Global Environmental Policy/ESS Seminar with David Keith

Practical Geoengineering

Carbon dioxide emissions seem set to peak this decade, but even if emissions were suddenly reduced to zero Earth will stay hot for thousands of years. Cooling Earth this century requires that emissions cuts be supplemented with either carbon removal or sunlight reflection, or both. I will focus on practical steps towards sunlight reflection using stratospheric sulfate aerosols that could enable a significant decrease in warming by mid-century.

Bio

David Keith has worked near the interface between climate science, energy technology, and public policy since 1990. He took first in Canada’s national physics prize exam, won MIT’s prize for excellence in experimental physics, and was one of TIME Magazine’s Heroes of the Environment. David is Professor of Geophysical Sciences and founding faculty director of the Climate Systems Engineering initiative at the University of Chicago.

Best known for his work on the science, technology, and public policy of solar geoengineering, David led the development of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program before moving to Chicago in 2023. His policy work has ranged from analysis of electricity markets and carbon prices to research on public and expert perceptions of risky technologies. David’s hardware work includes the first interferometer for atoms, a high-accuracy infrared spectrometer for NASA’s ER-2, the development of Carbon Engineering’s air contactor, and the development of a stratospheric propelled balloon experiment for solar geoengineering.

David founded of Carbon Engineering, a Canadian company developing technology to capture CO2from ambient air. David teaches science and technology policy, climate science, and solar geoengineering. He has reached >150,000 students worldwide with an edX energy course. David is author of >200 academic publications with total citation count of >20,000. He has written for the public in op-eds and A Case for Climate Engineering. For more details, please visit David’s website here.