The fossil fuel industry’s playbook

The title of the op-ed, “The world can’t afford to politicize climate change research” is disingenuous. its content is as false as arguing that smoking is not harmful in rooms with air purifiers. ironically it supports the political playbook of the fossil fuel industry:

we must continue using fossil fuels indefinitely.

There are no proven technologies enabling us to reduce our dependence on these fuels by 85 percent (there are, but deployment is being aggressively blocked by the fossil fuel industry).

instead, to tackle the impact of human-accelerated climate warming, we should invest in mitigating, not eliminating, fossil fuels and pursue geoengineering interventions in complex geosystems with unknown consequences.

we will eventually need to remove carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere after reducing our uses of fossil fuels to the minimum. Today removal is very far from reaching the required capacity of removing multiple billions of tons of carbon dioxide annually. Research to determine which methods are scalable and affordable is justified.

specifically, the idea of reproducing the effects of volcanic eruptions on temperature by releasing particulates and sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere is alarming. These very small particles will fall to earth, adding to those produced by the combustion of fossil fuels, which are already notorious sources of harm for human health and huge increases in the costs of health care. The woods hole oceanographic institution concludes after looking at one ocean-based geoengineering approach: “But it’s important to remember that such approaches do not replace the need for immediate and major reductions in the use of fossil fuels that produce carbon dioxide in the first place.” mARTYn RoeTTeR