Geoengineering -- David Keith Interview on Colbert Nation (2013)

Video Transcript:

You ever look those planes up there? They have contrails behind them? Maybe all those planes of the contrails, maybe they're actually spraying chemicals or the atmosphere right now, and Uncle Sam isn't telling us. It seems extremely unlikely. The fact that the United States is not telling something to its citizens, that seems extremely likely to me. We have a news statement. You look at that to drive. Welcome to the border, everybody. My guest tonight is a horrible side. There's a little book called a Case for Climate Engineering. That's how you end up with a Shark NATO. Please welcome David Keith. Hey. Thanks so much. Mr. Keith, Dr. Keith, what do you got? What are you calling you? I'm going with Mr. Keith. Okay, all right. Now, you've got a little book here called a Case for Climate Engineering. How will we save the planet? Because all the people, all the chicken littles out there are staying in the planet, is warming up. You don't believe that, do you? I totally believe it. It is warming up, and I've been thinking about it along with any other people, ways to stop it. Okay, does it involve me using one of those little pig tail light bulbs? That is a useful thing to do, and I have those in my house, but I'm thinking about something else. Okay, good. What's the other thing? Because I'd like to do anything other than that. Exactly. Exactly. Okay, so what do we do? The other thing is horrifying. It is that you could actually spray sulfuric acid in the stratosphere, 20 kilometers over our head. And use that to stop the planet warming up. Okay, you should feel tech fix. You could spray something into the atmosphere, just, okay, okay. Spray pollution into the atmosphere to stop it warming. So in the end, pollution saves them all. We owe pollution. We owe acid rain and apologies, what you said. Totally in perfect technical fix. Okay. It would have risks. It wouldn't get us out of the long run need to stop polluting, but it might actually say people and be useful. Okay, so again, I interrupt you slightly there. How does it work? How many planes are we talking about here? How do you do this? So let's say you wanted to stop it warming in 2020. You start with a fleet of just two or three kind of modified business jets. Well, kind of like a G6. Yeah, like a G6. Like a G6. That's it. And you put, you put say 20,000 tons of sulfuric acid into the stratosphere every year. And each year you have to put a little more. And this doesn't in the long run mean that you can forget about cutting emissions. We will need to rain in. No, we'll get to it eventually. But in the meantime, we're scrouting the earth in sulfuric acid. So people are terrified about talking about this, because they're scared that it will prevent us cutting emissions. Right. And also that it's sulfuric acid. It is air bearing the lead. Is there any possible way this could come back to bite us in the ass? Like it in the earth in sulfuric acid, because I'm all for it. This is the all chocolate dinner. I still get to have my CO2. And I just need to spray sulfuric acid. Right. All over the earth. Right question. But we put 50 million tons of sulfuric acid in the air now as pollution. And it kills a million people a year worldwide. OK. And that's good or bad? It's terrible. But it'll be better if we put more in. We're talking about 1% of that, a tiny fraction of that. So we should reduce that sulfuric acid. If it kills a million people, and we're only about 1% more, we're just killing 10,000 more people. You can do math. OK. But that's so killing people is not the objective here. Killing people, not the objective. I just wanted to be clear. I just wanted to be clear. Actually, slowing climate change, actually stopping climate change in a way that could help people this generation, people living now, in a way there's no other easy alternative. Can you just do it for part of the planet? Pretty much the whole planet. No, but could you? Could you just like say, just make things better for the United States? Very hard to do. It seems that this is most be global. But the big fear is that one country will one at one way and one the other, like two frat boys arguing over the thermostat. And in many ways, the biggest fear here, well, we have no idea how to actually agree about how to control the planet's thermostat. So let's say the United States and China say, yeah, let's do it. But Russia and India say, yeah, not do it. This is the kind of stuff I wake up sweating about. Exactly. Well, it's your goddamn idea. No. No, it actually turns out to be an old idea. This is no one since President Johnson. And the sign of the community mostly decide not to talk about it for fear that people would then lose the threat of cutting emissions. No, what happens to the sulfuric acid after its spray? Does it just stay up there? No, it rains down. OK. But as I said, it rains down. OK, OK. It's a tiny addition. OK. OK. Have you gotten some grief for suggesting this? Sure. I mean, this is like writing a book as the case for leprosy. But do you have one of those? Yeah, it's a great weight loss plan. But also, many people are happy that people are finally talking about this because while it is ugly, it does appear that it really could do some good. Could an individual start this? In practice, only a country. OK. What about a man in like a hollowed out volcano? With henchmen who occasionally shakes his fist at the sky and says, they said I was a fool at Harvard. Who's the fool now? It's the natural worry. Where's Jacob? I want to shake your fist and say the fools. It's the natural worry. But I think in the end, no. This would be done by major countries. But the problem is how countries agree about where to set the thermostat, who decides and my biggest reason for writing a book and for talking about it is my view that we won't make good decisions at ignorance. So we have to have the discussion now so that when it becomes our last hope, people can say, hey, we talked about this. Remember, we said we get to do it. The worst way to make decisions about this would be if we all agree that we won't talk about in polite society, we suppress it, which is basically what had been happening. And then in 2030, suddenly in a crisis, we make fast decisions. Maybe it's happening already. You ever look those planes up there? They have contrails behind them? Maybe all those planes of the contrails, maybe they're actually spraying chemicals or the atmosphere right now and Uncle Sam isn't telling us. It seems extremely unlikely. The fact that the United States is not telling something to its citizens, that seems extremely likely to me. We have a news paper. I think they might have your idea already. Dr. Mr. Thank you so much. David Keith, a case for climate engineering. We'll be right back.