Should humanity deliberately engineer the climate (geoengineering)?
In 2023 Hank argued that humanity already engineers the climate by accident, so the real question is doing it intentionally and carefully. Later that year he added that even continuing accidental marine cloud brightening could carry risks, such as shifting rain elsewhere or salting cropland.
Axis: deliberately and carefully engineer the climate ... never intervene; too risky
Positions by date: 2 records in 2 videos. The position was refined (2023), never reversed, in these records.
Hank
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-08-04 | first on record | Hank says we are already geoengineering, so the question is not whether to start but whether to do it intentionally and carefully instead of accidentally and recklessly. | The Biggest Science Story of the Week 00:05:09 |
| 2023-10-04 | refine | Hank says continuing the accidental marine cloud brightening didn't seem scary to him, but maybe it is: seawater spraying might pull rain from elsewhere or salt croplands. | A Messy and Unhinged Introduction to Geoengineering 00:11:16 |