical. But he was also intrigued. The planet was in trouble. Could geoengineers help?

Climate change may well be the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced. Temperatures in some regions of the world could increase by as much as fifteen degrees by the end of the century, causing rising sea levels and severe droughts. But change could also happen much more suddenly. What if we had a real climate emergency, the ecological equivalent of the subprime mortgage meltdown--how could we cool the planet in a hurry?

As Goodell shows in this bracing book, even if we could muster the political will for it, cutting greenhouse gas emissions alone may not be enough to reduce the risk of climate catastrophe. This has led some scientists to pursue extreme solutions: huge contraptions that would suck CO2 from the air, machines that would brighten clouds and deflect sunlight away from the earth, even artificial volcanoes that would spray heat-reflecting particles into the atmosphere.

In How to Cool the Planet, Goodell explores the scientific, political, financial, and moral aspects of geoengineering. How are we to change the temperature of whole regions if we can't even predict next week's weather? What if a wealthy entrepreneur shots particles into the stratosphere on his own? What about wars waged with climate control as the primary weapon? What happens to our relationship with nature when, as Goodell puts it, we all find ourselves living in a giant terrarium?

And our options are dwindling. Maybe, Goodell suggests, we need to start taking geoengineering seriously. Maybe it's Plan B for the planet. And if it is, we need to know enough to get it right.

Thoroughly reported and convincingly argued, How to Cool the Planet is a compelling tale of scientific hubris and technical daring. But it is also a thoughtful, even-handed look at a deeply complex and controversial issue. It's a book that will surely jump-start the next big debate about the future of life on earth.

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A Q&A with Jeff Goodell, Author of How to Cool the Planet

Q: What is geoengineering?

A: It's the idea of manipulating the earth's climate as a way to reduce the risks from global warming. If that sounds dangerous and scary and downright crazy, it is. But I argue in my book that we're likely to end up doing it anyway--in part because the effort to reduce emissions has been such a failure, in part because we love quick fixes, and in part because the survival of civilization may eventually depend on it. The real question is, how soon will we begin, and will we do it well or do it badly?

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

A: Two things, really. After I completed my previous book, Big Coal, which was about the costs and consequences of burning coal for energy, it became clear to me that we are not going to reduce our emissions anywhere near fast enough to avoid the risks of a climate catastrophe. What will we do if someday we have the climatic equivalent of the subprime mortgage meltdown?

Shortly after I began thinking about this, I met a few highly respected scientists who were quietly exploring ideas for how we might cool the planet in an emergency. I was intrigued. I grew up in Silicon Valley, after all--I'm a big believer in exploring new technology to help solve human problems. In addition, the idea of deliberately taking charge of the earth's climate brings up a lot of interesting questions about our relationship with nature. But I think I was most interested in the human side of the story. I wanted to know: Were the scientists who were exploring these ideas crazy or not?

Q: So, are these geoengineering scientists mad?

A: Well, some of them clearly are nuts. But not all of them. In fact, the narrative of the book is really about getting to know these scientists as human beings. I mean, we are talking about messing around with the climate system of the entire planet here! You've got to have a big ego and a healthy dose of hubris even to consider it. Besides trying to understand the technological, political, economic, and moral complexities of all this, I also wanted to know, on a basic human level, whether we could trust these people. And as it turned out, I met some pretty fascinating characters.

Q: Who are some of the leading scientists in the field?

A: One of them, David Keith, is a Canadian physicist who has started a company to design and build machines that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. David is an ardent environmentalist--among other things, he spends a lot of time hiking and skiing in the high Arctic. One of the reasons he's involved in geoengineering is that he believes it may be the only way to save the Arctic from a complete meltdown.

Another character I was intrigued by is Stephen Salter, a cranky but brilliant Scottish engineer who seems to have stepped out of a Jules Verne novel. Salter has designed boats that would spray billions of tiny droplets of seawater into the clouds to brighten them, so they will reflect more sunlight away from the earth.

Finally, there's Lowell Wood, a protégé of Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb. On one level, Wood is the embodiment of Big Science gone awry. But he's also a very smart and entertaining guy who challenged many of my easy assumptions about geoengineering.

(Photo © Eric Etheridge)

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From Publishers Weekly

Goodell (Big Coal) investigates the viability of geoengineering: ambitious, mostly unproven strategies to deliberately engineer the earth's climate to counteract global warming. Despite his promise to avoid the wacky ideas proposed by wannabe geoengineers, Goodell has trouble avoiding eccentric characters like Edward Teller's protégé, flamboyant Lowell Wood, nicknamed Dr. Evil, and such grandiose and questionable schemes as ocean fertilization, that raise the question: at what point does the urgent and heroic goal of fixing the planet become just another excuse to make a quick buck? Even a down-to-earth scientist like David Keith, whose machine extracts carbon dioxide from the air, estimates that an optimized system would still require thousands of these scrubbers, with costs around $150 per ton of CO2. In a genre dominated by doomsday scenarios, Goodell's treatment is refreshingly lighthearted, but two questions haunt him: what kind of person dreams of engineering the entire planet? And can we trust him? He warns, [T]echnology has taken us farther away from nature, not drawn us closer to it, and his provocative account achieves a fine balance between the inventor's enthusiasm and the scientist's skepticism. (May)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Edition edition (April 15, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618990615
• ISBN-13: 978-0618990610
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,109,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

JEFF GOODELL is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith. Goodell's memoir, Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family, was a New York Times Notable Book. The New York Times called his most recent book, Big Coal, "a compelling indictment of one of the country's biggest, most powerful and most antiquated industries . . . well-written, timely, and powerful."

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Can Geoengineering Really Help Solve the Global Warming Crisis? June 10, 2010

By Frederick S. Goethel VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

According to many scientists that are involved with climate change research, we may already be at or very near the point of no return due to the amount of carbon dioxide already present in the atmosphere. If that is the case, are we already doomed to massive rises in ocean levels, changes in monsoon patterns, increased drought and any other number of possible side effects of global warming? These are the questions that the author of this book attempts to answer by interviewing a number of experts in the field of global climate change.

One of the answers that has been proposed is that we "geoengineer" the planet by trying a number of different techniques to lessen the amount of sun light that is striking the earth. Some of the ideas have been outlandish: dropping millions of styrofoam balls in the ocean, sending giant umbrellas into space to "shade" the earth, and other equally weird proposals. Some of the ideas, however, are much simpler and much more likely to be cost effective and effective in lowering the amount of sun hitting the planet. Included in these ideas are pumping small particulate matter into the upper atmosphere, increasing the reflectivity of clouds and dumping thousand of tons of iron into the ocean to increase the amount of plankton, which would absorb carbon dioxide from the air.

The author explores these ideas and provides a background into the history of geoengineering as well interviewing key players that have been involved in trying to find a solution to climate change. The author also explores the ethical and moral obligations that geoengineering would hold, as well as how the concept would be regulated and by whom.

The book is well written and provides a glimpse into the possible solutions that may be proposed if we are, in fact, past the tipping point. If you don't believe global warming exists, then there will be nothing in this book for you. If, however, you do believe in global warming I would highly recommend this book, as it offers a glimpse into what the future may hold.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful discussion on a huge topic June 27, 2010

By J. Davis

Format:Hardcover

Jeff Goodell, a writer for Rolling Stone, tackles the complex subject of geoengineering in How to Cool The Planet. Goodell, while concerned about the dangers of geoengineering, presents it as perhaps the only possible solution to the global warming crisis. He interviews a number of brilliant scientists who have plans to cool the Earth in a number of ways-everything from shooting particles of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to creating more clouds to reflect the sunlight. This is an important book that is also fun to read.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Fascintating topic, but poorly written May 3, 2010

By Tim M.

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a book about a fascinating topic, geoengineering, but I can't recommend it because the author is not a good writer. The author's attitude rapidly vacillates ('gee whiz! engineering the climate is neat' to 'oh no, commercialization of iron fertilization is scary' and back several times). The final, 'grand synthesis' chapter is particularly bad: the author frames the discussion using his wife's vegetable garden and in vitro fertilization. Here's a quote from that chapter that illustrates the author's general weakness, "I don't want to say that the idea of monkeying around with the climate is like a big video game to us, but sometimes it does feel that way" (p. 216).

To the author's credit, he was clearly ahead of the curve in his interest in geoengineering - the interviews go back to 2006.