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Mary Shelly's work was not intended as Science Fiction but as an allegory for the Industrial Revolution and the vanity of man placing himself above nature. So I think it is quite ironic to invoke it in this context, since it is precisely this which brought us to where we are.

Our creation HAS lurched out of control... it is our modern civilization, just about everything about which is perverse. Most of our "benefits" of civilization turn out to be just ways of passing the costs (with exorbitant interest) on to our children. We have been placing ourselves above nature since the dawn of civilization, but with the Industrial Revolution we took it to a new level, and from there we've been increasing the the level every step of the way, like a financial pyramid sceme.

Actually, I personally think that all the geoengineering schemes I've heard of so far are insane and wont work... the environment is too complex and unintended consequences which might send us from the fire into the frying pan would be practically guaranteed. But so long as we continue to think the way we have been thinking all along geoengineering is nothing other than the logical course of action. There simply is no other way to sufficiently reduce our impact on the planet without a complete restructuring our civilization. And how can one even conceive of such a restructuring without something at least as drastic as a world war? So which will it be, geoengineering or all-out war followed by a new beginning (if there's anything and anyone left to begin anew)?

Of course Fred seems to think that things aren't really all that bad, or at least they won't be for another few centuries. Now that's just pure ostrichism. Not only were the forecasts of the IPCC Third Assessment Report in 2001 already extremely grim for the next century, but every year since then new data has come to light that shows that things are getting worse faster than expected. In addition there are numerous potential positive feedback loops (such as a release of methane from melting permafrost or collapse of the oceanic carbon sink) of which no one yet knows the full extend and which could cause warming to acelerate out of control in mere decades.

In my opinion even the other commenter is overly optimistic. Food shortages may begin in years, rather than the middle of the century. Maybe not yet mass starvation, but even a small shortage would have disastrous effects on global political stability and the world's economies...

Speaking of which---economies---the reality is that markets don't wait for shortages, they anticipate them. As I wrote in a comment to another article on this site recently, our economy has recently had a time-horizon of approximately 20 years (due to P/E ratios, long-term bonds, etc.). Since any reasonable assessment of the potential for "growth" in 2030 is looking pretty bad today, this fact, although certainly not solely responsible for our current financial crisis, will guarantee that the markets will never recover to their previous levels.

Prepare for the greatest depression.

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