National Research Council on Climate Change

In its February 16, 2015 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, Steven Gibb reports that the National Research Council (NRC) is underscoring the need to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide before exploring ways to modify Earth's climate. The NRC is said to have released two reports on February 10 and has three suggestions. Before going into the detail of those suggestions, let us take a look at who the NRC is.
The NRC was organized on June 19, 1916 by the National Academy of Sciences (a private organization), at the request of President Woodrow Wilson. The purpose of the NRC was in part to foster and encourage ..."the increased use of scientific research in the development of American industries...the employment of scientific methods in strengthening the national defense ...and such other applications of science as will promote the national security and welfare." Since its inception, the NRC has done much good work, but through the years has become more politicized. It has retained its private status, with the likelihood that is now a hotbed of leftist scientists, as leftist environmentalists have infiltrated the organization.
In 2001, the NRC Committee on the Science of Climate Change published Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions. The report explicitly endorsed the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's findings as representing the view of the scientific community. The report has a quotation, "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rise are expected to continue through the 21st century... The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue."
Basically, the NRC has held the view that for at least the past 14 years, climate change is man-induced. However, it had weasel worded its position by the use of the terms "likely", "mostly", "cannot rule out", and "are expected to continue".
On July 1, 2005  Ralph J. Cicerone became the 21st president of the National Academy of Sciences and chairman of the NRC. This was four years after the NRC had stated its position with respect to man-induced climate change, and I strongly suspect that Cicerone would not have been appointed Chairman of the NRC, if he had in any way been opposed to the National Academy's position on global warming.
Three months after Dr. Cicerone was appointed NRC Chairman, Chemical and Engineering News published an interview with him. One comment Dr. Cicerone made at the interview was, "For example, what is the most effective way to limit carbon dioxide emissions? Would it be a carbon tax?" With that statement, he obviously believes, or at least finds it politically expedient to say, that man-generated carbon dioxide through burning of fossil fuels results in global warming. Notice that he had not bothered to put in the weasel words of the NRC position four years earlier.
With that questionable background on the reliability of NRC positions, let us take a look at its recommendations.
The first is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By the term "greenhouse gases", NRC primarily means carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and possibly methane from accidental release in production of natural gas and from the intestinal activities of food animals and human beings. We have already embarked on that program of reducing CO2 emissions, even though there has not been any clearly established relationship between carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and global warming, or the recently modified term "climate change". In the Obama administration's promotion of solar and wind energy, and the EPA restrictions on use of coal as powerplant fuel, we have already spent many billions of dollars.
The second proposal is to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through carbon dioxide removal (CDR). This would involve efforts to increase photosynthesis, and ocean iron fertilization, both of which are absorption techniques. The third CDR technique would be to process all atmospheric air through a device to remove the carbon dioxide. Let's always keep in mind that all of these proposals are made on the basis that "maybe" carbon dioxide in the atmosphere contributes to global warming.
The third proposal is really far out. It involves so-called Solar Radiation Management (SRM). The theory is that if you restructure the atmosphere to reduce the amount of radiation received at the Earth's surface, global warming will automatically be reduced. It's a theory and probably a good one but basically impractical. The specific proposal would be to add sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere as a radiation insulator, but there's a catch; acid rain.
Acid rain was first recognized about 30 years ago. Power plants were burning coal contaminated with sulfur, which also burned to produce sulfur dioxide. The sulfur dioxide gas was emitted to the atmosphere where it then further reacted with atmospheric oxygen to produce sulfur trioxide. The sulfur trioxide gas in the atmosphere was water-soluble, picked up by falling rain and deposited to the Earth's surface as dilute sulfuric acid. The acidification of lakes, ponds, and other inland waterways negatively affected aquatic life. The solution was to extract the sulfur from the coal before burning and thereby eliminate sulfur dioxide in the stack gases. Perhaps 30 years post experience use it is too long a term for the NRC to remember. It is obviously illogical to use intentional addition of sulfur dioxide to the atmosphereit now to try to control global warming, which would also mean a return to acid rain.
What does all this mean? To me, it means that the whole process of irrationality begins when someone has a thought, which in more scientific consideration is generally called a theory. People latch onto the theory, accepting it as fact, rather than attempting to develop whether it has any validity. They then go on to expend tremendous amounts of money on suppositions. Many of these people are scientists, who should know better based upon their training, but for some reason or other seem to take an emotional approach to the extent of irrationality. In addition, these misguided scientists form into groups which then obtain a kind of political power and lead us down the road to destruction.
What is our defense? The answer is simple but requires work. First, be skeptical of everything you hear that does not seem to make sense. Trust no one based upon so-called credentials of education and power within organizations. I don't expect the average person to become an expert on global warming. There are too many of these so-called experts doing damage to our economy, but the average person needs to use common sense. Always ask the question of whether it is real or just somebody's thought or theory. Remember that these screwballs are looking for money. Deprive them of same and let's get on with the real threats of Islamic terrorism, uncontrolled national debt, nuclear weapons proliferation, and similar obvious problems, where we can have solutions. God or nature has set up this world with automatic climate controls far beyond the capabilities of man. Let's not be so egotistical as to think that we can play God. Our job is to cooperate with nature as best we can. Use an umbrella when it rains or stay indoors.