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Earlier this month, climate scientists gathered in Cambridge, Massachusetts to discuss the importance of geo-engineering projects, and came to the conclusion that such "geongineering" deserves further study. We're not too surprised -- it's easier to turn off lights and stick solar panels on roofs instead of building giant mirrors over Greenland to stop the ice-melt.
Even so, the ideas bounced around at the conference are interesting ones, all intended to alter the earth's environment at a large scale to slow the pace of climate change. Some of the proposals have been around for some time, such as causing massive plankton growth in oceans to 'eat up' carbon dioxide. Planktos and Climos are two companies which are already intending to 'seed' the ocean with iron to stimulate plankton growth.
All of the proposals are likely to be controversial, though, since the whole idea is to cause a massive change in the environment. Do we really want to release sulphur into the atmosphere to mimic a volcanic explosion, for instance?
Harvard University professor Daniel Schrag, also one of the organisers of the summit, explained that when sulphate aerosols are released into the atmosphere, they cool the climate. Sulphur could act as a 'crude' substitute for sulphate aerosols, he said.
But beyond the general agreement that these geo-engineering proposals should not be ignored, there was a wide diversity of views on the impact they could have on how we address climate change. Some feared that geoengineering could dampen efforts to address global warming in other ways, like using less energy and investing in renewable energies. Plus there are technical challenges, environmental risks and difficult questions over control.
"We don't understand the climate system very well and so trying to engineer a system that is probably unknowable and almost certainly uncontrollable is a very frightening thing," Schrag said. Right -- maybe we should stick to composting for now.
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