The former US Vice President believes geo-engineering will do more harm than good

Jan 16, 2014 09:01 GMT  ·  By
Al Gore does not think geo-engineering can help solve the global warming crisis
   Al Gore does not think geo-engineering can help solve the global warming crisis

The United Nations climate panel is expected to soon release a new report saying that, if global warming is to be limited to just 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), world leaders might have to give the green light to geo-engineering projects intended to rid the atmosphere of some of the greenhouses gases that have built up in it over the years.

While some might welcome such a move, former United States Vice President Al Gore is anything but convinced that geo-engineering could help put a leash on climate change and global warming.

On the contrary, Al Gore is very much convinced that such projects would only cause more damage to the planet, and should therefore not be given the green light.

According to The Guardian, the former vice president referred to plans to use geo-engineering to cool the planet to a certain extent as being “insane, utterly mad and delusional in the extreme.”

Talking to the press, Al Gore further added that, although the urgency of limiting global warming might translate into some people's starting to look for an instant solution to this problem, the fact remains that geo-engineering is bound to do more harm than good.

“The idea that we can put a different form of pollution into the atmosphere to cancel out the effects of global warming pollution is utterly insane,” the former vice president reportedly said.

“We are already engaged in a planet-wide experiment with consequences we can already tell are unpleasant for the future of humanity. So the hubris involved in thinking we can come up with a second planet-wide experiment that would exactly counteract the first experiment is delusional in the extreme,” he went on to add.

Al Gore also stressed the fact that, apart from the fact that geo-engineering projects such as putting sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere in order to limit the amount of sunlight that reaches our planet are highly risky, such initiatives do very little – if anything – to deal with other effects of pollution like ocean acidification.

The news that geo-engineering might have to be used to combat global warming comes shortly after UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said that, in order for human society to meet its climate change targets, investments in renewables must triple.