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Engineering our way out of climate change

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 30, 2007 at 5:47 pm

From the Island of Doubt blog, a post about “geo-engineering”. Some sectors of the scientific community have given up trying to reverse global warming and instead, are trying to figure out ways to deal with it instead. From the blog:

Among the ideas floating around — and considered at a recent conference in Cambridge, Mass. — are injecting into the atmosphere enormous quantities of heat-reflecting aerosols, sending millions of tiny mirrors (or building a few very big ones) into orbit to divert some of the sunlight, installing floating pipes in the ocean to drawn down CO2-rich waters to the depth, and seeding those same oceans with plankton to absorb carbon in hopes they fall to the seabed when they die.

No one really knows exactly how any of these ideas will actually work or what unintended consequences come with them. All very theoretical, at this point. The thing they all have in common is degree of confidence in science and technological R&D to solve the problem of climate change. Sheril describes proponents of such plans as “folks who believe ’science will solve all our problems, so why worry?’ which sounds to me like suggesting we need not take responsibility for our actions in the here and now.” And she’s bang on.

The obvious problem with any approach that relies on tinkering with the planetary ecosystem is we know so little about the thing in the first place. We just have no bloody clue what will happen to our air if we fire millions of tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere. Did someone mention acid rain? And what about the oceans? Counteracting the effects of greenhouse gases in the air will be do nothing to stop the falling pH of the oceans, with the likely massive loss of biodiversity that will bring.

To read the rest of this article from the Island of Doubt science blog, click here.

November 30, 2007 · Filed Under Climate change & water supply

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