This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

by Naomi Klein

The risks can be debated and contested, of course—and they are. The most common response is that, yes, there could be negative impacts, but not as negative as the impacts of climate change itself. David Keith goes further, arguing that we have the power to effectively minimize the risks with appropriate design; he proposes an SRM program that would slowly ramp up and then down again, “in combination with cutting emissions and with a goal to reduce—but not eliminate—the rate of temperature rise.” As he explains in his 2013 book, A Case for Climate Engineering, “Crop losses, heat stress and flooding are the impacts of climate change that are likely to fall most harshly on the world [sic] poorest. The moderate amounts of geoengineering contemplated in this slow ramp scenario are likely to reduce each of these impacts over the next half century, and so it will benefit the poor and politically disadvantaged who are most vulnerable to rapid environmental change. This potential for reducing climate risk is the reason I take geoengineering seriously.”40