Comments on: Dear Entrepreneurs: There's No Money in Geoengineering

By: Marion Delgado

Marion Delgado — Fri, 28 May 2010 07:42:03 +0000

Wrong.

Dead wrong.

What we say:

Geoengineering is advocated to promote delay. And it’s promoted mostly by right-wing market fundamentalists. On the face of it, it makes no sense. It’s like saying you should let your children play by the atomic pile because probably a combination of charcoal and blood replacement can make them live a few extra years after they get cancer and a little radiation sickness.

And we’re right about that.

CF. The Freakonomics frauds, Nathan Myrhvold, etc.

This is the biggest – and frankly, the stupidest and most offensive – error I’ve seen you make, Chris. You’re misunderstanding our point completely, and that leads you to blithely ignore the reality we’re pointing to. It’s not the money to be made from geoengineering – that’s a red herring like the money people supposedly make doing research which is why they pretend there’s AGW. It’s the money already being made in fossil fuels, deforestation, etc. etc. and the amicus curiae element for all industry that wants to fight the very concept of regulation – their profits don’t have to match the externalities they cause, because they don’t PAY for the externalities. That’s not econ 101, it’s pre-econ.

By: Christopher Mims

Christopher Mims — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:09:56 +0000

Thank you for saying this. The truth is, the people who are researching geoengineering are doing it because absent geoengineering, they’re pretty sure we are toast. I can’t imagine an impulse more diametrically opposed to the short-term self interest that motivates the accumulation of capital.

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 24 May 2010 20:27:59 +0000

Ooops, the article you linked to *is* about Planktos and Climos, and it sounds like those projects aren’t getting funded now…

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 24 May 2010 19:32:08 +0000

Geoengineering companies are getting funded (see Planktos and Climos). But some people think biochar is geoengineering and don’t like it, which is strange.

I could see why libertarian types would like geoengineering–it certainly fits with the Luntz memo strategy of handwaving about Technology…

By: Albert Bakker

Albert Bakker — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:22:09 +0000

Does your theory answer why as a corporation you would want to burn money on geoengineering, when you can hire professionals to deny the whole problem out of existence far cheaper with the same results for you? That seems to be the strategy of choice to date for some reason I’d think.

By: William Furr

William Furr — Mon, 24 May 2010 13:27:58 +0000

You don’t profit off of geoengineering directly. You profit from it by using it to enable your company to carry on doing business-as-usual, emitting whatever the heck you feel like, without having to make any changes, confident that the geo-engineers will clean up your mess and keep the planet habitable.

It means “sustainability” without having to give up consumerism.