Will We Artificially Cool the Planet? The Science and Politics of Geoengineering with Ted Parson
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 549 Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2025
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Global heating continues, despite the increased use of renewable energy sources and international policies attempting otherwise. Even as emissions reduction efforts continue, our world faces more extreme weather, sea level rise, and human health impacts, all of which are projected to accelerate in the coming decades. This raises an important but controversial question: at what point might more drastic interventions, like geoengineering, become necessary in order to cool the planet?
In this episode, Nate interviews Professor Ted Parson about solar geoengineering (specifically stratospheric aerosol injection) as a potential response to severe climate risks. They explore why humanity may need to consider deliberately cooling Earth by spraying reflective particles in the upper atmosphere, how the technology would work, as well as the risks and enormous governance challenges involved. Ted emphasizes the importance of having these difficult conversations now, so that we're prepared for the wide range of climate possibilities in the future.
How does stratospheric aerosol injection actually work? What is the likelihood that a major nation (or rogue billionaire) might employ this approach in the next thirty years? What ethical, moral, and biophysical concerns should we consider as we weigh the costs and benefits of further altering Earth's planetary balance?
About Ted Parson:
Edward A. (Ted) Parson is Dan and Rae Emmett Professor of Environmental Law and Faculty Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles. Parson studies international environmental law and policy, the societal impacts and governance of disruptive technologies including geoengineering and artificial intelligence, and the political economy of regulation.
His most recent books are The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change (with Andrew Dessler), and A Subtle Balance: Evidence, Expertise, and Democracy in Public Policy and Governance, 1970-2010. His 2003 book, Protecting the Ozone Layer: Science and Strategy, won the Sprout Award of the International Studies Association and is widely recognized as the authoritative account of the development of international cooperation to protect the ozone layer.
In addition to his academic positions, Parson has worked and consulted for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress, the Privy Council Office of the Government of Canada, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | cutting emissions to zero doesn't bring the climate back to where it was. |
| 0:04.4 | It just stops it from getting even more perturbed. |
| 0:07.0 | We still need to do mitigation. |
| 0:08.8 | And if we think about geoengineering, we need to think about ways of making these complementary |
| 0:12.8 | and doing them both. |
| 0:14.1 | A lot of people think this is so profoundly corrupt and wrongheaded that nobody should |
| 0:18.6 | be thinking about it. |
| 0:19.6 | But the reason we're thinking |
| 0:21.5 | about it in part is that up there, you can get the climate cooling effect at a much smaller, |
| 0:29.5 | but not zero, risk or harm. |
| 0:34.7 | You're listening to the Great Simplification. |
| 0:37.8 | I'm Nate Hagen's. |
| 0:39.1 | On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, the environment, and human behavior all fit together and what it might mean for our future. |
| 0:47.5 | By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play emergent roles in the coming great simplification. |
| 1:01.2 | Today I'm joined by environmental law professor Ted Parson to discuss the uncomfortable |
| 1:09.1 | possibilities of geoengineering and the geopolitical implications of its |
| 1:14.2 | research development and potential use in the biosphere. |
| 1:18.7 | Ted Parson is the Dan and Ray Emmett Professor of Environmental Law, as well as the faculty |
| 1:23.4 | director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of |
| 1:29.1 | California, Los Angeles, aka UCLA. TED has spent decades studying international environmental |
| 1:37.4 | law and policy as well as the societal impacts and governance of disruptive technologies, |
| 1:43.9 | including geoengineering, artificial intelligence, |
... |
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