Geo-Engineering: Frightening But Perhaps Essential Fairly Soon
Rightfully, we regard the concept of geo-engineering with considerable
trepidation. Proposals to use technology to address climate change come in various forms, the two most popular of which are increasing the albedo (reflectiveness) of the Earth, and enabling the oceans to absorb more CO2.
But, wisely, we ask things like:
• What governing body should set the Earth’s thermostat, and why should we be comfortable with that?
• What about unintended consequences, especially given the massive scale of the effort?
Occasionally, I remind readers of the work being done by a colleague in Australia, Sev Clarke. If there is any one definitive source of thinking on the subject, it comes from him. I hope you’ll check out the document linked above.
One proposal I’ve read to reduce heat reaching the earth is to emit sulfur compounds into the upper atmosphere. That might very well work, but it would also result in acid rain which would cause other problems such as reducing the population of plants which inhale CO2 and exhale O2. Another proposal is to paint all our roofs white. Surely that would be harmless and would make a difference. It might increase the average reflectiveness of the earth by approximately 0.00000000001%.
According to one article linked to from your site, increasing CH4 would reduce O2 as CH4 combined with O2. If O2 became excessively lower all of us might have to carry around O2 tanks and breathe O2 the way people with emphysema do. I doubt that all the wild animals and fish of the sea could be trained to do that so they’d just have to suffocate.
I am not convinced that we have a truly accurate idea what to expect. There is still much to learn.
The diagrammatic that you have published is completely incompatible with the report that the blog is hyperlinked to and thus misleading.
The report presents solutions that specifically work with natural processes and thus are self limiting and inherently safe.
Your report focuses on the unintended consequences of action, but omits the unintended consequences of inaction.
Yes, the diagram was just a random choice that I made when I searched for free images of “geo-engineering.” I tend to be a bit cavalier on those images. 🙂
I would therefore request that you change it.
The other issue you have not outlined is that there is a time budget. If the climate restoration is delayed it will be ineffective.
LOL. That’s makes me smile, and I needed a smile this morning. Kevin, there is a limit as to how much effort I can devote to choosing images, and it’s counted in the seconds, not minutes or hours. I certainly won’t be designing custom images to match my posts, unless they are super important. Most of the 7000 posts here are quick reflections on a single idea. Having said that, I like your punctilious mind! 🙂
Your point about time budget is right on; I’ll ask Sev to be more precise on this in his future iterations.
The basis of our proposal at this stage is climate restoration, not geo-engineering. That’s why the choice of picture is important.
That’s not correct; all of Sev’s ideas are most certainly a part of geoengineering. Please see: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/geoengineering
And btw, two of Sev’s concepts (increasing albedo and encouraging algal blooms) are represented in the diagram that I (admitted haphazardly) chose.
I haven’t encountered the idea of thickening sea ice. It’s intriguing.
I have encountered the cloud brightening idea before, and even stated that it might be the only idea other than aforestation (which has obvious merit) ever published involving geo-engineering that might have merit… though only if it were limited to a concentrated effort around the Arctic and Antarctic seas.
My concern would be the longevity of any equipment involved in the seawater pumping at -50 C. It’s obvious that whatever dispersement mechanism you have would quickly freeze, and possibly be crushed or torn apart by the freezing water. In order to keep that from happening, you’d need an unthinkable amount of heating. Now you’re getting a fairly elaborate rig together, but this rig is subject to the forces of the floating ice sheets you’re trying to thicken. A million km2 of ice has a lot of mass, and if the wind blows the wrong way your facility could easily be crushed by one sheet crumpling into another.
It would take hundreds of such rigs to pull it off in such a way that you make a difference..
Still, it has the aura of remote possibility. That’s far better than most geo-engineering ideas which are just foolhearty nonsense from the start.
I’ll have to take some time and really delve into it one day.
Very interesting. Thanks. What’s your take on the proposed changes to the oceans’ chemistry? Lots of people seem to be into limestone to help calcifying life forms absorb CO2, the calcium carbonate which, upon their demise, falls to the ocean floor and ultimately is subjected under a tectonic plate.
Craig,
I think it’s worth a couple of large scale demonstrations, but you’ll have to color me skeptical. The ocean is absurdly complex, and we don’t have a fraction of the understanding that we should before we attempt a geo-scale tampering.
A decade ago everything looked very solid for the idea of pouring iron (very finely ground rust) into some of the dead zones in the middle of the ocean to help spur algae blooms. It seemed like it was worth a try, so they gathered enough funding and sent a ship out, and that ship dumped thousands of tons of finely ground rust all over a large swath of the Pacific… and it didn’t work. The rust sank and nothing changed… and that idea now joins hundreds of others that simply don’t work.
One of my immediate suspicions with the limestone option is that once the limestone is mined, pulverized and fine-ground, and transported to a ship, then dumped into the ocean, the NET reduction in carbon in the atmosphere would be very small. The absorption of carbon by the ocean is happening regardless of ocean carbon levels, so the amount of additional carbon that might be removed from the atmosphere would likewise be little changed. Meanwhile, a great deal of energy would have been exerted to accomplish the limestone dumping, which would emit plenty of carbon…
The only reason it is of interest is the potential to save some areas of vulnerable coral… Essentially having a few ships trolling around the perimeter of the Great Barrier Reef and the Caribbean just spilling limestone dust might preserve the reefs for decades or even centuries as the ocean’s pH gradually drops.
So it’s worth doing a test… but this isn’t a solution for atmospheric carbon, it’s only a plausible mechanism to save some of the vulnerable coral reefs.
That’s just my opinion, of course. I’m not nearly advanced enough on this subject to have an authoritative say… But that’s my reaction.
Well, I always value your opinion. Thanks for this.
Craig, on the diagram, I once wrote an article on the European vs American attitudes about pollution from planes. I was called to task for using a picture of a jumbo jet with rocket engines attached that was belching lots of black smoke. I still think it was a perfect picture because it clearly illustrated pollution from planes. Like a leading paragraph the initial image is to call attention. Like an entree it is to wet the appetite for what follows. I am not troubled by any inconsistency. A picture or diagram later in the post might be expected to illustrate a point. Sometimes you find inventive ways to refer back to the top picture which I find refreshingly original.
There is an aspect to geoengineering that is very troubling. To mitigate climate change we can try many rather benign methods that are similar to conservation in that they add nothing new to the environment. The feeling that we are superior to nature is part of the philosophy that promoted the conditions for destroying our environment. What has been done is because some have had the power to make changes and some lacked the power or information to stop them.
Geoengineering denies this lesson and doubles down on changes to nature. In either case we have never resolved who has the right to make decisions that effect the environment for all of us.