The National Academy of Sciences framed geo-engineering technologies as a “last-ditch response option” in their recent report. If the negative effects of climate change, the rising air temperatures, the changing precipitation, the prevalence of extreme weather events, and the rising sea levels, become too disruptive or costly, we have the option to deploy certain climate altering technologies to remove greenhouse gases directly from the air or reflect sunlight back out of the atmosphere before it warms the earth. However, policy makers may not see these technologies as a last resort. Rather, they might view them as an opportunity to avoid the hard economic and political choices of a greenhouse gas mitigation regime. Why go through the expensive and painful process of cutting emissions when we can hack the climate and be done with the problem?
