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!