Does Mitt Romney and Rick Perry Believe in Geoengineering?
Posted on | november 4, 2011 | No Comments
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney are contenders for Republican Party ticket for 2012 US presidential elections. They have their campaign going but swerved attention from climate science after letting their opinion on climate change.
“The issue of global warming has been politicized” according to Gov. Perry who further stated that “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects”. Former Gov. Mitt Romney stated recently that “”we don’t know what’s causing climate change,” and “the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.””
This is probably their opinion and anything friends can bluntly share on a sit talk. Letting this out via the mass media shocked many who believe that further doubts to the climate change phenomenon may harm efforts to cut and cap emissions in time.
Everyone is entitled to h/her own opinion and opinion is sometimes based on inference on a particular subject. These politicians are not necessarily skeptics after some of their statements on record. Their attachment of a level of doubt to climate change response made the media and certain pundit paint them, skeptics.
Climate change is happening and economic hardship is also happening, climate change can cause devastating problems after a number of years, but economic hardship can end lives and prevent personal and national progress immediately. Given these issues and how much climate change may gulp in response, many prefer to remain skeptical to billions of dollars response to combat climate change.
Producing economies are top emitters around the world, both total and per capita. Most of these economies that should take the steering about mitigation efforts for the benefit of the world are themselves sunk into economic issues that may take a few years to go down.
Climate change skepticism surely has sections and one can be a skeptic in one or two but a few may ideally show skepticism in all aspects. For example, there is skepticism that is global warming really happening now? There is skepticism about the authenticity of climate change data from some organizations.
There is skepticism that carbon cuts and going green are businesses that political powers and their cohorts have investments in; there is skepticism that climate change happening now is usual in the life cycle of the earth occurring after many years similar to Earth Magnetic Field reversal; there are all kinds of skepticism.
Saying that global warming will not come about because of anthropogenic emissions and that continuous emission to the troposphere is not harmful to the earth climate system is possibly a form of delusional and out-of-knowledge skepticism. Global warming now or not, continuous emissions are threats to balance of the average temperature of the earth because emission of more heat trapping gases will trap more heat and may affect the balance.
Economic problems, security, health care, safe transport, food prices, immigration, trade balance, income and more are priorities for most governments these days and are action points for political debate than climate change that requires a global coordinated response than national.
Geoengineering (or Climate engineering) is not new in the world and leapt to the headlines after announcement of Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) by UK Scientists and a review by US Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) on Climate Remediation Research. Geoengineering is seen as an escape route for the world from global warming effects if emission curbs in place leave us and the environment in a realm of danger from average temperature rise.
Geoengineering has issues which can be listed and possibly developed into a book, but these are issues if we believe they are. Climate change ‘if’ it effects come will be a very serious issue and there may be ‘nowhere to run’ for many. Geoengineering is hotly considered but may need to go on a low to keep the attention on hopeful international agreement for emission curbs by the UN in sight.
People with doubts on geoengineering or (say) geoengineering skeptics because of consequences of the procedure should remember that for experimentation, extreme caution will be taken for each step because we all know how delicate the earth climate system is.
In pharmacology, some drugs are good targets for some deadly conditions and may have effect on other processes, so a balance is usually reached in study and preparation of components of these drugs for the human body that is too fragile and still complicated to present science.
Geoengineering may have effects but care to a reachable maximum will be taken as scientists try experiments that may sustain life forms and the environment. Most climate change skeptics will not likely be geoengineering skeptics giving the latter an advantage for broad talks and acceptance on the wide. In coming debates and campaigns, people and the media may ask Gov. Rick Perry and former Gov. Mitt Romney about their position on geoengineering? I doubt if they will have issues with it.
Download Links
- United States Bipartisan Policy Center Report on Climate Remediation
- Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE)
- Cloud Seeding
- Geoengineering the Ozone Layer
AUTHOR: David Stephen
URL: http://www.trpns.com
E-MAIL: Stephen [at] trpns.com
Tags: BPC > carbon > climate change > Climate engineering > CO2 emissions > Geoengineering > Mitt Romney > Rick Perry > SPICE
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