Should We Dim the Sun? Will We Even Have a Choice?
About this episode
New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert, author of 'Under a White Sky,' discusses humanity's escalating attempts to engineer its way out of environmental crises. The conversation centers on solar geoengineering, the idea of dimming the sun by spraying particles into the atmosphere, and whether it could buy time against warming or would create new geopolitical and ecological dangers. They also discuss direct air capture of carbon dioxide, the hubris of earlier interventions like introducing new species to control pests, and CRISPR gene-editing technology. Kolbert is skeptical that technological fixes can substitute for cutting emissions, arguing that each attempt to control nature tends to produce new problems requiring further control, a cycle she sees as the defining pattern of the Anthropocene.