One of America’s most eminent climate scientists, Dr. Michael MacCracken says: don’t close your ears to Geoengineering. Mike speaks with UK videographer and climate journalist Nick Breeze, in a May 2025 YouTube interview. With Nick’s permission, hear it now. At the end, find other points of view – plus a new song from Radio Ecoshock: “Too Late Times”.
Listen to or download this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (57 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)
THE NEW EUROPEAN WAR
Europe has another war on it’s hands. The enemy in the summer of ’25 is fire. Aircraft and firefighters from many countries flock to the south. Damaging and deadly fires are raging in Spain, France, Greece, Albania and more. European leaders and media make clear the cause is climate induced record heat and drought.
According to the Financial Times: “Data shows number of blazes in Europe has jumped by nearly 50% in 2025 during repeated heatwaves.”
More record wildfires are burning across Canada, coast to coast and in between. The North Pacific has been in a marine heat wave for months. Japan and Korea were unbearably hot. The Middle East is too, including Israel and Iran – and Turkey where fires rage.
Some scientists say it is time to explore turning down the sun. It is called solar radiation management. Similar to the cooling effect of volcanoes, high flying planes release sulfur particles to deflect sunlight and encourage clouds. Other experts warn of giant risks, things like Monsoon failures endangering hundreds of millions.
Serious people suggest solar radiation management may not work as a last resort. If we wait until 2 or 3 degrees of warming, various tipping points and unstoppable polar ice melt could be already triggered. Does that mean humans should try engineering now?
Veteran American climate scientist Michael MacCracken thinks so. In this program you hear MacCracken with UK climate videographer Nick Breeze of ClimateGenn. The YouTube video of this interview is titled:
“2.5ºC–3ºC Is Not Viable: Dr. Mike MacCracken’s Case for Solar Radiation Management “
FURTHER DISCUSSION
Is climate change already so bad, humans need to hold further temperatures temporarily, by dimming the sun? Nick Breeze also recommends his April 2025 interview with Professor Raymond Pierre Humbert on the Dangers of Solar Geoengineering. Find that on YouTube on the Nick Breeze ClimateGenn channel, or Nick’s web site at genn.cc We are lucky to have Nick finding key climate scientists to talk about their work.
In addition to Humbert, check out what Bill McKibben and Jeff Goodell say. See this article with Pierre Humbert in Slate (Jan 19, 2016) “These two Experts Answered Your Burning Geoegineering Questions: with Jeff Goodell.”
ALSO Bill McKibben in the New Yorker November 22, 2022: “Dimming the Sun to Cool the Planet Is a Desperate Idea, Yet We’re Inching Toward It”.
Geoengineering has been covered in a half dozen Radio Ecoshock shows. Try “Shades of the Future” posted May 22, 2024. Long-time journalist, film-maker, and author Dr. Gwynne Dyer says “yes” in his new book “Intervention Earth – Life-Saving Ideas from the World’s Climate Engineers”. Australian author Clive Hamilton on geoengineering & his book “Earthmasters”. That interview is from May 2013. Going back to 2009, in my show “Geoengineering: Bye Bye Blue Skies” op climate scientist Alan Robock lays out a laundry list of reasons why trying to control the climate may not be such a good idea.
Way, way back in 2008, newcomer Alex Smith interviewed Mike MacCracken about sudden and abrupt climate change. Here is a quick two minute sample from that program.
Transcript:
ALEX SMITH: Michael McCracken is the chief scientist for the Climate Institute in Washington, DC. He’s a past president of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences. He’s also an editor of a new book called Sudden and Disruptive Climate Change, Exploring Real Risks and How We Can Avoid Them. We’re pleased to have doctor McCracken with us today.
With all the strange weather changes and melting ice, this new book should interest a lot of people. Can you begin by telling us what is abrupt climate change?
MacCRACKEN Well, the general perception has been that the climate will sort of gradually shift as the concentration of CO2 rises in the atmosphere. But I think what we’re finding is, and if you look at the historical record – the Earth’s history – you see the potential for rather sudden changes for it to to change in jumps and starts.
The Earth’s sort of a finite size, the wave patterns of the atmospheric circulation can go one way around the mountain or gradually they can shift and go another way around. And so you end up getting shifts or surprisingly rapid changes, and we’re trying to point out that that’s much more possible, than it’s been considered in the past.
Listen to or download that 19 minute Interview with Dr. Michael MacCracken in CD Quality 17 MB or Lo-Fi 4 MB
I’m Alex Smith. Thank you for listening this week, and for caring about the future for all.
SHOW THEME SONG
Listen to or download the new song “Too Late Time” (Lyrics by Alex Smith, music by AI 2 min 19 sec. Creative Commons free use for non-profit purposes.)