[I think that as a climate-saving strategy geo-engineering is somewhere between a dead end and a hoax — why would you choose chemotherapy that might make you sicker if your doctors told you diet and exercise would definitely work (see "Geo-engineering remains a bad idea" and "Geo-engineering is not the answer")?
The likely new science advisor, John Holdren, has written, "The ‘geo-engineering’ approaches considered so far appear to be afflicted with some combination of high costs, low leverage, and a high likelihood of serious side effects (PDF)." And the new head of NOAA is someone "who would put oceans first," whereas absent a successful effort to stabilize at 450 ppm or below, most geo-engineering schemes would put oceans last, leaving them acidified and inhospitable to most current ocean life, possibly for hundreds of thousands of years. But do our children and their children and the next 5000 generations really need a livable ocean if it means we don’t have to reallocate about 1% to 2% of our wealth today (see "Absolute must read report: Debate over, further delay fatal, action not costly")?
Yet desperation drives some people to contemplate extreme things, and climate scientists are increasingly desperate to prevent global warming (see "Desperate times, desperate scientists"). Jeff Goodell files this reports dispatch from the AGU’s annual meeting.]
On Wednesday, in the Q & A session after Jim Hansen’s talk about the dire state of the earth at the AGU meeting, eminent Rutgers University professor Paul Falkowski asked Hansen: "The genie is out of the bottle now — What do you think of geoengineering as a way to deal with global warming?"
I half-expected Hansen to throw his laser-pointer at Falkowski. After all, geoengineering — deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the earth’s climate — has long been a taboo subject in the climate debate. Only crackpots brought it up.
But Hansen didn’t miss a beat. He said it would make sense to try "soft" geoengineering first, such as no-till agricutlure and afforestation. But as a last resort, Hansen admitted, more aggressive geoengineering schemes might be necessary. Call it prudence. Or desperation.
Geoengineering comes to two flavors: the less controversial variety is really just carbon management, such as dumping iron in the oceans to stimulate plankton blooms or building stand-alone machines that can strip CO2 out of the air. The bolder variety is more accurately described as albedo engineering, since it refers to technologies that modulate the amount of short wave radiation (aka sunlight) that hits the planet. One popular idea is to mimic the natural process of a volcano and inject tiny particles into the stratosphere to deflect sunlight. Another is to seed clouds to brighten them and increase reflectivity. In theory, you can offset the warming caused by a doubling of CO2 by reducing the amount of sunlight that hits the earth by just 1 - 2 %. And, unlike carbon management, which works slowly due to the earth’s thermal inertia, albedo engineering is something you could do to lower the temperature of the planet in a hurry.
There have always been three big objections to geoengineering: first, that it’s a "quick fix" that diverts attention from the push to cut CO2 pollution; second, that cooling the earth by reducing sunlight does nothing to solve other urgent problems caused by high CO2 levels, such as ocean acidification; third, that we are mucking around with a system we don’t understand and will undoubtedly screw it up. And if the climate system crashes, there is no restart button.
These objections remain. But they are increasingly downed out by rapidly melting ice, our abject failure to cut CO2, and fears of big climate surprises in the near future. As David Keith, Director of the Energy and Enviromental Systems Group at the University of Calgary, put it in his talk at AGU on Thursday morning: "Uncertainty + Inertia = Danger."
But Thursday’s sessions at AGU reinforced the idea that geoengineering is fraught with unexpected complexity. Keith sketched ideas about how you might loft particles into the stratosphere (dump them out of jet aircraft, push them up a long hose connected to a high-altitude balloon), as well as the possibility of engineering particles to optimize mass and light-scattering qualities. But Richard Turco, professor of atmospheric sciences at UCLA, argued that it is extremely difficult to control the size of particles in the stratosphere, thus making it hard to know how much to inject and what the precise impact will be. "It will be like trying to control the clouds," Turco said.
As for environmental impacts, one big concern is changes in global precipitation patterns. Although some climate modelers have argued that a geoengineered climate might be more like our own than a high-CO2 climate without geoengineering, one of the mostly hotly debated issues right now is how brighter clouds or particles in the stratosphere will impact rainfall in the tropics and sub-tropics. One modeling study presented at AGU showed severe drying in the Amazon basin; another was inconclusive.
"Maybe geoengineering is a crazy idea," one veteran climate scientist told me after Thursday’s session. "But it’s even crazier not to consider it, because the sad truth is, the way things are going, we may need it."
[Geo-engineering is one of the most controversial areas of climate science and policy. Even Jeff and I don’t see eye-to-eye on it. For instance, I think there are many more than three big objections. And as a practical matter, I think geo-engineering is unlikely to be a viable or rational strategy, especially as a pure alternative to very, very, very robust mitigation. Explaining why will take some effort, so early next year I will do a multipart series on the subject. As always, I very much welcome your thoughts.]
Feed the world sustainably by 2050? Yes, we can!
Comments
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dobermanmacleod Posted 6:40 pm
21 Dec 2008
"The alternative (to geoengineering) is the acceptance of a massive natural cull of humanity and a return to an Earth that freely regulates itself but in the hot state." --Dr James Lovelock, August 2008
"The Greens' resistance to geo-engineering sits very uncomfortably with its message that the planet is screwed and we're all going to die. It suggests that Environmentalism has less to do with saving the planet than it does with reining in human aspirations. It suggests that they don't actually believe their own press releases, and that they know the situation is not as dire as they would like the rest of us to think it is. And that Environmentalists are cutting off their noses to spite their faces - "we'll save the planet our way or not at all." It suggests that Environmentalists regard science and engineering as the cause of problems, and not the solution." --Climate Resistance, 24 March 2008
"Recently some have begun to advocate engineered climate selection as a fallback or insurance policy, in case their preferred regulatory decarbonization approach does not solve the problem or an unforeseen event occurs that requires a rapid response. A more prudent and efficient strategy would appear to be to implement engineered climate selection first and then see what further needs to be done." --Alan Carlin, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, June 2007
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dobermanmacleod Posted 6:50 pm
21 Dec 2008
Either ban coal (right away, including all currently built coal-fired power plants) or engage in geo-engineering (or settle for the least rational alternative: a mass natural cull of mankind):
"The vast majority of new power stations in China and India will be coal-fired; not "may be coal-fired"; will be. So developing carbon capture and storage technology is not optional, it is literally of the essence." --"Breaking the Climate Deadlock," Tony Blair, June 26, 2008
But, Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon dioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide -- a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. "Beware of the scale," he stressed."
Here is what Climate Code Red says:
--Human emissions have so far produced a global average temperature increase of 0.8 degree C.
--There is another 0.6 degree C. to come due to "thermal inertia", or lags in the system, taking the total long-term global warming induced by human emissions so far to 1.4 degree C.
--If human total emissions continue as they are to 2030 (and don't increase 60% as projected) this would likely add more than 0.4 degrees C. to the system in the next two decades, taking the long-term effect by 2030 to at least 1.7 degrees C. (A 0.3 degree C. increase is predicted for the period 2004-2014 alone by Smith, Cusack et al, 2007).
--Then add the 0.3 degree C. albedo flip effect from the now imminent loss of the Arctic sea ice, and the rise in the system by 2030 is at least 2 degree. C, assuming very optimistically that emissions don't increase at all above their present annual rate! When we consider the potential permafrost releases and the effect of carbon sinks losing capacity, we are on the road to a hellish future, not for what we will do, but WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY DONE.
This bears repeating: FOR WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY DONE. In other words, we are "we are on the road to a hellish future" ALREADY. The "alternative (of) very, very, very robust mitigation" is a pipe dream. Wake up and smell the coffee.
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Billhook Posted 10:47 pm
21 Dec 2008
Given the necessity of that degree of co-operation, the selection and application of the most reliable geo-engineering techniques becomes feasible as a vital adjunct to the global treaty. Their use would be under highly responsible control, and thus should not form an excuse for any lack of mitigation effort.
To proscribe all such geo-engineering options is doctrinaire politics run wild - and it is also patently impractical.
For instance, this morning we've been moving trailer-loads of cordwood (cut from derelict hedges & coppices) in preparation for kilning it to charcoal prior to its interrment for CCS & soil fertility. Short of being jailed, I and millions of other farmers will continue to expand this practical geo-engineering technique.
We will also lobby for official support to accelerate the option's deployment.
The Biochar Intiative remarks this option's worldwide potential for self-funding CCS from airborne CO2 stocks measured in gigatonnes of carbon per year.
At the other pole of the range of geo-engineering options are fantasies of giant space mirrors, hosts of mechanical trees, etc, whose credibility is enhanced (for some) by (some) Greens' disdain for all the options.
The most lethal critique of such diversions is not mere abstinence, but demonstrating the preferable & viable alternatives.
Surely what is needed is scientists' professionally skilled discrimination to select options for international trials, not those options' arbitrary wholesale rejection on grounds merely that "it might be done badly."
Regards,
Billhook
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Danothebaldyheid Posted 11:38 pm
21 Dec 2008
I fervently hope that global warming is a massive error and does not really exist. However all the data seems to lead me to oppose those who assert this position.
I desperately hope that we do not need to engage in geo-engineering strategies to promulgate any semblance of current patterns of life on earth. However all the current data seems to suggest that even a best case scenario in which emissions are practically stopped tomorrow will not be enough to continue any credible continuance of instituted living systems. Maybe you 'optimist's are right in this case, however I fear not....
The question, then, is what counts as 'geo-engineering'. Increasing agricultural uptake and soil storage is often treated as a 'non-geo-engineering' phenomenon, when it is clearly artificial. It seems much better to 'piggyback' current natural cycles of carbon uptake, if possible, than to institute radical artificial methods of planet cooling. However, I want to see the arguments for different models seriously discussed, rather than endless discussions of 'is eo-engineering a good idea or a nightmare waiting to happen?'. It is quite clearly both, depending on the situation.
Again, I hope those I oppose are right....
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GreenHick Posted 11:40 pm
21 Dec 2008
Geoengineering emerges in turn as another symptom of the little god complex.
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Jon Rynn Posted 11:41 pm
21 Dec 2008
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biodiversivist Posted 1:30 am
22 Dec 2008
Kaine has his coal, Obama has his corn ethanol. Politicians don't lead. Citizens lead, politicians follow. The citizens of Virginia and Illinois gave those two politicians their marching orders. We have to educate the public. The politicians will always do as they are told by the voting majority.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:44 am
22 Dec 2008
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hapa Posted 2:20 am
22 Dec 2008
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Bob Wallace Posted 2:46 am
22 Dec 2008
Change our ways as quickly as possible.
That's easy to say, but remember that there will be a lot of resistance to change. First you've got ~10% of the population that are deniers. They will make personal change only if significantly forced.
Then add in another probably larger percentage who just don't care, couldn't be bothered, "will get to it tomorrow", .... And some who are going to chose todays personal income/wealth over what might happen to others sometime later.
Changes that require the least amount of personal sacrifice are much more likely to work. Those changes that cost now for gains decades from now are going to be harder to implement.
If the general public is adequately educated then resistance will decline. So far it's not clear that the general public sufficiently understands and is sufficiently concerned.
If changes meet sufficient resistance then the changes we initiate won't be enough.
IMHO it would be foolish to not actively research/develop methods that either reflect additional incoming heat or reduce the insulating blanket that we've added to our bed.
If we come up with techniques that undo damage that we've done and that are environmentally benign, then implementing them now makes sense to me.
Planting trees pulls down carbon levels that we've been building up for decades. Converting plant waste into biochar might return fertility to soil,fertility that we've used up and will sequester some of our "before now" carbon.
Painting flat roofs white reflects off a bit of incoming heat, making the future hurt a little bit less. Painting roofs replaces some of the reflection that we've removed from the higher latitudes.
And we should have our "environmental chemo" in the cabinet and ready to inject. Mankind may just be too stupid to fix it now. It would not be the right thing to leave future generations unarmed.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:48 am
22 Dec 2008
There's another feedback mechanism too. Firestorm related to drought.
Geo-engineering may seem megamaniacal, but it maybe the only alternative now. Cloud creating wave/wind powered floating platforms that send a fine mist of seawater up into the astmosphere to increase cloud reflectivity and rain/snowfall seems to be possible and less drastic than other schemes. Use them for generating electricity too and GHG from power generation could be eliminated.
These devices in polar regions could increase snow pack on the ice caps, preserving their reflectivity. It could also increase snowfall on tundra, stopping the methane release. The ice preservation on the polar regions might just keep the seafloor methane hydrate cooler too, curtailing that release.
Extra clouds off of the western north american coast could increase snowfall in the rockies and save glaciers. These cloud machines in the ME and off of Africa could green up deserts. When a western firestorm needs rain, the cloud seeding machines could provide.
As in WW II, we have waited too long to act. Now it's a world war aghainst GHG climate change. Think of run away climate change as the invasion of Poland. Exponential GHG increase may already be here. That is what is frustrating though, we can't get an honest answer exactly where we are, along the exponential curve, from the scientific community.
Conventional wisdom and political correctness is stalling an honest accounting. Unlike General Shinseki, who told the truth about the Iraq invasion, before the fact and was fired for it, we have no prominent scientists willing to risk/kill their careers by specifying the dire truth about feedback mechanisms and exponential GHG climate disaster.
I think the verdict is in. We need massive cloud seeding to avert or reverse the climate tipping point. And we still have people talking seriously about peak oil? Amazing!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 3:07 am
22 Dec 2008
A massive shift to biodigestion of waste and organic fertilizer on a global scale would be geo-engineering. Closing down fossil power generation and transportation worldwide would be geo-engineering.
Doing it piecemeal nation by nation wouldn't.
A vast fleet of floating wave/wind energy platforms that spray seawater into the atmosphere would be geo-engineering if it were deployed on a global scale. They would have to be positioned and controlled to enhance cloud formation and precipitation, but carefully so as not to produce massive flooding, ice storms, and so forth.
Could the allied climate fighting powers, Europe and North America, ramp up mass production to create a large enough fleet? Ot would be like WW II ship production. A truism of capitalism, started by Marx, is that every few decades it seems to need a war to destroy excess production.
This would be an alternative depression cure to war. Send the excess production out on the ocean, exiting the normal economy, to cure the climate. Instead of destroying war material and human lives. Seems sensible to me.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 3:24 am
22 Dec 2008
If President-Elect Barack Obama and his splendid team of scientists are not able to bring about good-enough and necessary change, then I do not know where else we are to find such vitally needed leadership.
In some deep sense, President-Elect Obama and his new Administration are carrying the very future of children everywhere on their shoulders. They deserve of complete support now.
If only we could undo the earliest years of Century XXI so that they were not filled with a colossal fool's errand, catastrophic financial failures and ecological nightmares: an unnecessary and unjustifiable war; a collapsing economy; a human-induced, recklessly degraded environment and relentlessly dissipated planetary home.
The challenges before the human community now appear to be daunting, that is easy enough to see; nevertheless, I believe our children will behold an adequate future. Between now and the time our children lead the world come the necessary changes, I suppose.
Godspeed.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
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Colin Wright Posted 3:58 am
22 Dec 2008
Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, roughly simulated Ace's idea in recent months on a model that is used extensively by top scientists to study warming.
The simulated evaporation of about one-half inch of additional water everywhere in the world produced immediate planetary cooling effects that were projected to reach nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit within 20 or 30 years, Caldeira said.
"In the computer simulation, evaporating water was almost as effective as directly transferring ... energy to space, which was surprising to me," he said.
Ace said the cooling effect would be several times greater if the model were refined to spray the same amount of seawater at strategic locations.
He proposes installing 1,000 or more devices that spray water 20 to 200 feet into the air, depending on conditions, from barren stretches of the West African coast, bluffs on deserted Atlantic Ocean isles, deserts adjoining the African, South American and Mediterranean coasts and other arid or windy sites. To maximize cloud formation, he'd avoid the humid tropics, where most water vapor quickly turns to rain.
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amazingdrx Posted 5:21 am
22 Dec 2008
When winds and conditions are favorable, energy would be devoted to water spray, when the cloud formation window closed, they would revert to power production.
Seattle look out, you might have snow all winter like you just had. As this would constitute weather control over a whole region, it would have to be done sparingly and carefully.
Systems that dump snow over tundra might be best at first, way up north off Alaska, extra snow cover in winter might prevent pernafrost melt and methane release, as well as reflect hot summer arctic sun.
This is like WW II though, only the European and North american allies, with Japan this time, are likely to have the political will and manufacturing capability to assemble this arsenal (of democracy, in WW II) of climate disaster mitigation.
Since we lead the industrial revolution that brought this on, that seems fitting. Maybe China and India will join in if they are challenged? Saudi Arabia and the ME have a vested interest in greening their deserts.
Russia could coat their vast permafrost, methane release danger tundra zones with snow. But the countries that started this mess will have to lead the cleanup.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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vakibs Posted 5:45 am
22 Dec 2008
When we tweaked a variable (increased the GHGs in the atmosphere) and screwed up the system, our first thoughts should be to set that variable back in place. Not to tweak another variable (albedo) in order to balance that effect. We will soon get into a major mess of things : for example, rainfall variations turning riverbeds into deserts, decreased sediment of alluvial mud in the deltas, increased erosion by sea etc.
The fact is there are some forms of geoengineering that we could attempt which focus on just the GHG variable. We can suck up the excess CO2 by reforestation (preferably by rapidly growing trees) spreading olivine mineral on the surface, and constructing some mechanical contraptions to rapidly absorb CO2.
Why not start with them right now ?
BTW, shutting down coal plants will do good too. There is no point one guy trying to put the flames down when another guy just goes on putting the house on fire.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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hapa Posted 5:58 am
22 Dec 2008
jamais casco wrote something last year maybe about the potential for "first strike" terraforming -- some industrial state engaging in planet-scale de-solation all by their lonesome, with unproven techniques, because they panicked in face of catastrophic near-term risks that hit them first and hard. this isn't hard to imagine, right, since industrial states are following exactly the same logic right now with coal.
this brings up the question -- is the US being stupid-stupid about stewardship because our elite does not respect, and thus does not anticipate, network effects? does all this go back to being the walled community, resource-rich and protected from other hungry eurasians by big oceans? ok yeah sure.
coal plants are our modern proliferation problem, there's no such thing as a winnable global warming, etc.
anyway, intervene to give the greening breathing room, and green to reduce the scale of the artificial components of the intervention, that's what i think, and thought.
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amazingdrx Posted 6:02 am
22 Dec 2008
Water would have to be added strategically, maybe the energy plantforms moving with the seasons?
I wonder if a large mass of these sprayers could divert a hurricane? Hulls could be designed to make them sail using vertical rotor wind machines. Computer model wielding weather engineers could direct them and control the water flow and timing.
I think this is the dawn of human weather control. Will it be for the better or worse? A patent application for weather control, that's what this is. Yikes.
Frightening, but necessary given the alternative. Run away GHG climate disaster. And will this make GHG restriction unecessary, the huge cooling effect alone is sufficient to offset GHG. With the other effects it is huge.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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hapa Posted 6:17 am
22 Dec 2008
adaptation costs rise as heat tendency increases
high-to-explosive system volatility makes tough work of correction; we need to reduce the forces of stress
the shorter the artificial components are operating, the safer, probably
carbon remains a pollutant in this system at these levels regardless of heat
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:04 am
22 Dec 2008
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dobermanmacleod Posted 5:12 pm
22 Dec 2008
My question is: at what time would anti-geoengineering forces agree to that carbon dieting is a failed strategy, and we need to employ a geoengineering scheme (whatever that is)?
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Andrak Posted 7:30 pm
26 Dec 2008
To assume that man in his arrogance could harm or destroy the plannet is arrogance at its worst. Blaming carbon dioxide for the changes in the climate is wrong as plants use it to live as man and the the animal kingdom use oxygen. Plants take CO2 and through the natural cycle turn it into oxygen which we breath. so the more people and animals the more co2. But this does not harm the planet. Before the 1600's also greenland did not have icebergs and was all farm land in the 1600s we had a minor ice age causing greenland to be frozen over. so stop worrying about the planet. You can't harm it unless you try to save it from its own cycle. Dont assume that just because your used to a certain temp that the planet has to bend to your arrogance and stay that temp or its in trouble. in saying that it dosent mean we shouldnt progess in using safer energy sources. but we should use oil and coal while perfecting those sources. We should build safer and safer nuclear plants as we learn from any mistakes we make not say we wont because were afraid. We should also drill for oil here rather then getting our oil from tankers that have to come from half way around the planet. Those that use that oil but say we cant drill our own where we actually can control the way their built for example get a law passed making it mandatory that a builder of pipelines for oil drilling has to use the best materials for the job no pipes that break like paper, But can deliver the ol from our oceans and lands safely. And we can work on perfecting the others nuclear wind and solar.
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