How Climate Intervention can Safely and Quickly Cool the Planet, HPAC NYC Climate Week, Sep. 26, 2025
Presentation (accompanying Baiman talk on near-term cooling): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JQ…
Delay in action to limit climate pollution has allowed end of century scenarios to prematurely initiate. Earth systems have begun to degrade and once degradation begins it does not self-restore unless the warming that caused it is removed. Degradation comes with reduction and reversal of Earth systems’ emissions sequestration that has already begun, and has the capacity to dwarf humankind’s total emissions in the very near term. This means our current climate culture’s 1.5 degree C above normal warming limit is now too warm and we must restore our climate back to within the natural variation of our Earth systems’ evolution at less than 1 degree C warming above normal. We must do this before these systems become so degraded that collapses become irreversible. To accomplish this and prevent, quoting Hobbes: “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” existential futures for much of humanity, emergency implementation of The Climate Triad Approach – Cool, Reduce, Remove – is required. As the point of no return could be as soon as mid-century, we must quickly cool our planet to give us time to reduce and draw down GHGs at a large enough scale to stabilize the climate and begin to regenerate nature. This will require net-zero emissions and removing vast amounts of legacy greenhouse gases from our atmosphere and oceans.
This event focuses on the highest priority near-term cooling, or “climate intervention”, aspect of The Climate Triad approach that must be accomplished in a short time or all other actions may become moot. “Climate intervention” refers to additional ways to seek to counter or counterbalance climate change induced effects and impacts that involve: (1) reflecting solar radiation or modifying long wave radiation, (2) are global or hemispheric in scope and (3) have to potential be deployed at scale within the next 20 years.
Speakers:
Ron Baiman, Co-Founder and Convening Coordinator, Healthy Planet Action Coalition
Bill Blecker, Chair, Education Committee, Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture
Aria McKenna, Founding Member – Healthy Pl anet Action Coalition, Writer/Producer/Host – Revolution Earth & Saving Planet Us @ Global Cooling Productions
Rafe Pomerance, Distinguished Senior Arctic Policy Fellow, Woodwell Climate Research Center
Jake Schwartz, Campaigns Manager, Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Herb Simmens, Co-Founder, Healthy Planet Action Coalition
Event by: Healthy Planet Action Coalition
Program:
Our event will be composed of two panels of three speakers, and then a single panel of all six, all addressing the issue of why near-term climate intervention is now necessary to supplement GHG emission reduction and draw down policies. Moderator (Ron Baiman) will introduce the panels and each of the speakers in the following order. For the first panel: 1) Bill Blecker will welcome attendees to the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, pass the hat,and speak about climate organizing, 2) Aria McKenna will speak about real hope for a safe climate, and 3) Herb Simmens will talk about the climate policy triad. Each speaker will speak for about 10 minutes and this will be followed by about 20 minutes of questions from the audience. After a 10 minute bathroom break, the second panel consisting of: 4) Rafe Pomerance on climate intervention and an upper limit metric to sea-level rise, 5) Ron Baiman on near-term climate cooling and 6) Jake Schwartz on federal and NGO climate intervention politics, will convene. This panel will follow a similar schedule. For the remaining time the floor will be thrown open for questions.
