'Nightly News' Proposes 'Geo-Engineering' Atmosphere as Solution to Climate Change
Should mankind engineer nature as a “last resort” to halt global warming? On NBC’s Dec. 26 broadcast of “Nightly News,” network correspondent Donna Friesen floated several means by which man could not only alter the weather, as the Chinese did in Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics, but the entire earth’s climate.
“But now the magnitude of global warming has led some scientist to go much further,” Friesen said. “From putting trillions of parasols in space that would block the sun to using airplanes, balloons, even missiles that would block the sun to pump sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere – the same stuff volcanoes emit. It reduces the amount of sunlight reaching earth. It’s called geo-engineering.”
There was some skepticism offered during Friesen’s segment, including Martin Bunzl of
Therefore, it means one of two things according to Friesen – either invest more into this type of science, or just go with the company line that NBC and other media outlets have been promoting and cut carbon emissions.
“All the more reason, say some scientists, to invest in serious geo-engineering research now rather than wait until there’s a crisis,” Friesen said. “[N]o one believes these schemes are magic bullets that will fix the climate. Cutting carbon emissions is still the real solution, but geo-engineering could end up being a last resort.”
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