Comments on: Geoengineering: Plan B for when Copenhagen fails? eek!

By: David G

David G — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:20:38 +0000

At a meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers in the Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans, the spokespeople went over lots of different technological fixes, from concrete buttresses that used solar power to facilitate growth of wetlands plant species, to building huge tubes to transport sediment from the Mississippi to outer parts of the wetlands. Agreeing with Klem, I couldn’t help while listening to them thinking to myself, ‘Concrete doesn’t grow, it needs to be repaired by people, why would you want to use it instead of a grass, reed, cypress or cedar?’

For reference, around half of the wetlands in Coastal Louisiana are gone, due nearly exclusively to the 10,000 miles of oil canals in the gulf coast. The point I am making, is that we have only barely begun to assess the amount of damage we’ve done to the planet. If I thought Geo-engineering was attempting to adequately address these problems, instead of pretending they are addressing them, I might be encouraged to think that there was something to them. As they stand, they are another manifestation of a system that feels the only problems worth solving are those that help human beings, and the only way that human beings can be helped in this sense is by creating a product that has a financial profit behind it. Growing trees is cheap, but require space, time and effort. Is it time yet to ‘grow’ the (r)evolution?

By: erin

erin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:25:55 +0000

don’t ya’ll realize that they have already implemented this????
ever heard of chemtrails?????

By: Diana Bronson

Diana Bronson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:01:36 +0000

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!

By: Klem

Klem — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:55:08 +0000

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.

By: Joshua Kahn Russell

Joshua Kahn Russell — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:18:25 +0000

To be clear, Diana’s article positions geoengineering as a ludicrous false solution that highlights the craziness the dialogue has reached!

By: David Gibson

David Gibson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:42:36 +0000

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.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:36:56 +0000

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.

By: Juliana Williams

Juliana Williams — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:30:45 +0000

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.