Readers Respond on "A Sunshade for Planet Earth"
“A Sunshade for Planet Earth,” by Robert Kunzig, describes various geoengineering proposals to slow or reverse global warming. As an engineer, I appreciated the proposed technologies, but as an economist, I was appalled at what they would mean. First, it has been established that regulating a risky behavior only encourages more of that behavior. This tendency would mean that a technical fix to global warming would only encourage more carbon emissions. A related problem is that curbing emissions also lowers the current costs of dealing with the problem, making the development of other solutions less likely. Finally, big engineering fixes would require global support, yet there is a “free rider problem” in that many countries or coalitions will be unwilling to pay their share, and countries will have the incentive to cheat on the agreement. A neat engineering approach could lead to harsh economic and environmental conditions.
Michael Ollinger [More]
