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Is Geo-Engineering Our Only Hope?

March 2, 2009

Fred Bortz's picture

This week's New Scientist has the kind of cover story that makes me wonder if warnings about the effects of global warming have gone over the top.

Don't get me wrong. I think global warming may have dire consequences if we don't act--and quickly. But this cover is sure to have the heel-draggers screaming "ALARMIST!" and I'm not sure whether I could effectively counter that claim. In large red letters against a black background on the upper third of the cover are the words "Earth 2099."

Below that, in the middle third against a background of storm clouds is this list of worst-case scenarios presented as likely:
Population crashes
Mass migration
Vast new deserts
Cities abandoned

The bottom third, in large white letters against a reddish terrain(?), has this
"How to survive the century."

Now I don't deny that continued lack of action and increasing use of fossil fuels could possibly lead to such catastrophes in a few centuries. But I don't think humanity is quite that stupid. Rather, we are more likely to move too slowly and cross a threshold where sea levels will rise rapidly and weather patterns change enough to disrupt normal agriculture and local or regional ecologies.

That's scary enough, thank you! And that is why I continue to call for prompt political action and international cooperation. I am, however, hopeful that the Obama administration will put American ingenuity on course to developing sustainable energy and will provide leadership so that other countries will join us.

In other words, let's look at scenarios based not on business-as-usual but business-as-conceivable.

What I found most disturbing about the article itself was this description of a meeting in the U.K. where politicians were "grilling" climate scientists about geoengineering:

...the mood is changing. In the face of potentially catastrophic climate change, the politicians and scientists all agreed that since cuts to carbon emissions will likely fall short we need to be exploring "Plan B". Climatologists have hit a "social tipping point" says Tim Lenton of the University of East Anglia, UK....

Previously, the idea of tweaking the climate in this way was anathema to most scientists. Apart from the technical challenges and environmental risks, many argued that endorsing the concept might scupper international negotiations for a post-Kyoto protocol to reduce global emissions. But it's becoming clear that moves to cut global carbon emissions are too little and too late for us avoid the worst effects of climate change. "There is a worrying sense that negotiations won't lead anywhere or lead to enough," says Lenton. "We can't change the world that fast," says Peter Liss, who is scientific adviser to the UK parliamentary committee investigating geoengineering. Extraordinary measures may now be the only way of saving vulnerable ecosystems such as Arctic sea ice.

I hope Lenton and Liss are wrong about not being able to make changes in policy and energy usage fast enough. Because the solution, adding a technological fix rather than changing the way we do business, is like a physician saying: "Eat all the bacon and eggs you want now that you are taking Lipitor."

I guess I can't argue that we need to research multiple Plans B just in case we can't change our behavior fast enough, but implementing any one of them is bound to have unintended consequences. I don't think we should try to act as a twenty-first century Prometheus. We would be over-reaching our knowledge in a very dangerous way. We would be bringing back the classic "mad scientist" image--that well-intentioned genius whose creation lurches out of control.

In fact, there's a nineteenth-century book that warns about that. Its subtitle is The Modern Prometheus and its author is Mary Shelley.

The title, if you haven't guessed, is Frankenstein.

If we reach the point that our only alternative is a massive re-engineering of our planet, abandoned or submerged cities may turn out to be the least of our problems.

Fred Bortz
Children's Science Books
and
Science Book Reviews

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Comments

Any carbon diet strategy would be dependent upon clean coal

March 10, 2009 by Anonymous, 36 weeks 5 days ago
Comment id: 35246

Any carbon diet strategy would be dependent upon clean coal:

"The vast majority of new power stations in China and India will be coal-fired; not "may be coal-fired"; will be. So developing carbon capture and storage technology is not optional, it is literally of the essence." --"Breaking the Climate Deadlock," Tony Blair, June 26, 2008

But, Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon d ioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide -- a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. "Beware of the scale," he stressed."

"I'm going to tell you something I probably shouldn't: we may not be able to stop global warming. We need to begin curbing global greenhouse emissions right now, but more than a decade after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, the world has utterly failed to do so. Unless the geopolitics of global warming change soon, the Hail Mary pass of geoengineering might become our best shot." --Bryan Walsh, Time Magazine, 17 March 2008

The Greens' resistance to geo-engineering sits very uncomfortably with its message that the planet is screwed and we're all going to die. It suggests that Environmentalism has less to do with saving the planet than it does with reining in human aspirations. It suggests that they don't actually believe their own press releases, and that they know the situation is not as dire as they would like the rest of us to think it is. And that Environmentalists are cutting off their noses to spite their faces - "we'll save the planet our way or not at all." It suggests that Environmentalists regard science and engineering as the cause of problems, and not the solution. --Climate Resistance, Mar '08

"The alternative (to geoengineering) is the acceptance of a massive natural cull of humanity and a return to an Earth that freely regulates itself but in the hot state." --Dr James Lovelock, August 2008

"Hail Mary pass of geoengineering"

March 10, 2009 by Fred Bortz, 36 weeks 5 days ago
Comment id: 35251

Thanks, Anonymous, for adding your comments, though they would be more useful if you identified yourself and thus made it possible for people to consider the source.

The reason I complained about New Scientist's sensationalist headlines is captured in your quotation from Bryan Walsh:

Unless the geopolitics of global warming change soon, the Hail Mary pass of geoengineering might become our best shot.

If we find ourselves reduced to a "Hail Mary pass" to avoid devastation, we will already be in big trouble. In fact, if we reach that point, whom will we trust to call the play? We'll have experts advocating different solutions and free agents in positions of power who may try their own approach before the rest of the "team" gets into the huddle.

That is why it is so important for us to act now. To use a different football analogy, we need to run a two-minute drill--disciplined and planned but urgently executed.

To keep the team together, we need to be clear about what is possible if we succeed and what the best- and worst-case scenarios can be if we don't. I find sensationalist headlines in highly respected international publications extremely unhelpful because they focus on the worst-case scenarios and not what we can do now to minimize their likelihood.

Note that I am not disputing concerns about carbon capture and sequestration, which has been presented as a magic bullet without any proof it is feasible on a large scale. I am not disputing that large-scale geopolitical and social disruption may lie ahead if we fail to turn around this climate aircraft carrier we are riding.

But the best approach to avoiding calamity begins with an honest assessment of the extent and consequences of climate change. That means all scenarios, not just the ones that make for eye-grabbing, gut-wrenching headlines.

Fred Bortz
Children's Science Books
and
Science Book Reviews

I think bio-engineering and habitat engineering are smarter

March 3, 2009 by Anonymous, 37 weeks 4 days ago
Comment id: 35061

Geo-engineering is a bad idea and a waste of resources that should be going to bio-engineering and habitat engineering research, development, and manufacturing. The threats to our existence on our planet are much farther ranging than climate change. Climate change is a natural process. Ice ages are where the glaciers that created the great lakes and that have recently melted away in places came from. We've got a swing by the gravitational force of the black hole at the center of our galaxy through direct alignment with our Sun. Which should be an interesting demonstration of just how powerful the magnetic and gravitational field of a black hole at that distance is when focused through a gravitational field as powerful as our Sun's. We've got the possibility of several disasters that happen cyclically in the same time frame. The two super volcanoes, one right here in or I should say that is Yellowstone Park. The occasional reversal, polarity flipping, and 1000 year disappearances of the earths magnetic field that coincidentally keeps the Sun from burning off our atmosphere. There is also the Atlantic shelf that should wipe the Americas clear of anything not bedrock if it shifts significantly creating a tsunami of biblical proportions.. And that is not even mentioning the many unmonitored solar objects which could really ruin our day or the fact that the moon is slowly floating away and will have a massive effect on our climate.

My point is that if we are planning to survive beyond our infancy. Yes I say infancy because it is infantile to chase after the idea of money as a life goal. And yes I say idea because that is all money or any possession is. I say let us come up with a plan that lays out exactly what kind of technology we would need to survive all of these events. No, not survive, but thrive in the face of all of these events and more. The "rich" are holding back the future because it is unprofitable to them to have everyone off the grid and living free. If you could satisfy all of your energy needs from the Sun via locally and communally generated windpower, water power, sea power, thermoelectric, magnetosphere, solar collector, or what have you. And you dealt with others as equals. Everyone being responsible for themselves and the world as a whole without arbitrary governance by ignorance encouraged by profiteers. And you were educated about the realities of our ability to harness even the simplest of technologies to solve all of our problems like drought, famine, hunger, transportation, shelter, communication, and survival. You would no longer be a consumer. In fact for the cost of a car (~$20,000) you could buy all the equipment need to setup a microfactory and be a manufacturer. Check out http://www.fabathome.com/ and http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/neil_gershenfeld_on_fab_labs.html Or check out the virtues of collaboration over institutions http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_co... And check out 6 ways mushroms can save the world http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_... Or open source architecture http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/cameron_sinclair_on_open_source_archi... We need to collaborate on using the technology that is already available to build the technology needed to thrive during extreme adversity. We must evolve beyond the womb of the Earth. To do so we don't need to travel to other planets and terraform them to match our requirements. What we need is to evolve by raising the bar and saying we aren't dependent on a very fragile environment to survive. We have the technology we need the will.

Who is an alarmist?

March 3, 2009 by Anonymous, 37 weeks 5 days ago
Comment id: 35053

I have not read the article referenced, but I have a hard time imagining anything which I would think of as being excessively cautionary at this point. This is mainly because every time I read about new findings in this area, they say that things are happening faster and the effects are larger than previously estimated. So, if anything, it seems that the scientists have been understating the problem, possibly in response to the outspoken claims that there was no such thing as global warming.

If anyone is being an alarmist, it is those who keep saying that taking action is going to destroy the economy and put us in a world-wide depression. How is that supposed to work? The only people I see being hurt by taking serious steps to reduce energy use are the oil and coal companies themselves. How is building more fuel-efficient cars, retrofitting building for less energy use, etc. going to hurt the economy? If anything this sort of thing should increase employment in those areas and then increase spending in other areas after people start realizing the savings from all this.

From what I see, the only alarmists are the ones profiting from keeping us from doing what needs to be done.

Tom Bradley

Fat metabolism is misunderstood widely

March 3, 2009 by Nitpicker, 37 weeks 5 days ago
Comment id: 35045

You say, "... is like a physician saying: "Eat all the bacon and eggs you want now that you are taking Lipitor.""

I think they ought to say, "Eat all the bacon and eggs you want and stop taking Lipitor."

Before you dismiss that, read Gary Taubes "Good Calories, Bad Calories" which explains the history of why doctors do not say what you imply they shouldn't. That idea that fat in the diet is to be avoided is founded on bad science and fails to appreciate the actual facts of fat metabolism in humans. The low fat, high carb diet we've seen promoted for the last few decades is now best understood as a major factor leading to the epidemic of obesity and all the problems deriving therefrom. In England, Taubes book is called "The Diet Delusion".

Furthermore, it would be wise to learn about NNT, the number needed to treat to get each improvement in health via some pharmaceutical intervention. When the NNT is larger than 10, then adverse reactions would have to be rare to make me enthusiastic about taking that pill. If I recall correctly, the NNT for Lipitor is well over 20 which makes it expensive as well.

My Gmail address is DickKarpinski.

Keep the comments coming

March 3, 2009 by Fred Bortz, 37 weeks 5 days ago
Comment id: 35044

I am glad that my blog prompted two well-thought-out comments, although it would have been nice for the people to identify themselves by name in the body of the post.

For the benefit of those posters, let me clarify my reason for responding as I did to the New Scientist article.

It is often hard to distinguish between the legitimate sounding of an alarm or warning and "alarmism" that can lead to over-reaction and bad choices made in haste. The book review I linked to in my blog comment describes two titles that sound legitimate alarms and call for an urgent response.

On the other hand, the New Scientist article seems to overstate the case by not distinguishing between worst-case scenarios, which may force us to respond with extreme measures like additional planned geoengineering (I accept that technology has been unplanned geoengineering), and other scenarios where policy changes may be the solution.

My reading of Frankenstein tells me that we need to guard against hubris, and that includes putting too much faith in the projected outcome of geoengineering. As noted by the commenters, the climate is too complex for us to avoid some unintended consequences.

Thus my concern is that we need to persuade people to act now, when policy changes may mitigate the harm and avoid the worst-case scenarios, and thus eliminate the need for a risky technological-fix Plan B. This particular article in New Scientist, one of my favorite magazines by the way, has such an alarmist tone that (a) people may dismiss it as unrealistic, and (b) people may be less likely to consider more reasoned appeals to action, like the books I cited.

In other words, the article is too heavy on hype and too light on context. Call a worst-case scenario what it is, and point out that it is a reasonable scenario if we don't act. But to state matter-of-factly that it is already too late to consider other approaches is, to me, bad journalism on behalf of a good cause.

Fred Bortz
Children's Science Books
and
Science Book Reviews

Catastrophe

March 3, 2009 by Anonymous, 37 weeks 5 days ago
Comment id: 35052

At what point I wonder will people give up on this nonsense? How will warmer temperatures and more CO2 result in crop failure, since there is nothing a plant likes more? When will the failed predictions, "the arctic will be ice free in 2008", start to come back to bite those who make them? When the promised tipping point doesn't occur in 10 years will we finally back off? When will people admit that the climate has changed drastically in the past and will do so again in the future, with no help or hindrance from mankind? Did the Washington DC protestors go into the buildings heated by coal to get out of the cold and snow yesterday? If so, shame on them!

Can't we just work on reducing pollution and finding new energy sources without all the fear mongering and hyperbole?

um, not all plants

March 4, 2009 by coglanglab, 37 weeks 4 days ago
Comment id: 35085

"How will warmer temperatures and more CO2 result in crop failure, since there is nothing a plant likes more."

Crops, like all plants, are adapted for a specific climate. When the local climate changes, they no longer grow effectively in that location. You probably can find someplace else to grow them, but there are costs involved. Similarly, when the oceans flood New York, we can move New York somewhere else, but that won't be cheap or easy.

Whether the total output of food will go up or down depends on exactly how we adapt.

How warmer temperatures and more CO2 will cause crop failure

March 3, 2009 by Fred Bortz, 37 weeks 4 days ago
Comment id: 35058

Re: Catastrophe post

Your question:

How will warmer temperatures and more CO2 result in crop failure, since there is nothing a plant likes more?

shows a lack of background on the subject, which that hotlink to the left can remedy. It includes a lot of discussion about climate history besides the current urgent situation.

A plant, like all other lifeforms, is adapted to a particular environment and climate. The global change in CO2 level will not merely produce a greater average temperature but also a very different climate regime. Deserts and precipitation patterns will shift, which will seriously disrupt agriculture and local ecologies. Also, the rise in sea level and siltation patterns will have major impacts on coastal regions both above and below the water.

Most of what you read in newspapers and magazines about climate change is not hyperbole and fear-mongering, though in this case, I criticized one of my favorite magazines for presenting worst-case, but feasible, scenarios with more sensationalism and less nuance than I normally expect from that publication.

Fred Bortz
Children's Science Books
and
Science Book Reviews

Re: Catastrophe post

March 4, 2009 by Anonymous, 37 weeks 4 days ago
Comment id: 35082

Thanks for the response Fred. The point I was making is that you can grow food crops in the desert if you irrigate them sufficiently, which is currently happening. You can't grow them in Antartica unless you build a giant greenhouse. If the earth is warming, it will open more areas for crops which will produce more food, if there is sufficient CO2. I continually hear from alarmists that the world will face massive starvation if global warming increases. I call BS! If the earth cools and glaciers reclaim vast areas of land mass, then we have something to worry about.

Thanks also for your list of references. I notice you don't have anything representing the other side of the argument. You should try to balance your list a little bit. I read both sides and frankly the denial side has much more common sense going for it.

Tom

False balance, Tom

March 4, 2009 by Fred Bortz, 37 weeks 4 days ago
Comment id: 35083

Tom, when you write that I should include balance, you are falling into the same trap that many journalists do when seeking "the other side." Sometimes, the other side is simply wrong but continues to cherry-pick their evidence because they are no longer objective and they are defending themselves rather than the science.

BTW, my list includes a book by Newt Gingrich and one by "Skeptical Environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg, and my reviews are not 100% favorable. I also have a review of a very interesting middle-ground book called Where We Stand.

I strongly dispute your statement that "the denial side has much more common sense going for it." My conclusion is based on reading those books and following the scientific discussions for 10 years as a critical, skeptical scientist.

The pattern of climate changes already observed tell me that the models are broadly correct, and we need to be aware of the full range of scenarios, most of which are not good.

Your argument of adapting agriculture, for example, flies in the face of every reputable analysis.

I suggest you take time to read those books on my list in chronological order and observe the progression of scenarios from 1999 ("The experiment is running, and time will tell.") to more ominous discussions of tipping points that pervade the more recent research.

Fred

Frankenstein was not Science Fiction

March 3, 2009 by Anonymous, 37 weeks 5 days ago
Comment id: 35043

Mary Shelly's work was not intended as Science Fiction but as an allegory for the Industrial Revolution and the vanity of man placing himself above nature. So I think it is quite ironic to invoke it in this context, since it is precisely this which brought us to where we are.

Our creation HAS lurched out of control... it is our modern civilization, just about everything about which is perverse. Most of our "benefits" of civilization turn out to be just ways of passing the costs (with exorbitant interest) on to our children. We have been placing ourselves above nature since the dawn of civilization, but with the Industrial Revolution we took it to a new level, and from there we've been increasing the the level every step of the way, like a financial pyramid sceme.

Actually, I personally think that all the geoengineering schemes I've heard of so far are insane and wont work... the environment is too complex and unintended consequences which might send us from the fire into the frying pan would be practically guaranteed. But so long as we continue to think the way we have been thinking all along geoengineering is nothing other than the logical course of action. There simply is no other way to sufficiently reduce our impact on the planet without a complete restructuring our civilization. And how can one even conceive of such a restructuring without something at least as drastic as a world war? So which will it be, geoengineering or all-out war followed by a new beginning (if there's anything and anyone left to begin anew)?

Of course Fred seems to think that things aren't really all that bad, or at least they won't be for another few centuries. Now that's just pure ostrichism. Not only were the forecasts of the IPCC Third Assessment Report in 2001 already extremely grim for the next century, but every year since then new data has come to light that shows that things are getting worse faster than expected. In addition there are numerous potential positive feedback loops (such as a release of methane from melting permafrost or collapse of the oceanic carbon sink) of which no one yet knows the full extend and which could cause warming to acelerate out of control in mere decades.

In my opinion even the other commenter is overly optimistic. Food shortages may begin in years, rather than the middle of the century. Maybe not yet mass starvation, but even a small shortage would have disastrous effects on global political stability and the world's economies...

Speaking of which---economies---the reality is that markets don't wait for shortages, they anticipate them. As I wrote in a comment to another article on this site recently, our economy has recently had a time-horizon of approximately 20 years (due to P/E ratios, long-term bonds, etc.). Since any reasonable assessment of the potential for "growth" in 2030 is looking pretty bad today, this fact, although certainly not solely responsible for our current financial crisis, will guarantee that the markets will never recover to their previous levels.

Prepare for the greatest depression.

-*-

We are already geo-engineering the planet

March 3, 2009 by Anonymous, 37 weeks 5 days ago
Comment id: 35030

It is ironic that Mr Bortz abhors geo-engineering as a temporary fix for our rapidly deteriorating planet, since it is man's pollution, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, that is changing our planet to begin with.

There is a simple and cheap way to immediately cool down the Earth: just add a little sun dimming aerosol to the upper atmosphere. According the Dr James Lovelock, the alternative to geo-engineering is a massive cull of humans. On the other hand, again according to Dr Lovelock, we live in a "fool's climate," where the temperature should be much higher (2-3 degrees C!) except for our short-lived sun dimming pollution.

Ironic that Mr Bortz abhors deliberately adding a little more sun dimming aerosol when it is the sun dimming aerosol we already put into the air that is saving our civilization from destruction. By the way, it should come as no surprise that the worst effect of global warming will be record high summer temperatures. What isn't so obvious is that the world depends upon non-irrigated crops for the majority of our food. According to Dr Lovelock, on the current trajectory we can expect the routine failure of non-irrigated crops, resulting in mass migration and famine.

Maybe people are a little uneasy now about deliberately geo-engineering the Earth (even if they are doing it now with short-lived sun dimming aerosol), but I guarantee they will change their mind when mass famine hits by mid-century.



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