STS Homecoming Event

Family Homecoming Special Event

"Can Climate Engineering Serve as a Complementary Step to Aggressive Mitigation?"

Friday, Sept. 25 at 4:00 pm in Olin 1 -- with cookies and cider

Michael MacCracken, The Climate Institute, Washington, DC

Changes in climate are already having important regional impacts, especially in polar regions, and further warming is inevitable as the climate comes into a new equilibrium with the present concentrations of greenhouse gases. With the rising risk of greater adverse consequences, and with the elimination all greenhouse gas emissions certain to take many decades or even centuries, there is growing discussion about whether deliberate intervention (often referred to as geoengineering) merits consideration. Preliminary analyses appear to indicate that, assuming the success of further research, regionally focused geoengineering could limit at least a few of the most severe potential impacts of global warming at a relatively low cost.

Michael MacCracken is a distinguished scientist with the Climate Institute in Washington, DC. He directed the U.S. Global Change Research Program (1993-2002), edited the IPCC AR4 (2007), served as president of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (2003-07) and was as a lead author for the UN’s report Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable (2007). He is prominent in science-policy circles discussing “What shall we do?” about climate change.