Al Gore says use of geo-engineering to head off climate disaster is insane

Belief in an instant planet-wide quick-fix, such as blocking sunlight with sulphur, is delusional, US activist declaresAl Gore said on Wednesday it would be "insane, utterly mad and delusional in the extreme" to turn to geo-engineering projects to avoid a climate catastrophe.The UN climate panel, in the next edition of its blockbuster reports, will warn that governments might have to extract vast amounts of greenhouses gases from the air by 2100 to limit climate change, according to a draft copy of the report seen by Reuters.But the former vice president of the US said that searches for an instant solution, which he said were born of desperation, were misguided and could lead to an even bigger catastrophe."The idea that we can put a different form of pollution into the atmosphere to cancel out the effects of global warming pollution is utterly insane," he told a conference call for South African reporters.He added: "The fact that some scientists who should know better are actually engaged in serious discussion of those alternatives is a mark of how desperate some of them are feeling due to the paralysis in the global political system."In March Gore will expand his climate leadership training programmes to South Africa. He said he believed those leadership training sessions (this is his 24th) had developed a cadre of leaders who were helping to find political solutions for climate change.The draft climate report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due for release...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Energy Fossil fuels theguardian.com United States Carbon footprints World news Geoengineering Carbon capture and storage (CCS) Oceans Global climate talks Sea level Al Gore Climate change Environment Carbon emissions Source Type: news