Some scary prospects of where people are turning – geoengineering, the false solution that once seemed like science fiction, is actually being taken seriously. Seriously?
Diana Bronson, ETC Group
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. – Albert Einstein
As global climate negotiations in Barcelona enter into the last week of talks before December’s Copenhagen summit, there continues to be more aggravation than agreement amongst negotiators. Despite the litany of warnings about the devastation a failure in Copenhagen will cause – mass migrations, floods, worsening hunger and elimination of entire small island states – the most powerful countries in the world have failed to significantly reduce emissions, let alone commit to new targets or adequate funds to pay for adaptation. Unwilling to muster collective political will to dramatically reduce consumption, wealthy countries are looking for ways to continue business as usual.
The surprising announcement that the US Congressional Committee on Science and Technology will be holding hearings on geoengineering in Washington later this week has some participants in Barcelona wondering if the lack of collective political will on the part of industrialized countries has something to do with Plan B moving a whole lot faster than we thought. Plan B is geoengineering: the intentional, large-scale plans to modify the climate and related systems.
Geoengineering technologies include, for example, schemes to simulate a volcanic eruption by shooting sulphur particles into the stratosphere to reflect the sun’s rays back to outer space. Other technologies whiten clouds to make them more reflective. Some geoengineers propose dumping iron particles in the oceans to feed algae that might soak up CO2. Others want to change hurricane paths and rainfall patterns.
This is not science fiction. In just the last year, high-profile and influential scientific bodies, including the U.S. National Academies and the UK Royal Society, have begun evaluating the pros and cons of different technological fixes. The UK Parliament has already held hearings on geoengineering, new research institutes are opening and public funds are being allocated to geoengineering research. In a bewildering turnaround, former opponents of action on climate change like the self-described “skeptical environmentalist” Bjørn Lomborg in Denmark and Lee Lane of the American Enterprise Institute have now jumped on the geoengineering spaceship, calling not only for more research but also for experimentation and deployment of these extreme techno-fixes.
While these developments remain below the public’s radar, we need to pay attention. Ties are tight between the research, corporate, and political players in geoengineering. To cite one example, Steven Koonin – the current Under Secretary for Science in the U.S. Department of Energy and former Chief Scientist at the world’s second largest oil company (BP) – recently led a group of ten scientists in thinking through the “technicalities” of shooting sulphates into the stratosphere. Such high-risk interventions are being contemplated and global permission is unlikely to be asked in the current regulatory vacuum for geoengineering.
Geoengineering is not part of the ongoing negotiations at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – at least, not yet – but we must question the strategies of those refusing to make progress on a post-Kyoto plan. Are they waiting for conditions to ripen for a rollout of geoengineering? Was Gordon Brown disingenuous or just badly briefed when he said there was “no plan B” on climate change? His own Royal Society recently recommended the UK government invest £100 million for geoengineering research, assessing the possibilities precisely as “Plan B.”
The belief that technology will save the world from climate change runs deep amongst government delegates in Barcelona. Technology is virtually the only negotiating topic where some progress has been displayed, albeit with all the familiar battles over intellectual property. And it is quite possible that the spin doctors will try to portray some modest agreement on technology in Copenhagen as a “success,” while the thornier issues of emission targets and money are set aside for “later.”
We need to make sure that whatever comes out of Copenhagen strengthens the struggle for real climate justice and a sustainable path forward. If geoengineering becomes a silver bullet distraction, rich countries will have not only walked away from the Kyoto Protocol, they will have begun to abandon any semblance of a multilateral approach to the climate crisis.
For more information, see http://etcgroup.org/en/issues/geoengineering
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The problem is that geoengineering does not solve the root causes of global warming. It allows us to continue to live the destructive lifestyle the western world has become accustomed to: addiction to fossil fuels, devastation of natural resources, and rampant consumption of cheap goods produced by dirty energy. It does not address the responsibility of developed countries to accelerate clean energy development, deployment and transfer to developing countries.
If all of the other options fail perhaps it is worth looking at geoengineering options, but since we don’t even understand all of factors at play in our climate are we really willing to gamble on geoengineering the entire planetary system before exhausting our other options? It is worth keeping geoengineering in our back pocket as a last resort, because we may not be able to remove CO2 from our atmosphere at the rate necessary. However, we should not turn to geoengineering just because the other options are ‘hard.’ No one said this would be easy. But we should do it right, no shortcuts.
Algae consumes CO2. We have spent over $2.2 billion dollars on algae research for the last 35 years and nothing to show for it. Algae has been researched to death at universities for the last 50 years in the US. The problem is as long as the algae researchers can say we are 3-5 years away, its too expensive and they need more research they get the grant money. Nothing will ever get commercialized at the university level.
There are commercial algae plants being built today with private money without any federal money and federal grants. The question you need to be asking is ” Does the US really want to get off of foreign oil or do we want to continue to fund the algae researchers at the universities.” The problem is we can grow, harvest and extract algae today with all “off-the-shelf” proven technology.
Geoengineering is not a solution. Half of these proposals cause more problems than they could solve, and the other half are completely unproven, beyond the fact that all of them involve messing with a global system we obviously don’t understand.
Adding nutrients to the oceans? Google “Dead Zone” and you’ll see that we’re already doing that – it caused the destruction of fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico. So now they want to kill all the fish in the ocean, by adding nutrients, causing an algae bloom, then sucking all the dissolved oxygen out of the water as the algae sink and decompose?
WHY DOESN’T OUR COUNTRY FUND REAL SOLUTIONS?? Energy efficiency, weatherization, wind, geothermal, and solar energy could replace all our carbon-based fuel sources within the next 20 years (within the next 10 if we really pushed for it). These solutions would simultaneously strengthen our economy, provide millions of jobs, and prevent the hundreds of billions being spent on foreign fuels every year.
Rather than providing the necessary funding to generate the real response needed, they continue to squander precious time and not-so-precious money on funding research into these ridiculous “Plan B” ideas and clean coal. I voted for Obama, but I’m beginning to see that his administration doesn’t have the balls to lead the world in addressing climate change.
To be clear, Diana’s article positions geoengineering as a ludicrous false solution that highlights the craziness the dialogue has reached!
Good grief. If you want to reduce CO2 in the atmospher, plant some trees. What, is it not geoengineering enough for you? And it’s green, unlike you.
Just for the record, because apparently it is not obvious in my article, I am against geoengineering, against public resources being squandered on these options, very concerned about the rapid pace at which these options are gaining credibility in policy and political circles, not to mention corporate interests. Geoengineering is the wrong approach to climate change — really the opposite of what is needed which would be local forms of sustainable production and consumption, greater equity and voice for marginalized groups and dramatically reduced consumption in developed countries and amongst elites in developing countries. The point of my article really was that while progress is extremely slow in international negotiations, and expectations are lower by the hour at negotiations in Barcelona, we should be aware of –and wary of — governments in industrialized countries, like my own (Canada) that have failed to meet their Kyoto commitments, and are anxious to find a plan B in the form of a techno-fix for climate change. This is only a distraction from the job that needs to be done on mitigation and the funds that are needed for adapatation, as well as yet another opportunity for profiteers on the carbon markets.
Thanks though for your comments, which I mostly agree with and apologies if I was not clear on where ETC Group stood on this question. There is loads more commentary on http://www.etcgroup.org!
don’t ya’ll realize that they have already implemented this????
ever heard of chemtrails?????