President Donald Trump’s former international energy adviser has a new, counterintuitive pitch to sell Republicans on one set of technologies to reduce global warming: They could help keep the world hooked on oil, gas and coal, at least for a while.

“If I were in this current White House, I’d say, ‘Well, we should support SRM because it’s a good insurance policy for continued fossil fuel use,'” said George David Banks, referring to solar radiation management, a largely theoretical response to global warming that involves spraying reflective particles into the stratosphere.

That’s the very concern that puts responsible people off this type of geoengineering: it will enable us to continue damaging the planet without seeing the full consequences, until our children and grandchildren find themselves in an even worse uninhabitable mess than we’re currently heading for. The fact that this downside is a selling point to Republicans suggests that they are sociopaths, and/or deluded rich people who think money and bunkers will protect them from the collapse of civilization.