Public Comment

New: Erroneous Information About Me on This Site

By Ken Caldeira
Tuesday May 07, 2013 - 09:15:00 AM

Vivian Warkentin's fantasies seem to have outrun reality. As a result, she posted some text on your web site that is misleading, at best. She implies that I have "plans to mitigate global warming by blocking sunlight from the earth with chemical jet aerosols, such as sulphur dioxide and aluminum oxide dust." I can assure her that I have no such plans.  

Some people apparently have difficulty distinguishing between people who study "what would happen if .." and people who advocate actually doing such things. I have also studied what would happen if the Earth froze over, but I do not advocate freezing the entire planet. I have studied what would happen if we burn all available fossil fuels, but I do not advocate burning all available fossil fuels. I have studied what would happen if we cut down all forests but I do not advocate cutting down all forests. I often study things that we do not want to be doing. ( I also spend much of my time studying and trying to bring attention to the issue of ocean acidification.) 

I left a well-paying job on Wall Street and took a factor-of-10 reduction in my income so that I could spend my time studying and communicating about environmental issues. In this context, it is amusing to read Warkentin talk about "those who truly care about the environment" as if I were not part of that group.