Final thoughts....

Over the course of several weeks, I have tried to unpack the term ‘Geoengineering’ and understand its potential as well as its flaws. A variety of Geoengineering options have been presented and ideas/issues surrounding this field have been highlighted. So after all this research, what is to be learned?

Firstly, it is not enough! More research is needed. Figure 1 shows the number of research papers published on Geoengineering per year. According to the Economist, this is just more than 50 papers for 2010. While this may sound like a large amount, this blog has addressed at least 8 different geoengineering options, and there are still more to consider. Therefore, when these 50 papers are stretched over the wide variety of Geoengineering proposals, this indicates that there is very little depth in this field. And this was definitely found when conducting research....there were a lot of great ideas, the basic science was put forward but there was little information on testing and the full impacts of each proposal. Lawrence (2006) found that although you could find a large number or proposals, it takes a great effort to determine the unintended consequences of each option. Many academics agree that research into Geoengineering is still in its infancy (Victor et al, 2009).

However, when comparing the available Geoengineering options and evaluating their potential to offset C02 emissions, it was found that some options could be viable. By simply adopting better forest management, investing into afforestation, disposing of waste differently to produce biochar, and fitting large industrial plants with the technology to capture and store carbon, this could make a significant contribution to reducing emissions. These are activities that could be easily incorporated into society, and could be extremely useful in buying us more time to invest in more long-term solutions.

Figure 1:

Personally, I have found that through learning more about the variety of Geoengineering options available, I have broken down those pre-conceptions I had about the field. I originally viewed Geoengineering as a radical, destructive, field of ideas that could make things worse. And although there are risks, some options should be prioritised and heavily considered.

However, what the research does show is that despite the growing interest in Geoengineering, all the academics interested in this field explicitly state that there is no replacement for cutting emissions. Geoengineering will never be the answer to all the world’s problems. It doesn’t solve the problem of Ocean Acidification and many of the options, with the exception of sun shades and stratospheric aerosols, are unable to fully offset C02 emissions unless strong mitigation occurs. Therefore, if the international community doesn’t put all its efforts into curbing emissions then we will be faced with too worrying futures: One future may involve extreme temperatures, higher sea levels and a greater frequency of climatic events such as hurricanes, storms. While the other future may see the use of stratospheric aerosols, that were used as a last resort to prevent the climate system from destabilising. This future will have a very different climate, may have a lot more pollution, a depleted ozone, and could look very different to today...but the biggest worry is that we may never really be able to predict what this future could look like....

........taking this perspective, I feel the answer to the poll question that I asked right at the beginning of the this investigation, is clear: NO we should not abandon measures of mitigation, however, as a last resort we should make small investments into a handful of geoengineering options in order to give us more time to adapt and invest in long-term solutions....but this is just my opinion...I have tried to give you all the facts...what do you think?

Are we playing God?

Let us go back to the definition of Geoengineering: ‘the intentional modification of the earth’s climate system’. Humans/people have been modifying the environment for years...some deliberate e.g. deliberate fires/building of dams, while some not intentionally e.g. the global-scale transformation that has occurred since the 1850s (Schneider, 1996). Some scientists believe that humans have impacted the earth to such a significant extent that a new geological era should be created, specifically acknowledging the impact that humans have had on the Earth’s ecosystems: the Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2002).

The man who first coined the word ‘Anthropocene’ in 2000, nobel prize winner Paul Crutzen, is also the man who has written numerous papers on the Geoengineering proposal whereby sulphur is injected into the atmosphere. Crutzen believes that we are not doing enough to mitigate GHG emissions, so much so that we need an escape/back up plan; in his mind this is Geoengineering.

So people like Paul Crutzen, may argue that we have already modified the earth; that we have already ‘chosen’ to geoengineer our climate system through the use of fossil fules, so what is the matter with a little more modification? And when scanning the literature and learning about the variety of Geoengineering proposals, I found myself thinking...we are just replicating and enhancing natural processes anyway, aren’t we?

But what makes the topic of Geoengineering so politically radioactive? Is it just the fact that it may dampen efforts to cut emissions? Or is there a moral/ethical aspect as it means we are intentionally modifying nature to suit our needs? By adopting a future of Geoengineering are we saying that we know everything about the climate and how the system works? Are we being too arrogant to think that we have complete control over nature? Society used to hold this view...it led to the building of dams, the modifications of rivers, the building of vast sea walls...the list goes on...but many of these large projects ended in failure. We only have to look at the Aral sea, the Yangtze River or the government’s response to rising sea levels to see this. Would Geoengineering be any different?

I personally feel that many people are resistant to fully acknowledge and consider Geoengineering as a viable solution to climate change as they know that it is still an area that scientists know very little about. We are not ready to say that we know enough about climate to allow us to control and modify it. However, if other scientific risky endeavours, such as genetic engineering and high-energy particle accelerators, have been researched in the past, I think it is now vital to conduct further research into the Geoengineering field (Victor et al, 2009). If anything, it could give us a better understanding of how the climate system works. So I think it is time to take Geoengineering out of the closet in order to better control the experiments and to ensure that all the negative consequences of each option are prevented...otherwise this field really is going to continue to be a ticking timebomb!