I've read many of the recent popSci books on global warming, and I fully believe that the path we're on leads to catastrophic warming (3c+).
I also believe that many geoengineering techniques are dangerous and we should be focusing on limiting CO2, as that's the only safe way to address global warming.
Having said all that, I simply do not believe we'll stand by and watch the world burn without trying a 'ministry of the future' style geoengineering effort. Is it ideal? No way, but IMHO it will happen. It drives me insane that the scientific community is so vehemently against geoengineering research for fear that it will create a moral hazard that makes it's deployment more likely.
There's no way geoengineering will be consequence free. I think when we start using it as a temporary measure it will become very clear what the downsides are, and that reducing our emissions are still the best path forward.
I just don't buy the apocalyptic doomerism so breathlessly described in most books on global warming. When it gets bad enough, we will act. It won't be ideal, but there's no way we're just going to sit by, accept our fate and let the world burn.
The assumption here is that when it gets really bad we will still be able to act. The problem is that the earth system is incredibly complex and may be able to absorb a lot of energy in ways that aren’t easy to reverse (at least in ways that are comfortable to humans.) There’s a reason we call these things “tipping points”: like unbalancing a piece of heavy furniture, you might not have the strength to catch it once it’s gone past a certain point.
The only factor that has any bearing is whether total emissions drop to an acceptable level, and are projected to continue doing so. Under such a scenario, "trying to" limit carbon emission would be a moot point. There is no reason to believe geoengineering in itself would lead to people throwing up their hands at the problem. The entire point is to aggressively lower emissions.
Notwithstanding, this is already a solved problem for the long-run, just not the short-run. Renewables are heavily invested and improve in efficiency and cost perpetually. Battery/storage is also improving. Even previously non-abatable tech is starting to see emission-free innovation and nuclear is helping bridge the gap (or should). The issue is that demand for fossil fuels in East Asia is growing faster than innovation lowers it.
I agree however that we don't have time to wait for the downcurve to play out naturally through the market. Some level of policy may still be required to both limit fossil fuel use and accelerate adoption of alternatives. This is an imminent problem that will cost billions and some lives.
Honestly, I think the future is a combination of geoengineering and carbon reduction policies.
The earlier we realize this the better. Geo-engineering needs a lot of research to minimize risk and find effective/feasible solutions. I don't think we would have the time when we decide it is suddenly too hot and need a solution now. I'm not sure if it is that the populace at large dose not like geoengineering, or if its just a combination of fear of the unknown and a vocal minority of naturalists, but I think it is for the best we start the conversation now so at least many people can warm up to the idea.
Carbon policy can't be the only solution simply because, not every nation is on board with carbon neutral policies, either because of naivete, arrogance, pressure from public and or private interest groups. Even if we we get every nation onboard with carbon neutrality, what is to say they will stay that way on the next N centuries of election cycles?
I've read the summaries and yeah I'm vaguely familiar with the RCPs from various youtube vids covering the topic. I think the last I've seen for projections off our current commitments is 2.7-3.4C.
My favorite opportunity for Marine Cloud Brightening is in the shipping industry. If container ships had saltwater aerosolizers or new fuel additives, it should be possible to bring back the shiptracks—these are the low marine clouds that were recently diminished due new clean fuel standards [1]. Those standards are great but they inadvertently increased the warming effect of shipping by about a third [2]. Ouch.
Solar is doubling in capacity every ~2.5 years — roughly a 25% annual growth rate [3]. That means, in 30 years, we might have some 1500 terawatts of solar. That would dwarf current fossil fuel use. The point is that shouldn't avoid figuring out the science of climate management (geoengineering etc) because we are afraid people will just keep using fossil fuels. We need to get the heat balance undercontrol before 30 years go by.
"We don’t know who struck first, us or them. But we know that it was us that scorched the sky." [0]
We're fixing the fallout from burning fossil fuels by adding more particulates to reflect more energy back. Seems a bit counterproductive. We probably should look at the alternatives first.
On a narrower window, we're fixing the fallout from eliminating acid rain[]. Think of it like we were cloud seeding for free, and now we can do it with aerosolized salt instead of sulfates.
The alternatives are being explored. It's not a long list, and this is the approach that is most readily implementable and cost-permitting as of right now.
That particular plot point is about denying all solar energy to the machines. Needless to say it's a fictional movie and more serious calculations should motivate our analyses.
It's been estimated that current increases in CO2 have a radiative forcing effect of about 2 watts per square meter, compared to the total solar irradiance of 1361 W/m2. If CO2 levels doubled to 800 ppm then it's estimated this would have a radiative forcing effect of 6 W/m2. This scenario would require mitigation strategies like stratospheric aerosol injection to reduce solar irradiance by about 0.4%. In the context of plant growth this reduction in sunlight would be negligible given that photosynthesis is only 1 to 2% efficient. If anything we should see significantly accelerated plant growth by about 10 to 50% due to the CO2 fertilization effect at 800ppm.
The alternatives consist of completely replacing all energy infrastructure, which will cost trillions of dollars and significantly reduce economic growth. We can already see the negative effects of these policies in Europe, such as Germany which irrationally shut down their nuclear reactors, pushed the deployment of solar, while ultimately relying on Russian natural gas. They now burn more coal than they did before, and risk deindustrializing due to high energy costs. This is an epic strategic blunder since China, India, and Africa will continue burning hydrocarbons irrespective of the West's economic self-sabotage.
There's also no realistic way to extract the amount of CO2 that's been emitted into the atmosphere. Simple thermodynamics would have us expend far more energy than we cumulatively gained from burning hydrocarbons since the industrial revolution to extract such an extremely diffuse gas from the atmosphere.
I have no issue with experiments. But putting particulates into the air of a population center seems like a pointless risk and will generate needless controversy.
What if we go further out on the carbon limb since this or a similar technology allows us to further delay implementing carbon reductions and then, for some reason, our civilization fails and we can no longer continue to dope the atmosphere to protect us from the now even more serious consequences of our emissions? This approach strikes me as madness; like the behavior of a junkie who takes uppers to wake up in the morning because they've become addicted to downers to get to sleep.
The important thing to say out loud is we've lost. We blew right past 400ppm without looking back. In the coming decades, the right heat wave in the right place at the right time will cause death and destruction on a level never before seen. If we can do anything, anything, to help mitigate that we should. Especially since first world countries with wealth will be better able to handle it, yet it's literally all our fault. We can and should be doing anything to help the situation. We can do geoengineering and fight to limit the burning of carbon at the same time.
I've been thinking about it a bit like medicine. My grandmother over her life had a kidney removed, an artificial heartvalve implanted, both hips replaced, a pacemaker implanted and upgraded, and had a rather involved drug regime eventually to service a lot of that. I doubt she would have lived past her 60's without all that. Of course she eventually died, but she did get a couple more decades with all the interventions. I suppose it's the best you can hope for sometimes.
It's obvious to anyone who's taken 5 minutes to read up on climate change that cutting emissions is how we ultimately fix the problem. Unfortunately we're on track for 3+C of warming. Do you really believe we're going to stand by and watch that happen? I don't. Is geoengineering dangerous and short sighted? Yeah. Is it gonna happen? Also, yes. Should we research it to make it as safe as possible? Heck yeah.
And what if geoengineering doesn’t work? Just waving our hands and saying technology will solve our problems in the future vs doing what we know works now (reducing consumption and cutting emissions) seems insane to me.
I think the point being made is that mankind is not acting fast enough - we are currently on track for facing a real risk of an irreversible domino effect of heating that we can’t stop. The IPCC reports discuss a range of possibilities - this isn’t guaranteed - but it’s possible.
In an ideal world, we would reach net zero in time to prevent that. This is the only long-term solution. But what if, in a decade or two, every projection says we won’t? Are we to chastise the rest of humanity, say “you could have prevented this the proper way!”, and let the dominos begin to fall?
Geoengineering, if the science is proven, should only act as a last resort to prevent such a domino effect. It would symbolise a profound failure of our species. But surely, if we realise we failed, this risky Hail Mary is better than not acting?
The risks of another massive human intervention into the atmosphere are obvious. Furthermore, geoengineering risks giving many nations an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels. Nobody has the right answers yet and everybody sensible agrees we need to do everything we can to reach net zero first.
You’re right :) I misread your comment as saying there was no scenario where we should resort to it, and I meant to raise the question of if there could be one day.
The flip side is: what if people aren't cutting emissions, or aren't cutting them fast enough? That's the actual situation we are in. Old social problems are even harder to solve than novel technological problems. If social change isn't happening fast enough to prevent the problem then I think we should try technological approaches. It's similar to how I would give Naloxone to someone overdosing on fentanyl even if the better solution would have been for them to not develop an opiate habit in the first place.
It is of course possible that both technological and social approaches will prove insufficient, and we'll go well beyond the "safe" level of global warming.
Try telling people that they shouldn't fly in planes (I've done it) and see how far that message gets you. The status quo wherein we geoengineer the climate ever hotter is indeed insane, but I suppose people are habituated to it. Solar radiation management is probably the only real chance to avoid drastic consequences at this point (and really only buys time; it's more of a half-assed fix).
We do geoengineering all the time. The UAE is seeding clouds since the 90s, China does it on a massive scale, the Saudis are ramping it up, etc. It seems like you're scared of something that is already happening anyway.
Who's waving hands? As I explicitly stated, I am all for the drastic cuts needed to stop global warming. The thought that you can somehow divorce 'the economy' from the health of the environment is laughable. I'm just saying that we, as a species will probably resort to geoengineering and it would probably be a good idea to try and understand the dangers of it before some country decides to unilaterally start pumping sulfides in the atmosphere.
You will need to create and propagate a religion that emphasizes the virtue of smashing up silicate rocks and wetting the dust. It's a lot more tedious than cloud seeding, but it's low-tech and works at scale.
Ed. this produces carbonic acid, but if you feed it slowly into the biosphere, small friends will turn it into bone and shell
That's a false moral hazard. Let me play devil's advocate for a sec:
Since global warming is trivially abated by aerosolizing seawater it would be negligent to revamp our economy and degrade our quality of life to avoid carbon emissions [which in this hypothetical the main negative is trivially abated].
You’re playing devil’s advocate so I won’t criticise :)
But I’ll add - cloud seeding might prevent heating, but it can’t prevent ocean acidification. Secondly, if one country or organisation came to dominate it, and the world settled into a rhythm of pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and artificially mitigating the heating effects… what happens if the political winds changed direction for even a few years? We’d potentially see centuries of heating in a short timespan.
Just look at Europe’s reliance on the US (through NATO) for protection and the efforts to become more independent now that a Trump presidency has opened their eyes to the risk that carries. Further fossil fuel burning would mean more and more geoengineering each year, putting control in the hands of fewer and fewer nations. One benefit of most suggested geoengineering efforts is that the particulates fall after a few years. If we came to depend on it (we shouldn’t!), that constant maintenance should terrify us.
It’s an imperfect, short-term solution that could sentence future generations to horrific consequences.
> our civilization fails and we can no longer continue to dope the atmosphere to protect us from the now even more serious consequences of our emissions?
At that point we'll probably have much worse problems.
There are 8 approved organizations in Colorado that can seed clouds, but it’s dubious if it actually works as it’s effectively impossible to test/prove. More snow means millions in more revenue for huge skiing/travel companies, but even they don’t do it regularly.
This ends very quickly when the neighbouring country sues you in international court because you stole some of the clouds that would have arrived on your territory.
An example of this is the fight between various Spanish provinces on this exact topic.
We're fast approaching the point where many events will "happen". Geo-engineering is easy and economical. Small Governments/Billionaires/Corporations will pursue it barring a legal framework to ban it. Given the lack of progress on nuclear, and slower than needed progress on renewables. It seems certain that a large scale geo-engineering project will be pursued by someone to lower atmospheric CO2/temperature.
it has to be kept secret, because otherwise people might complain
- if it gets so hot that people start dying on mass, the leaders of that country are going to start dumping aerosol into the atmosphere and nothing short of war is going to stop them
This will be the future everywhere. Wait til a country experiencing drought gets the choice to start stealing rain that should have fallen on their neighbors
Why aren’t the people conducting this test in jail? Who gave them the authority/permission to run these tests? Geoengineering is literal cloud cover for further GHG emissions.
I also believe that many geoengineering techniques are dangerous and we should be focusing on limiting CO2, as that's the only safe way to address global warming.
Having said all that, I simply do not believe we'll stand by and watch the world burn without trying a 'ministry of the future' style geoengineering effort. Is it ideal? No way, but IMHO it will happen. It drives me insane that the scientific community is so vehemently against geoengineering research for fear that it will create a moral hazard that makes it's deployment more likely.