{"id":529511,"date":"2010-04-16T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T10:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=82450"},"modified":"2010-04-16T06:00:12","modified_gmt":"2010-04-16T10:00:12","slug":"a-radical-climate-solution-goes-mainstream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/529511","title":{"rendered":"A Radical Climate Solution Goes Mainstream"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_82451\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 490px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-82451\" title=\"Earth\" src=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/earth-480x330.jpg\" alt=\"Earth\" width=\"480\" height=\"330\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">visibleearth.nasa.gov<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The scientific consensus on geoengineering &#8212; a manipulation of the  environment to counteract climate change &#8212; has come a long way in the  past few years. As recently as 2006, it was unthinkable to many climate  scientists that leaders in their field would seriously consider the idea  of shooting reflective particles into the atmosphere or dumping massive  quantities of iron into the oceans.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I first started  looking into this in 2006, it was like talking to an insurance salesman  about his porn habit,&#8221; said Jeff Goodell, whose book on geoengineering, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/How-Cool-Planet-Geoengineering-Audacious\/dp\/0618990615\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1271347067&amp;sr=8-1\">&#8220;How  to Cool the Planet,&#8221;<\/a> was published on Thursday. &#8220;Nobody wanted to  talk about it openly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_3032\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 145px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3032\" title=\"environment\" src=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/environment.jpg\" alt=\"Image by: Matt Mahurin\" width=\"130\" height=\"130\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image by: Matt Mahurin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"floatButtons\">\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/digg.com\/tools\/diggthis.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"\n\tsrc=\"http:\/\/d.yimg.com\/ds\/badge2.js\"\n\tbadgetype=\"square\">\n\t<?php the_permalink(); ?><\/script><\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\">\n\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\ntweetmeme_source = \"TWI_news\";\ntweetmeme_service = \"bit.ly\";\n<\/script> <script src=\"http:\/\/tweetmeme.com\/i\/scripts\/button.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left;\"><a name=\"fb_share\" type=\"box_count\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php\">Share<\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/static.ak.fbcdn.net\/connect.php\/js\/FB.Share\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p> These days, however, a growing number of  scientists are devoting their careers to researching geoengineering,  defined by the British Royal Society as &#8220;the deliberate large-scale  intervention in the Earth&#8217;s climate system, in order to moderate global  warming.&#8221; But while most scientists may agree on the need to study this  worst-case approach to addressing the climate crisis, a political  consensus on the issue remains a long way off, as liberals and  environmentalists have been reluctant to consider this radical solution  that some conservatives have been quick to embrace.<\/p>\n<p>Geoengineering  takes two principal forms. One involves increasing the planet&#8217;s  reflectivity in some way, so that less sunlight warms the earth and  temperatures drop. This approach can be as simple as Energy Secretary  Steven Chu&#8217;s proposal to paint roofs white (although that would barely  make a dent in global warming) or as complex as replicating the effects  of a volcano by shooting sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere. It  can be done rather inexpensively &#8212; some experts say a sulfur dioxide  injection would cost under 3 cents per ton of carbon negated, compared  to the $10- to $30-per-ton pricetag that comprehensive climate  legislation would likely impose &#8212; but it&#8217;s only a patch: Carbon levels  would continue to rise, and if geoengineering efforts stopped,  temperatures would shoot up.<\/p>\n<p>The other form involves sucking  carbon out of the atmosphere, potentially by adding iron to the oceans  to encourage carbon-absorbing algae blooms or by pulling carbon out of  the air and sending it deep underground. This approach would actually  reduce our carbon levels and could avoid some of the ethical issues of  reflectivity engineering, but it&#8217;s likely to be much more expensive and  slower to take effect, and it presents its own host of practical  concerns.<\/p>\n<p>In either case, nearly all climate scientists agree,  geoengineering should not be regarded as a substitute for reducing  greenhouse gas emissions, but rather a backup plan in case other efforts  fail to prevent a climate crisis. Many hope that geoengineering  theories remain just theories: There are far too many unknowns, and  after all it was our manipulation of the planet that led to global  warming in the first place. But with temperatures continuing to rise and  the prospects for cutting carbon emissions uncertain &#8212; particularly  after the failure of last December&#8217;s international climate conference in  Copenhagen &#8212; some argue that it would be foolish not to explore our  options.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One of the greatest misapprehensions about the  climate crisis is the notion that we can fix all this simply by cutting  emissions quickly,&#8221; writes Goodell. &#8220;We can&#8217;t. Even if we cut CO2  pollution to zero tomorrow, the amount of CO2 we have already pumped  into the atmosphere will ensure that the climate will remain warm for  centuries.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;To be responsible, you really have to plan for the  worst,&#8221; said Eli Kintisch, whose own book on geoengineering, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Hack-Planet-Sciences-Nightmare-Catastrophe\/dp\/047052426X\/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1271347067&amp;sr=8-2\">&#8220;Hack  the Planet,&#8221;<\/a> is scheduled for publication on April 22.<\/p>\n<p>Heading  the push to explore geoengineering is what Kintisch calls the  &#8220;Geoclique,&#8221; led by climate scientists Ken Caldeira of Stanford&#8217;s  Carnegie Institution for Science and David Keith of the University of  Calgary. Partly thanks to their efforts, geoengineering has rapidly  moved into the scientific mainstream.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The change is stunning,&#8221;  said Keith in an interview. &#8220;I keep walking into meetings where I expect  everyone to be opposed, and they&#8217;re not.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But a scientific  consensus has yet to translate into a political one. As many liberal  environmentalists have sought to avoid debate on the issue &#8212; &#8220;for fear  that talking about it would reduce the pressure for cutting emissions,&#8221;  according to Keith &#8212; some Republicans have signed onto the notion of  geoengineering, creating an unlikely union between climate scientists  and conservatives who often put little stock in what climate scientists  have to say.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s definitely an alliance of strange bedfellows,&#8221;  Caldeira told TWI.<\/p>\n<p>For conservatives who oppose efforts to  regulate greenhouse gas emissions, geoengineering provides an  opportunity to shift the debate over global warming from its causes to  its effects &#8212; from carbon levels to rising temperatures. This serves  multiple purposes: It allows some of them to maintain their argument  that global warming is caused by changing solar patterns rather than  human activity, and it creates an opportunity to control climate change  without placing limits on polluting industries.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Conservatives  can use it to bolster arguments they&#8217;ve made all along,&#8221; said Kintisch,  &#8220;but I don&#8217;t think in the end, we&#8217;re going to be able to study this if  it&#8217;s a conservative or liberal issue. If that happens, it just won&#8217;t go  anywhere.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Still, there are signs that the political mainstream  is beginning to embrace the idea of &#8220;planethacking,&#8221; as Kintisch  sometimes refers to it. Energy Secretary Chu, who as a Nobel  Prize-winning physicist and a member of President Obama&#8217;s cabinet has  served as a link between the scientific and political communities, told  Goodell that &#8220;geoengineering is certainly worth further research.&#8221; In  November 2009, the House Committee on Science and Technology held the <a href=\"http:\/\/science.house.gov\/publications\/hearings_markups_details.aspx?newsid=2668\">first-ever  hearing on geoengineering<\/a>, although committee Chairman Bart Gordon  (D-Tenn.) <a href=\"http:\/\/science.house.gov\/press\/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=2676\">insisted<\/a>,  \u201cMy decision to hold this hearing should not in any way be misconstrued  as an endorsement of any geoengineering activity.&#8221; And last month, the  bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bipartisanpolicy.org\/news\/articles\/2010\/03\/climate-energy-commission-launches-geoengineering-task-force\">created  a task force<\/a> that includes leading scientists like Keith and  Caldeira to make recommendations on geoengineering to Congress and the  administration this summer.<\/p>\n<p>But one thing that&#8217;s still lacking is  funding from Congress for geoengineering research, which Keith calls  &#8220;crucial.&#8221; Caldeira has also advocated a federally funded &#8220;Climate  Emergency Response Program&#8221; to explore our options if we need to cool  the planet in a pinch.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, if and when we reach the point  of climate crisis, political disagreements are likely to subside. &#8220;If  there end up being widespread crop failures and famines and that kind of  thing, people are going to be willing to do something dramatic,&#8221; said  Caldeira.<\/p>\n<p>Still, even most advocates of geoengineering research  would prefer not to see their ideas put into action. &#8220;I hope that we  never launch particles into the stratosphere, dump iron into the oceans,  or brighten clouds,&#8221; Goodell writes in his book. &#8220;I hope that the whole  notion of geoengineering looks in retrospect exactly how it looks at  first glance: like a bad sci-fi novel writ large.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But while  Keith and Kintisch both think there&#8217;s a chance we can avert a major  climate crisis without resorting to geoengineering, Goodell disagrees.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I  think that it&#8217;s inevitable,&#8221; said Goodell, &#8220;and I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s  necessarily a bad thing. What I think is really important is the idea of  us, meaning Western civilization, having a discussion about the kind of  world we want to live in. Geoengineering forces that discussion.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>visibleearth.nasa.gov The scientific consensus on geoengineering &#8212; a manipulation of the environment to counteract climate change &#8212; has come a long way in the past few years. As recently as 2006, it was unthinkable to many climate scientists that leaders in their field would seriously consider the idea of shooting reflective particles into the atmosphere [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5443,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5443"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}