Geoengineering the climate
03. Sep, 2009 
2 Comments
Climate change is happening, and its impact will be disastrous for the planet. The global mean temperature of the planet is bound to increase by 2°C or more unless global greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by at least 50% of the 1990 level by 2050. However, there are no plausible reason to believe that we will be able to make the average temperature of the Earth drop before 2100, and we might need to consider a ‘Plan B’ to mitigate the effect of global warming.
Geoengineering is this Plan B: it involves a large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s climate to attenuate the impact of global warming. Geoengineering methods can be divided into two classes:
Reference:
The Royal Society, Geoengineering the climate: Science, Governance and Uncertainty. September 2009.
Geoengineering is this Plan B: it involves a large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s climate to attenuate the impact of global warming. Geoengineering methods can be divided into two classes:
- Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) techniques: these directly address the root cause of the greenhouse effect. CDR techniques remove CO2 from the atmosphere, e.g. enhancement of uptake of CO2 by marine organisms, direct capture of CO2 from the atmosphere.
- Solar Radiation Management (SRM) techniques: attempts to reflect part of solar radiation to outer space, e.g. brightening human structures to reflect solar radiation, placing reflectors (giant umbrellas) in space. The greenhouse effect could be mitigated if the Earth absorbs less heat energy from the Sun.
Both techniques are not well documented are horrendously expensive to implement. Geoengineering involves complex political issues, since its effects extend beyond national boundaries. Yet, mainstream science is seriously considering these options and investing the implications of deploying a large-scale intervention on the Earth’s climate. However, these geoengineering options will never be an alternative to cutting carbon emissions, which is still the safest and most predicable means of curbing global warming.
The Royal Society, Geoengineering the climate: Science, Governance and Uncertainty. September 2009.
I noticed a news story on the possibility of using artificial trees to 'soak-up' the carbon dioxide and it also mentioned the SRM technique of putting reflective umbrellas into space. I do think that the artificial trees is the better idea out of the two though, it's more predictable than sending out millions of umbrellas into space. I do wonder about how efficient the artificial trees can be.
The US is becoming greener with Texas and California already champions of wind energy unlike Mauritius which has almost doubled its coal imports over a 12-month period and has made the purchase of gas-guzzlers easier.