Kate Marvel

I think we have to understand that if we do this, this is a decision that will affect all life on the planet.

I mean, in these times, I really don't want to stomp on anybody's optimism.

I think we need as much as we can get.

What I will say is that I am a lot more cautious.

I am a lot more cautious, and this is coming both from my position as a scientist who has studied how the physical Earth system works and

but also from my position as a human being who knows what I know and what I don't know.

And it's actually all of the things that I don't know that scare me the most about geoengineering.

I feel very strongly that it's a bad idea.

And I actually think that the vast majority of researchers would agree with me.

All but the most zealous geoengineering advocates would say, I would rather we not have to do this.

I mean, I think we have to understand that if we do this, this is a decision that will affect all life on the planet.

I don't think it should be up to a couple guys in California.

So that scares me.

What also scares me is this emerging narrative that it's inevitable and it's easy.

I am an agnostic about geoengineering.

I think it is a bad idea, but it may be that it turns out to be a less bad idea than some of the

horrific consequences of a warming planet.

I'm willing to keep an open mind on that.

But what I am really disturbed by is the suggestion that it is somehow an easy thing, that all we have to do is turn down the sun, that we can cancel out a century of greenhouse gas emissions and continued greenhouse gas emissions with one simple trick.

I think that rhetoric is extremely dangerous.