In our short-term, quick-fix, credit-swiping culture we have no shortage of proposed non-solutions that search for short cuts to stem the possibility of irrevocable damage caused by climate change. Noteworthy participants are the well-known faces of clean coal, carbon sequestration or launching waste into space. But when it comes to handing out the gold star for the top of the class, geoengineering stands head and shoulders above the rest as a scientific Hail Mary Pass with an endless sea of unknown consequences. After a dubious amount of review from a number of different sources, geoengineering and all funding towards its research should be pulled off the table with focus returned to things that can actually work without multitudes of latent risk.
The New York Times reported that the Government Accountability Office released a report stating that no geoengineering scheme could be responsibly deployed today, given the uncertainties. This is good, sensible news. However, the agency also recommended opening research avenues to further explore and test geoengineering practices in an attempt to limit the field of unknowns. According to the G.A.O., the majority of experts, and the public no less, were in favor of pursuing further geoengineering research. I find this difficult to believe as I have to wonder how much of the public is even familiar with the term.
Geoengineering? Explain.
Geoengineering is a relatively new study of directly manipulating Earth’s climate in the effort to counter the changes humanity has made to it with our laissez-faire attitude of habitation to date. If enacted it would be perhaps the most direct and deliberate attempt at trying to alter the function of the biosphere in order to accomplish a desired outcome.
There are two front-running schemes for using the globe as our communal chemistry set. The first involves the spraying of sulfates into the upper atmosphere in order to mimic a volcanic eruption with the goal being that the tiny particulates will help bounce the sun’s light back into space. As Cornelia Dean notes in her article a year ago, to be effective this process would need to be done indefinitely. Other experiments focus on flooding the sea with iron in order to boost levels of carbon-consuming plankton and algae, in a bid to remove more CO2 from the air.
The real question, or should I say worry, is not whether these methods will accomplish what they hope to accomplish, but what other vast series of repercussions come from trying to manufacture the climate of the entire globe. Dean aptly describes this as “the unknown unknowns, things we won’t even know we need to worry about until it is too late.”
In an atmosphere infused with sulfates, how will the decreased sunlight affect plant growth for things that we still want to grow like our food supply or rain forests? What is the result of all of these sulfates eventually falling back to the earth or their possible effect on cloud formation and rainfall? If we do ignite the plankton population so too we give strength the species that feed on plankton. Will altering the key components of ocean food webs as a whole (comprising 25% of the estimated 8.7 million species on the planet) have effects on the parts we need to harvest?
–Well we don’t really know. Details! What is important is that we really want it to work and if it does succeed think of all of the time and effort we will save by not having to actually try and change our excessive, wasteful way of life.
Theories Best Kept as Theories
In the Times article, after a description of Geo-engineering reporter Justin Gillis followed with, “The idea sounds like science fiction, but it is not.” Perhaps what he should have said is, “The idea sounds like science fiction and that is where it should stay.”
I have never personally met a serious advocate of sustainability that also supports geoengineering. I have to attribute this to the fact that geoengineering has nothing to do with sustainability at all—in fact it is the epitome of a techno climate quick-fix meant to circumvent any material change to how we interact with the planet and its resources. Perpetually mitigating the earth’s climate is not something we can sustain indefinitely.
My biggest beef with the concept is that it embraces the heavy-handed and misguided mentality that nature is a force to be guided and that we have finally arrived at a level of near-omniscient perspective to have decoded the earth’s systems, leaving us in the fortunate position to be able to slip behind the wheel and steer the climate in a better direction. This is only a few steps (but an important few steps) away from trying to put monetary prices on natural ecosystems.
Opponents Are Not Rare
There have been no shortage of sizable bodies that have steered away from the nonsense that is geoengineering. At the Convention on Biodiversity in late 2010, the United Nations passed a resolution that sealed a moratorium on geoengineering measures until the effects of their utilization could be better proven through research. Specifically:
“Climate-related geoengineering activities [should not] take place until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and associated social, economic and cultural impacts.”
For the countries in the world that take U.N. resolutions seriously, this was a great step in the right direction. As with so many seemingly global initiatives, the U.S. is conveniently not included in this moratorium given that it is not a member of the Convention of Biodiversity (why would we want to be part of something so petty and insignificant as the ecological diversity of our planet? After all we have a recession to worry about).
Perhaps the most frustrating irony surrounding this issue is that the majority of geoengineering proponents are conservatives and libertarians–those notorious for being least concerned with climate change to begin with–and ultimately backing the preparation for the worst possible result. The bottom line is that if there is enough chance for consequences dire enough to justify trying to prepare a “panic button” for the environment then it only underscores how much more we should be doing to circumvent such an outcome by providing stronger sustainability policy and programs now. Why prepare for mitigating the cataclysmic scenario whilst simultaneously not doing anything to seriously avoid it?
Image Credit: Flickr: fu.*
September 6, 2011 at 6:48 am
Tyler,
Your article is seriously misguided in many respects.
You say:
“I have never personally met a serious advocate of sustainability that also supports geoengineering. I have to attribute this to the fact that geoengineering has nothing to do with sustainability at all—in fact it is the epitome of a techno climate quick-fix meant to circumvent any material change to how we interact with the planet and its resources. Perpetually mitigating the earth’s climate is not something we can sustain indefinitely.
My biggest beef with the concept is that it embraces the heavy-handed and misguided mentality that nature is a force to be guided and that we have finally arrived at a level of near-omniscient perspective to have decoded the earth’s systems, leaving us in the fortunate position to be able to slip behind the wheel and steer the climate in a better direction. This is only a few steps (but an important few steps) away from trying to put monetary values on natural ecosystems.”
This view is seriously mistaken because:
1. All the significant reports on geoengineering e.g. the Royal Society report and all the significant scientists engaged in research on geoengineering make it very clear that reducing emissions is still the first priority, that geoengineering is not an alternative to reducing emissions and that geoengineering should be seen as a potential interim measure to help us move away from fossil fuels and transition to much lower greenhouse gas emissions.
2. Many climate scientists appear to take the view that we are likely to get serious climate change even if we could reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to zero TODAY due to the long time before the effects of past emissions exerts their full effect. With that in mind, it seems prudent to many climate and other scientists to research potential geoengineering techniques to find out whether they work, if they are cost effective, what the side effects are etc before we consider whether they could or should be deployed. They are also mostly keen for some type of international governance mechanisms to be put in place.
3. Many, if not most, of those scientists would wish to avoid the deployment of geoengineering if at all possible i.e. they are NOT advocates of geoengineering.
4. One of the concerns of many scientists is to avoid a scenario in the future where the impacts of climate change drive politicians to take precipitate actions to mitigate those impacts in the absence of research on the consequences of geoengineering techniques. This would be extremely risky.
5. All those scientists engaged in geoengineering research are very well aware that they do not know enough about the earth’s systems and do not have the hubristic view you allege. Indeed, the comment of Paul Craig from the Sierra Club at the Asilomar Conference in March 2010 was “I came here expecting to see a bunch of engineering types proposing to engineer the planet. But instead I saw a different conversation in which the word “humility” actually appeared in slides. I’m leaving with a very different view of the way that these attendees are thinking about geoengineering. ”.
By the way, there is a lot of work going on internationally to put monetary values on natural ecosystems (e.g. ecosystems goods and services from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment project) and to develop the ‘Natural Capital’ concept.
You also say:
“At the Convention on Biodiversity in late 2010, the United Nations passed a resolution that sealed a moratorium on geoengineering measures until the effects of their utilization could be better proven through research.”
That resolution is not a moratorium and does not ban or discourage research unlike your intemperate statement “…geoengineering and all funding towards its research should be pulled off the table with focus returned to things that can actually work without multitudes of latent risk.” Research is what lets you find out what works and what does not work!
In addition, your characterization of motives of geoengineering proponents as “ …the majority of geoengineering proponents are conservatives and libertarians–those notorious for being least concerned with climate change to begin with…” may be correct for those advocating deployment of geoengineering now but for those advocating geoengineering research, it is so far wide of the mark as to be laughable. Of the 150+ attendees at the Asilomar meeting I would guess that there no more than 5 people who fitted your characterization.
Finally, “Flooding the sea with iron” is a wild exaggeration as the quantities of iron involved would be relatively small even if it was sensible, safe and effective to carry out ocean iron fertilisation. In any case, you could not flood the sea with iron for very long as it is very insoluble in sea water!
Chris.
September 6, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Chris ,
Thank you for your comment. There is a lot here so forgive the length of the response.
To start, in the article above (and certainly in the quote you pulled out) I don’t think that I specifically target climate scientists as advocates of geoengineering to replace other methods of mitigating the effects of climate change, reducing carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere or efforts to reduce our current production of greenhouse gases. Geoengineering does not solve any causes to problems and, to the contrary, pulls attention, focus and (theoretically) funding from efforts that bring us closer to a long term solution. I will retain that geoengineering is in no way synonymous with sustainability. It stands as completely contrary to all that the concept of sustainability tries to represent.
“By the way, there is a lot of work going on internationally to put monetary values on natural ecosystems (e.g. ecosystems goods and services from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment project) and to develop the ‘Natural Capital’ concept.”
I’d like to start with this given that I think it’s similarity to geoengineering sits at the heart of the issue. There is indeed a great deal of support to try and monetize natural systems, but the concept, like geoengineering, is decidedly temporary and misguided. In an attempt to speak the language of a commercialized society of quick solutions the entire mantra ends up sending the wrong message. Whatever value you place on any natural system, no matter how high, it creates a point where it would theoretically make sense to cash it in—thus undermining the entire message of how integral these natural systems are. The real point is that natural services are not valuable, they’re invaluable. Like democracy, natural systems cannot afford to be for sale at any price.
Geoengineering suffers from the same fate. I am not suggesting that the intentions of scientists or advocates are malicious. I am sure that everyone that supports its research has great hopes for how geoengineering could help mitigate environmental problems, but that’s not really the point. The entire concept of geoegineering sends the message that it is a realistic option while it stands in the face of everything else we are trying to achieve and avoid. As Sharon Begley wrote (as noted by the Sierra Club no less) the fact that we are even considering geoengineering is “a sign of how dangerous global warming is starting to look and…how pitiful [are] the world’s efforts to control greenhouse gases…”
*By the way, I think that “Natural Capitalism”, as referred to by Paul Hawken, talks more about reforming our understanding of a capitalist economy by emulating natural systems that revolve around a notion of balance. This could ultimately result in stemming unsustainable notions like continuous, indefinite growth. Natural Capitalism is less about trying to put price tags on the earth’s components in order to try and allay their destruction and more about conveying their essential, non-negotiable place in relation to humankind.
“With that in mind, it seems prudent to many climate and other scientists to research potential geoengineering techniques to find out whether they work, if they are cost effective, what the side effects are etc before we consider whether they could or should be deployed.”
Perhaps, but how feasible is this? How much could isolated tests on small scales accurately predict the global effects resulting from enough of an intervention to actually make a difference? To that end, there was a research report in Science within the last year where the authors clearly stated: “Stratospheric geoengineering cannot be tested in the atmosphere without full-scale implementation.” Furthermore “weather and climate variability preclude observation of the climate response without a large, decade-long forcing. Such full-scale implementation could disrupt food production on a large scale.” As someone who is not a scientist, this makes a great deal of sense to me. There is no way to effectively “test” a global, atmospheric alteration that could possibly account for the world of unknowns short of full scale implementation.
“Research is what lets you find out what works and what does not work!”
Research of the global effects of manipulating the climate is beyond us. We cannot accurately predict the weather ten days in advance let alone ten months or ten years. The entire concept defies any evidence we have to the contrary. A recent biological study published in PLoS Biology journal estimated the total number of species on the plant at 8.7 million with 2.2 million of them in the oceans. The same study points to us only having identified 14% of the species on land and 9% of those in water. So I have to wonder: if we don’t know much (or anything) about the vast majority of life on this planet then how could we possibly guess (or research) what the effects of global alteration are on them? We have nowhere near the level of ecological knowledge required to make this path remotely feasible with any degree of confidence.
“Many, if not most, of those scientists would wish to avoid the deployment of geoengineering if at all possible i.e. they are NOT advocates of geoengineering.”
Great, then I consider myself on the same page. We should be focusing on methods to ensure this remains the case.
“Finally, “Flooding the sea with iron” is a wild exaggeration as the quantities of iron involved would be relatively small even if it was sensible, safe and effective to carry out ocean iron fertilisation. In any case, you could not flood the sea with iron for very long as it is very insoluble in sea water!”
Relatively small in relation to what? The Deepwater Horizon Oil spill was relatively small in the scale of the ocean and oil is also rather insoluble in water but the effects were still negative and something that should be avoided. Meteorologist and climate researcher Alan Robock points out that ocean acidification is a direct side effect of increased CO2 in the water, let alone that our oceans are already an estimated 30% more acidic than they were before the industrial revolution. Increased levels pose a direct threat to every level of the oceanic food chain.
Robock goes on to say that, “Scientists may never have enough confidence that their theories will predict how well geoengineering systems can work. With so much at stake, there is reason to worry about what we don’t know.” With all of the options that we have available to us today geoengineering is a misdirected effort that will likely cause more harm than good in the end.
September 10, 2011 at 11:41 am
Tyler,
I think that I share the same concerns that you have but do not necessarily reach the same conclusion.
It seems like your three main concerns with Geoengeneering research:
1) People will assume that we can and will find a Geoengeneering solution in time and; therefore, not pursue sustainability focused solutions to global climate change.
2) People will assume that we will be able to predict and then engineer out or mitigate significant negative externalities.
3) Geoengeneering will provide a false promise and that humans will not pursue alternative avenues to solve the problem.
I share the first two concerns. Geoengeneering science is its infancy and could get stuck in this stage like fusion. The joke is that fusion is the energy of the future and always will be. I also agree that this field of science is difficult to study because you can’t conduct experiments because we don’t want to deploy unproven technologies directly into the environment.
However, I have three objections to your conclusion:
1) Humans have deployed many globe effecting technologies without studying how it would affect the globe (agriculture, internal combustion engine, chemical/pharmaceutical manufacturing, fission). I’m sure they are many more even better examples. Humans have been significantly altering the globe for the last 10 thousand years (since the invention of agriculture). I don’t think this should be the point where we suddenly block technological research and experiments. Scientists have never had to prove they understand all of the externalities before stumbling forward in their research. I wish that humans could see 100% of the effects of their technological advances and deployments but I do not think it is possible.
2) It is conceivable that we will not be able to sufficiently solve the disruptions to the carbon cycle through conservation and renewable non-carbon based fuels. For this reason, I wouldn’t want to dismiss Geoengeneering outright. It could en up being necessary.
3) The third concern is not based on the science but instead based on human psychology. I personally think that is someone is willing to think that humans will surely solve climate change through Geoengeneering, they will probably also be willing to think that the problem is not that big or unproven science anyway. I don’t think you simply win over these people by taking Geoengeneering off the table.
Geoengeneering is very similar to Fusion in that it could lead to absolutely nothing and be a huge waste of money. However, we don’t know so we shouldn’t rule it out and unilaterally give up on it.
September 11, 2011 at 10:47 pm
Giles,
I think I agree that your reasons exist, but I do not see them as reasons to justify Geoengineering support.
I think the one that I find the most weight in is the second. It is disturbingly possible that our response to climate problems will not be swift or deep enough and we could arrive at a point of dire consequences. However, I only see this as a viable reason to research geoengineering if those same people are lobbying for doing all that we can be doing right now (of which we are doing relatively little). Anyone who is genuinely worried about cataclysmic effects of climate change should be contributing to its abatement in every way possible. Otherwise, in my mind they are promoting it because they want an option that does not require them to change how they live now.
I think the fact that we have been fostering globe-altering activities for thousands of years is not reason to give geoengineering the green flag, but on the contrary it is reason to stem its continued development. Our standard M.O. of deploying technologies without enough thought to their environmental effects is exactly what has put us in this position in the first place. Just look at your examples. Our agriculture industry is one of the largest sources of waterborne pollution in the country, fostering the loss of top soil and the resilience of weeds, pests and diseases as the result of over-application. It also is highly rooted in petroleum. The internal combustion engine and the cars that carry them remain one of the largest sources of fossil fuel emissions and the highest death rate of any form of travel. Nuclear power, though devoid of emissions, produces some of the most dangerous substances known to man and we are still without a productive solution for how to dispose of them.
I think that throwing growth prospects to the wind rather than caution could prove to be a healthier path for us as a society.
September 26, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Tyler,
I think Giles’ objections to your conclusions were valid points.
Turning to your responses to my comments, while you did not specifically target climate or other scientists as advocates of geoengineering you certainly did not exclude them. Most people reading your post would assume that you had included them in your comments and unfortunately posts like yours propagate this fallacy. Regrettably, this not an uncommon occurrence with even people like Clive Hamilton being prone to it as well see this example. If you had a different target, you should have been more careful in your text and be specific in whom you were targeting. As Jamais Cascio said in a response to Dale Carrico, “It’s very important to distinguish between geoengineering scientists and geoengineering cheerleaders, and not slip into a broad-brush mindset that implies that anyone talking about geoengineering must be in the pockets of the Pentagon-Exxon-AEI triumverate.” Bear in mind some climate scientists in Australia have received death threats.
While I understand entirely that SRM geoengineering techniques do nothing to address the excess CO2 in the atmosphere, the same cannot be said of the CDR techniques that may remove CO2 from the atmosphere e.g. the so-called artificial trees. I do not share your view that all geoengineering techniques are inevitably contrary to the concept of sustainability, although I doubt that the SRM techniques could ever be anything else.
I understand your concern with the “moral hazard” issue but we do not know how significant it is likely to be. There is some limited evidence from a few studies in the UK and the USA that it may not be as serious a problem with the public as some have feared – see the reports from the Royal Society, Ipsos MORI, SPICE and GAO. There is also I suggest no indication currently that discussions or even research on geoengineering are likely to detract significantly from research into mitigation efforts or other climate issues. Indeed, further climate research to better understand the earth system is absolutely necessary to be able to evaluate geoengineering techniques effectively. The GAO report does present an interesting analysis of the current viability of quite a number of geoengineering techniques and concludes that they do not currently offer a viable response to global climate change. It also reports that “More than half of these proponents anticipated that substantial research progress will take time – perhaps two decades or more – or stated that we cannot or should not wait for a crisis.”
Your view of ecosystem goods and services seems to be a very perfectionist one that is not shared by many environmental scientists who see it as a way towards getting the ecosystem properly taken into account within a sustainable development regime. Are there any viable and practical alternatives available that could gain acceptance? Thank you for the reference to the “Natural Capitalism” concept as referred to by Paul Hawken. However, I was not thinking of that in my reference to Natural Capital but to a recent UK report on that subject.
I agree entirely with the quote you gave from Sharon Begley but the message taken from that by many climate scientists and those interested in geoengineering is that we may well be forced to use geoengineering to ameliorate climate change as it seems unlikely that politicians will seriously address the problem before catastrophic effects become evident. As I said before, most climate scientists and those interested in geoengineering would prefer not to use geoengineering if it could be avoided, agree that reducing emissions is the first priority and that geoengineering is not an alternative to reducing emissions. Again quoting Jamais Cascio from the same post quoted previously, “There’s a very wide range of positions out there among the people advocating geoengineering research, and it’s a vocal minority who see geoengineering as a way to avoid carbon reductions (in fact, *every* geoengineering scientist I’ve spoken with is adamant that geoengineering should only be used — if it’s used — in support of aggressive carbon reductions).” All the testimonies I have come across from scientists giving evidence on geoengineering to the UK Parliament, the US Congress or elsewhere, have stressed that mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions is absolutely critical and that geoengineering is not an alternative to mitigation. I think that answers your comment to Giles on this particular issue. However, I have heard that some scientists are now of the view that we will need both geoengineering and the maximum conceivable efforts on mitigation to avoid serious and damaging climate change.
With regard to the feasibility of geoengineering research, your comments only address SRM techniques and are not relevant to CDR techniques. With the latter techniques, putting side effects and efficiency to one side for the moment, whether on land e.g. biochar or afforestation/re-forestation or in the sea e.g. enhanced weathering or ocean fertilization, a lot of small to medium sized projects could add up to significant CO2 sequestration without global effects. It is also the case that much geoengineering research will either not involve field testing e.g. modelling or only need small field testing initially e.g. to test engineering systems as with the SPICE project that has been in the press recently. I don’t think many climate scientists would share your view that “Research of the global effects of manipulating the climate is beyond us” and I think your comparison with predicting the weather is inappropriate as predicting broad scale effects of the climate is quite different to predicting weather over 10 days. I have read the Science article you refer to but it is not I believe a very widely shared view and others, including I think Ken Caldeira, have made a case that small or regional scale testing could be done without risking global effects. You should be aware that Alan Robock regards geoengineering to only consist of SRM techniques as is clear from this article.
Regarding the amount of iron used in ocean fertilisation experiments, the most recent experiment called LOHAFEX used 6 tonnes of iron to fertilise an area of 300 Km2. While Alan Robock is correct that ocean acidification is a direct side effect of increased CO2 in the water, if ocean fertilization worked it would not significantly affect the pH of the surface layers of the ocean as all that would be happening is the speeding up of the flux of carbon from the atmosphere through surface waters and on into deep ocean water and sediments. However, it would increase pH in deep water but only very slightly as the deep ocean is a huge reservoir of dissolved carbon. According to the UNEP Blue Carbon report, the deep ocean holds some 38,100 Gigatonnes (38.1 x 1012 tonnes) of carbon, more than 90% of that in the entire biosphere i.e. it is the overwhelmingly dominant global sink for carbon. By comparison the UNEP Blue Carbon report said that the atmosphere holds some 750 Gigatonnes i.e. about 2% of that in the deep ocean.
Alan Robock may be correct to say that, “Scientists may never have enough confidence that their theories will predict how well geoengineering systems can work” but he did say “may”, it is one view and without further research we will not know whether he is right or wrong. I would agree with his view that “With so much at stake, there is reason to worry about what we don’t know” and I suspect that almost all scientists involved in climate and geoengineering research would agree with him as well. However, to me that does not mean we should not research geoengineering but do it very carefully and thoroughly. It may be that the fact that geoengineering research starts to happen will prompt people to think that if scientists think that research is necessary, then we need to really start taking mitigation seriously.
You say “With all of the options that we have available to us today geoengineering is a misdirected effort that will likely cause more harm than good in the end”. However, what are these options and what evidence is there that they are going to happen to an extent to make geoengineering unnecessary? Also, without research we will not know that geoengineering may cause more harm than good. On this point, see the recent letters to the Guardian newspaper on 8th September and 14th September, an article in Time Magazine and a paper by Caldeira and Keith.
Finally, it is really unsound to lump all geoengineering techniques together in any analysis of their effects, efficacy etc since they are a very diverse group of techniques with very different modes of action.
Chris.
September 26, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Chris,
My thanks again for your thorough comment. I think the core of the discrepancy may be the point you raised in your final paragraph—and one that is not only limited to geoengineering. I think sustainability as a whole (even that term itself) struggles for universal definition of boundaries and content. As an example, if one Googles “CRM Geoegineering” some call it “Carbon Reduction Management” while others name it “Carbon Dioxide Removal”. I even found “Chemical Release Modules” and “Climate Risk Management” and that is just on the first page. My point is that the umbrella for the definition of environmental issues is always a bit fluid.
Personally, I think things like reforestation or green roofs (seen in lists of CRM tactics) are not really components of what I consider geoengineering to be (I am sure there are plenty of people smarter than I am that could disagree with me). As a result, it is fair to say that I was not focusing on such methods in the article above. Planting forests that we have cut down is replacing biological medium in kind to what we have taken away. We have active models to work from in replicating what already exists (or existed in the recent past). To me, this is strikingly different than trying to manipulate ecosystems in unnatural or uncharted ways for which we have little idea of what eventual side effects could be.
Planting green roofs or painting roofs with high albedo coloring fall under the category of building efficiency measures that do indeed relate to mitigating energy usage and the resulting carbon dioxide production, but have less to do with directly altering the climate. Again, this becomes a question of scale and where the line is drawn as just about everything that our society does affects the globe to some degree.
I have nothing against tactics that are employed to make our cities and buildings more efficient with the ultimate goal of emissions reduction. Undeniably, as a society we have already globally affected ecosystems through unnatural methods by means of advancing industrialization. Clearly, our common goal is to undo damage. I just happen to think that retracing our steps rather than continuing to advance into the unknown could be a safer route and one we should be working to exhaust.
I hope to continue to garner your contributions.
-Tyler