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DocWatch geoengineering Twitterit? News stories about "geoengineering," with punchlines: http://apocadocs.com/d.pl?geoengineering Related Scary Tags: unintended consequences  ~ climate impacts  ~ anthropogenic change  ~ global warming  ~ technical cleverness  ~ carbon emissions  ~ stupid humans  ~ holyshit  ~ carbon sequestration  ~ faster than expected  ~ death spiral   Tue, Jan 5, 2016 from E&E Publishing: Okla. shaking jumped 50 percent in 2015 The number of earthquakes in Oklahoma rose 50 percent last year, easily surpassing the record number that hit the state in 2014. Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS) data show that the state was shaken by 881 earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater, or an average of 2.4 per day. That's up from 585 in 2014. U.S. Geological Survey data show that California had 128 such quakes in 2015. Scientists and state officials say the increase in earthquakes in Oklahoma likely has been caused by wastewater disposal from oil and gas operations. Oil production methods that yield unusually large volumes of water have combined with favorably aligned faults under the state to cause the unprecedented shaking. ... I feel the earth move under my feet I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down... ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jun 10, 2015 from Indiana Living Green: Geoengineering debate On Tuesday, May 12, at 1 p.m., students from the Decatur Township School of Excellence (DTSE) gathered in a nearby community center to engage in a debate. Nothing particular noteworthy there. Junior high students often engage in the academically rich tradition of debate. It requires research, public speaking acumen -- and quick-thinking skills to respond to your opposition. What was unique about this debate was its subject matter: Geoengineering. Here in Indiana, where climate change and global warming are not a daily discussion in the larger culture, these students tackled head on one of the more complex and thornier issues already facing the rest of planet. ... Any number of career paths stem from this subject, including survivalist! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jan 14, 2015 from Reuters: China sets 2020 "artificial weather" target to combat water shortages China aims to induce more than 60 billion cubic metres of additional rain each year by 2020, using an "artificial weather" programme to fight chronic water shortages, the government said on Monday. China's water resources are among the world's lowest, standing at 2,100 cubic metres per person, or just 28 percent of the world average.... Artificial rain is created by rocket-launching chemicals, such as silver iodide, into clouds to boost rain. China used the technology, known as cloud seeding, to scatter clouds ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.... Around 70 percent of China's rivers and lakes have become too polluted to use. ... I've looked at clouds from both seeds now. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Nov 26, 2014 from BBC: Geo-engineering: Climate fixes 'could harm billions' Schemes to tackle climate change could prove disastrous for billions of people, but might be required for the good of the planet, scientists say... More alarming for the researchers were the potential implications for rainfall patterns. Although all the simulations showed that blocking the Sun's rays - or solar radiation management, as it is called - did reduce the global temperature, the models revealed profound changes to precipitation including disrupting the Indian Monsoon. ... Mother Nature is going to hate us. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Nov 19, 2014 from Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences: Adjusting Earth's thermostat, with caution A vast majority of scientists believe that the Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate and that human activity is almost certainly the dominant cause. But on the topics of response and mitigation, there is far less consensus. ... Can't we just get a giant hand to turn the giant knob? ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Apr 9, 2014 from Reuters: Many nations wary of extracting carbon from air to fix climate Many nations want a draft U.N. report to tone down prospects for sucking greenhouse gases from the air to help fix global warming, reckoning the technologies are risky, documents seen by Reuters show. Government officials and scientists are meeting in Berlin this week to edit the report, which says time is running out to keep warming below an agreed ceiling of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times.... China, the European Union, Japan and Russia were among nations saying the draft, to be published on Sunday, should do more to stress uncertainties about technologies that the report says could be used to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and bury it below ground to limit warming. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) "technologies are currently not available and would be associated with high risks and adverse side-effects," the German government said in a comment on the draft by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "There are no CDR technologies by now," Russia said. The technologies would go far beyond the traditional focus on cutting emissions from burning coal, oil or natural gas. ... Some things are as risky as doing no things. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Feb 27, 2014 from Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR): Climate engineering: Minor potential, major risk of side-effects? Researchers have studied with computer simulations the long-term global consequences of several 'climate engineering' methods. They show that all the proposed methods would either be unable to significantly reduce global warming if CO2 emissions remain high, or they could not be stopped without causing dangerous climate disruption. ... Can we clone the planet? ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Dec 7, 2013 from Dartmouth College: More Logging, Deforestation May Better Serve Climate in Some Areas ... The findings suggest more frequent logging or deforestation may better serve our planet and pocketbooks in high latitude areas where snowfall is common and timber productivity is low. Such a scenario could involve including snow cover/albedo in existing greenhouse gas exchanges like the Kyoto protocol or a cap-and-trade program or ecosystem services market in which landowners are paid to maintain snow cover and produce timber rather than conserve forests and store carbon. Previous studies have put a price on many ecosystem services -- or services that nature provides to humans that have both economic and biological value, such as drinking water and crop pollination -- but the Dartmouth study is the first to do so for albedo, or the surface reflection of incoming solar energy. The findings contrast with the dominant paradigm that including forest climate mitigation services such as carbon storage on compliance markets will lead to the conservation of forests. Instead, the findings show that in some areas, it is better to have snow act as a natural mirror if you want to use forests for climate-related purposes. ... Let's call it albedough. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Mar 4, 2013 from Indiana Living Green: To engineer the climate, or not to engineer the climate ... For those paying attention to the positive feedback mechanism occurring in the Arctic, this few tenths of a degree rise is unstoppable -- and, imminent. The ice melt in the Arctic is suffering a feedback loop. The more the ice melts, the more the sunlight warms the water, instead of bouncing off the ice back into the atmosphere. The warmer the water, the less ice forms; the less ice forms, the easier it is to melt, thus warming the water, diminishing the ice and warming the water, ad infinitum. Or, shall I say, sad infinitum. Cooling off the planet right now seems to me to be a prudent course of action, except that we don't know what unintended consequences may result from SRM or any act of geoengineering. ... Has 'Doc Jim gone mad? ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jan 2, 2013 from University of Iowa : Laws of Geo-Engineering to Mitigate Global Warming? With policymakers and political leaders increasingly unable to combat global climate change, more scientists are considering the use of manual manipulation of the environment to slow warming's damage to the planet. But a University of Iowa law professor believes the legal ramifications of this kind of geo-engineering need to be thought through in advance and a global governance structure put in place soon to oversee these efforts. ... Let's see if we can't get the antichrist involved on this from the get-go. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Dec 23, 2012 from New Scientist: 2012 review: The year in environment For anyone living on planet Earth, 2012 was a rough year. The US sweltered in a devastating drought, only to then bear the brunt of superstorm Sandy. Meanwhile Arctic sea ice shrank to its lowest extent on record, months after evidence emerged that it might have passed the point of no return. Even as evidence for human-driven climate change continued to mount, the world did little about it. A major UN summit achieved little other than a vague promise to pay developing countries when they suffer harm from the changing climate. Developed countries continued their dash for gas, often using hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" to extract it, and greenhouse gas emissions kept rising. On a bright note, solar panels became the cheapest energy source in parts of the tropics. Here is our pick of this year's environment stories.... ... As if we actually should pay attention to the environment! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Oct 16, 2012 from London Guardian: World's biggest geoengineering experiment 'violates' UN rules A controversial American businessman dumped around 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the Pacific Ocean as part of a geoengineering scheme off the west coast of Canada in July, a Guardian investigation can reveal. Lawyers, environmentalists and civil society groups are calling it a "blatant violation" of two international moratoria and the news is likely to spark outrage at a United Nations environmental summit taking place in India this week. Satellite images appear to confirm the claim by Californian Russ George that the iron has spawned an artificial plankton bloom as large as 10,000 square kilometres. The intention is for the plankton to absorb carbon dioxide and then sink to the ocean bed -- a geoengineering technique known as ocean fertilisation that he hopes will net lucrative carbon credits. ... Russ George, the georgeneer! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Sep 17, 2012 from London Guardian: Arctic expert predicts final collapse of sea ice within four years One of the world's leading ice experts has predicted the final collapse of Arctic sea ice in summer months within four years. In what he calls a "global disaster" now unfolding in northern latitudes as the sea area that freezes and melts each year shrinks to its lowest extent ever recorded, Prof Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University calls for "urgent" consideration of new ideas to reduce global temperatures. In an email to the Guardian he says: "Climate change is no longer something we can aim to do something about in a few decades' time, and that we must not only urgently reduce CO2 emissions but must urgently examine other ways of slowing global warming, such as the various geoengineering ideas that have been put forward." ... Even if we have a paddle we're too far up Shit's Creek for it to matter. ApocaDoc permalink Want more context? Try reading our book FREE online: Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies! More fun than a barrel of jellyfish! Sun, Sep 2, 2012 from EnvironmentalResearchWeb: Geoengineering 'comparatively inexpensive' Researchers in the US have estimated that modification of stratospheric albedo - a widely discussed geoengineering technique to counteract some of the effects of climate change - could cost as little as $5 bn a year. Although this is just a small fraction of the gross domestic product (GDP) of most western countries, the team stresses that there are many potential risks of geoengineering the planet in this way.... Indeed, scientists and policy experts have uncovered many disadvantages of stratospheric albedo modification. One problem is that different regions of the world might need different amounts of modification, since global warming is not expected to occur evenly. Another issue is that altering albedo could affect other aspects of the climate such as rainfall. In fact, some climate models suggest that albedo modification could hasten the droughts that climate change itself is expected to induce. Worst, however, is the knowledge that, once begun, albedo modification must be maintained indefinitely. "Abrupt stopping of the delivery of particles to the stratosphere would cause very rapid climate changes," said Apt. ... Heck, the first fix is free. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Aug 20, 2012 from ScienceAlert: Drastic tactics to save oceans? ... "A much broader approach to marine management and mitigation options, including manipulating the environment around corals and considering the translocation of reef-building corals, must be evaluated," he said.... Marine conservation options may include: * Using shade to protect corals from the heat stress which leads to coral bleaching and death, albeit at small scales. * Actively assisting biological resilience and adaptation through spatial planning, protective culturing and possibly selective breeding * Maintain or manage ocean chemistry by adding globally abundant base minerals such as carbonates and silicates to the ocean to neutralize acidity, and improve conditions for shell formation in marine creatures * Convert CO2 from land-based waste into dissolved bicarbonates that could be added to the ocean to provide carbon sequestration and enhance alkalinity. ... Marinengineering. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Aug 9, 2012 from Live Science: Could Space Mirrors Stop Global Warming? The record-breaking temperatures of the past few years are getting more people thinking about bigger solutions to climate change. Ideas once thought of as wacky are now receiving careful consideration, including an idea that sounds straight out of science fiction: cooling the earth by launching reflective mirrors into space. Lowell Wood of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory proposed a giant space mirror in the early 2000s, though he cautioned that the mirror should be considered only as a measure of last resort. Why? Because the mirror would have to have an area of 600,000 square miles - a slightly smaller area than Greenland - and launching something that big would be prohibitively expensive. Another option: billions of smaller mirrors. Roger Angel, researcher and optics expert at the University of Arizona, proposed that idea in 2006. ... In space, no one can see you see yourself. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Aug 7, 2012 from Live Science: Rules Lacking for Geoengineering Projects for Global Warming What if someone wanted to deploy a massive project to try to reverse climate change today? Perhaps some researchers wanted to spray sulfur particles into the stratosphere to reflect away some of the sun's energy, cooling the Earth in an attempt to compensate for global warming. Or perhaps a group wanted to unload some fertilizer into the ocean, so more algae will grow and absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Their actions may have global consequences, but would such projects have to answer to a global governing body? ... Just ask The Anti-Christ! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jul 18, 2012 from London Guardian: US geoengineers to spray sun-reflecting chemicals from balloon Two Harvard engineers are to spray sun-reflecting chemical particles into the atmosphere to artificially cool the planet, using a balloon flying 80,000 feet over Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The field experiment in solar geoengineering aims to ultimately create a technology to replicate the observed effects of volcanoes that spew sulphates into the stratosphere, using sulphate aerosols to bounce sunlight back to space and decrease the temperature of the Earth. David Keith, one of the investigators, has argued that solar geoengineering could be an inexpensive method to slow down global warming, but other scientists warn that it could have unpredictable, disastrous consequences for the Earth's weather systems and food supplies. Environmental groups fear that the push to make geoengineering a "plan B" for climate change will undermine efforts to reduce carbon emissions. ... Volcano wannabes. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Jun 4, 2012 from Climate Central: Geoengineered Sky: Bye-Bye Blue, Hello White ...an otherwise harmless side effect of one new geoengineering study might turn out to be deeply troubling. Geoengineering itself is a sort of Plan B, a way to fix global warming after the fact if we fail to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. One such scheme involves spewing particles of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to cut down on incoming sunlight -- and according to new paper in Geophysical Research Letters, that could make that canopy of deep blue a thing of the past. Instead, Ben Kravitz, of the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford and his colleagues say, the sky will become a washed-out white. ... Can't we just paint the white sky blue? ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Feb 6, 2012 from London Guardian: Bill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering A small group of leading climate scientists, financially supported by billionaires including Bill Gates, are lobbying governments and international bodies to back experiments into manipulating the climate on a global scale to avoid catastrophic climate change. The scientists, who advocate geoengineering methods such as spraying millions of tonnes of reflective particles of sulphur dioxide 30 miles above earth, argue that a "plan B" for climate change will be needed if the UN and politicians cannot agree to making the necessary cuts in greenhouse gases, and say the US government and others should pay for a major programme of international research. ... Apparently, the "B" in "plan B" stands for Bill. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jan 3, 2012 from Washington Post: Spaceship Earth: A new view of environmentalism Spaceship Earth enters 2012 belching smoke, overheating and burning through fuel at a frightening rate. It's feeling pretty crowded, and the crew is mutinous. No one's at the helm. Sure, it's an antiquated metaphor. It's also an increasingly apt way to discuss a planet with 7 billion people, a global economy, a World Wide Web, climate change, exotic organisms running amok and all sorts of resource shortages and ecological challenges. More and more environmentalists and scientists talk about the planet as a complex system, one that human beings must aggressively monitor, manage and sometimes reengineer. Kind of like a spaceship. ... Sounds like we are lost in space. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Dec 14, 2011 from ClimateWire: Scrubbing Carbon Dioxide from Air May Prove Too Costly One of the seemingly ideal and direct solutions to climate change is to efficiently vacuum up greenhouse gases straight from the atmosphere. But a new study finds that such a proposal is very far-fetched and tremendously expensive... in a paper published earlier this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that trying to scrub the air is much more expensive than keeping it from getting dirty in the first place. ... So what am I going to do with my zeppelin-sized scrub brush? ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Dec 14, 2011 from New Scientist: Call for Arctic geoengineering as soon as possible It's the most urgent call for geoengineering yet: begin cooling the Arctic by 2013 or face runaway global warming. But the warning -- from a voice on the scientific fringe -- may be premature, according to experts contacted by New Scientist. John Nissen, a former software engineer who has become alarmed at the possibility of reaching a climate "tipping point" argued for Arctic geoengineering as soon as possible in a poster presentation at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco last week.... Although Nissen's opinion is not in the scientific mainstream, he has the backing of a leading expert on sea ice, Peter Wadhams of the University of Cambridge, who recently suggested that the Arctic ocean may be ice-free at the end of each summer from 2015 onwards. Wadhams says that accelerating climate change in the Arctic has forced him to abandon his scepticism about geoengineering. "One has to consider doing something," he says. ... Geoengineering... the equivalent of of punting. ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Sep 2, 2011 from BusinessGreen: Scientists to deploy giant balloon 20km above earth in climate-cooling experiment It sounds barmy, audacious or sci-fi: a tethered balloon the size of Wembley Stadium suspended 20km above earth, linked to the ground by a giant garden hose pumping hundreds of tonnes of minute chemical particles a day into the thin stratospheric air to reflect sunlight and cool the planet. A team of British academics will next month formally announce the first step towards creating an artificial volcano by going ahead with the world's first major geo-engineering field test in the next few months. The ultimate aim is to mimic the cooling effect that volcanoes have when they inject particles into the stratosphere that bounce some of the sun's energy back into space, so preventing it from warming the earth and mitigating the effects of man-made climate change.... If the technical problems posed by controlling a massive balloon at more than twice the cruising height of a commercial airliner are resolved, then the team from Cambridge, Oxford, Reading and Bristol universities expects to move to full-scale solar radiation tests.... "This hose would be just like a garden hose - 20km long - and we can pump stuff up the pipe. The nice thing about it is we can have a knob, if you like, which we can control to adjust the rate at which we inject these particles." ... SDDSS: Same Day, Different Sprayed Shit. ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Aug 27, 2011 from New York Times Environment: Time to Start Work on a Panic Button? For two decades, the world's governments have failed to meet their own commitment to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas. As frustration builds among scientists, some of them have begun to argue for research on a potential last-ditch option in case global warming starts to get out of control. It is called geoengineering -- or directly manipulating the Earth's climate.... Perhaps the single most prominent idea is to scatter sulfur compounds into the upper atmosphere, mimicking volcanic eruptions and causing some of the sun's light to bounce back to space. Other ideas include designing machines to capture carbon dioxide from the air and store it underground or in the deep ocean. Most scientists who support this kind of research are emphatically not advocating that geoengineering schemes be undertaken now, and most of them hope society will never reach that point. But they do want a research program to quantify the potential risks and benefits, so that future political leaders will have some scientific basis if they ever have to make decisions on the issue.... The Government Accountability Office, an auditing and analysis arm of Congress, found that no geoengineering scheme could be responsibly deployed today, given the uncertainties. But it also found that a large majority of experts it interviewed were in favor of research to narrow those uncertainties. And the agency did public-opinion research that suggested the American people would favor such research, too, while also being concerned about the potential harm. ... We've done it once; surely we can do it again, this time on purpose! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jul 5, 2011 from CBC: China's pollution temporarily slowed climate change Scientists have come up with a possible explanation for why the rise in Earth's temperature paused for a bit during the 2000s, one of the hottest decades on record. The answer seems counterintuitive. It's all that sulphur pollution in the air from China's massive coal-burning, according to a new study. Sulphur particles in the air deflect the sun's rays and can temporarily cool things down a bit. That can happen even as coal-burning produces the carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming.... But sulphur's cooling effect is only temporary, while the carbon dioxide from coal burning stays in Earth's atmosphere a long time. Chinese coal consumption doubled between 2003 and 2007, and that caused a 26 per cent increase in global coal consumption, Kaufmann said.... Sulphur quickly drops out of the air if it is not replenished, while carbon dioxide remains for a long time, so its warming effects are beginning to be visible again, he noted. The plateau in temperature growth disappeared in 2009 and 2010, when temperatures lurched upward. ... Now we have no excuse not to be subjects of King Coal! ApocaDoc permalink You're still reading! Good for you! You really should read our short, funny, frightening book FREE online (or buy a print copy): Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies! We've been quipping this stuff for more than 30 months! Every day! Which might explain why we don't get invited to parties anymore. Wed, Jun 15, 2011 from Guardian: Leaked Documents: IPCC asks scientists to assess geo-engineering climate solutions Lighter-coloured crops, aerosols in the stratosphere and iron filings in the ocean are among the measures being considered by leading scientists for "geo-engineering" the Earth's climate, leaked documents from the UN climate science body show. In a move that suggests the UN and rich countries are despairing of reaching agreement by consensus at global climate talks, the US, British and other western scientists will outline a series of ideas to manipulate the world's climate to reduce carbon emissions. But they accept that even though the ideas could theoretically work, they might equally have unintended and even irreversible consequences. The papers, leaked from inside the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), ahead of a geo-engineering expert group meeting in Lima in Peru next week, show that around 60 scientists will propose or try to assess a range of radical measures.... "Asking a group of geo-engineering scientists if more research should be done is like asking bears if they would like honey," said the letter, signed by groups including Friends of the Earth International, Via Campesina and ETC.... "We are putting ourselves in a scenario where we will have to develop more powerful technologies to capture emissions out of the atmosphere", she said. "We are getting into very risky territory." ... I do believe in tech. I do believe in tech. I do I do I do.... ApocaDoc permalink Mon, May 9, 2011 from The Walrus: Climate Controlled He's been training his mental telescope on the year 2031, and the nagging question of whether our world will be consumed by a new, climate-related geopolitics.... China and the Pacific Rim nations, meanwhile, are enduring ever-worsening repercussions of climate change: volatile storms, food riots, and rising sea levels that displace millions of people. "Suddenly," he says, drawing out the tale like the pitch for a thriller, "some countries say, 'Screw it. We have to cool this down.'" How? A bloc of Asian nations underwrites an aggressive geoengineering effort that uses specially designed aircraft to disperse thousands of tonnes of sulfate aerosols into the upper atmosphere. The goal: to reduce global temperatures and calm regional weather patterns. Relative to the costs of environmental mayhem, this high-leverage project is alluringly affordable and promises quick results. Indeed, the halo of high-altitude particles succeeds in reflecting enough sunlight into space that ocean temperatures begin to drop -- so much so that the summer sea ice in the Arctic refreezes. Blackstock continues the plot line: Arctic oil and gas exploration halts, triggering a recession as investors anticipate rising energy prices. Resource-rich northern nations, which have reaped a climate change dividend in the Arctic, now find their commercial interests directly threatened by the geoengineering efforts of southern countries hit by global warming symptoms. ... Surely nobody would change the climate in a way that would harm others, would they? ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Apr 5, 2011 from Huffington Post: Geoengineering: Scientists Debate Risks Of Sun-Blocking And Other Climate Tweaks To Fight Warming Scientists of earth, sea and sky, scholars of law, politics and philosophy: In three intense days cloistered behind Chicheley Hall's old brick walls, four dozen thinkers pondered the planet's fate as it grows warmer, weighed the idea of reflecting the sun to cool the atmosphere and debated the question of who would make the decision to interfere with nature to try to save the planet. The unknown risks of "geoengineering" - in this case, tweaking Earth's climate by dimming the skies - left many uneasy.... "By most accounts, the leading contender is stratospheric aerosol particles," said climatologist John Shepherd of Britain's Southampton University. The particles would be sun-reflecting sulfates spewed into the lower stratosphere from aircraft, balloons or other devices - much like the sulfur dioxide emitted by the eruption of the Philippines' Mount Pinatubo in 1991, estimated to have cooled the world by 0.5 degrees C (0.9 degrees F) for a year or so.... The technique has other downsides: The sulfates would likely damage the ozone layer shielding Earth from damaging ultraviolet rays; they don't stop atmospheric carbon dioxide from acidifying the oceans; and sudden cooling of the Earth would itself alter climate patterns in unknown ways.... Some are also making a political calculation. If research shows the stratospheric pollutants would reverse global warming, unhappy people "would realize the alternative to reducing emissions is blocking out the sun," Hamilton observed. "We might never see blue sky again." If, on the other hand, the results are negative, or the risks too high, and global warming's impact becomes increasingly obvious, people will see "you have no Plan B," said EDF's Hamburg - no alternative to slashing use of fossil fuels. Either way, popular support should grow for cutting emissions. ... Grey skies / how could that be? / Nothin' but blue skies / should I see. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Feb 27, 2011 from National Geographic: Small Nuclear War Could Reverse Global Warming for Years Even a regional nuclear war could spark "unprecedented" global cooling and reduce rainfall for years, according to U.S. government computer models. Widespread famine and disease would likely follow, experts speculate. During the Cold War a nuclear exchange between superpowers--such as the one feared for years between the United States and the former Soviet Union--was predicted to cause a "nuclear winter."... But nuclear war remains a very real threat--for instance, between developing-world nuclear powers, such as India and Pakistan.... The global cooling caused by these high carbon clouds wouldn't be as catastrophic as a superpower-versus-superpower nuclear winter, but "the effects would still be regarded as leading to unprecedented climate change," research physical scientist Luke Oman said during a press briefing Friday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. ... We'll just call it "nuclear spring"! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Feb 26, 2011 from Scientific American: Can Geoengineering Save the World from Global Warming? As efforts to combat climate change falter despite ever-rising concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, some scientists and other experts have begun to consider the possibility of using so-called geoengineering to fix the problem. Such "deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment" as the Royal Society of London puts it, is fraught with peril, of course. For example, one of the first scientists to predict global warming as a result of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere--Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius--thought this might be a good way to ameliorate the winters of his native land and increase its growing season. Whereas that may come true for the human inhabitants of Scandinavia, polar plants and animals are suffering as sea ice dwindles and temperatures warm even faster than climatologists predicted. Scientific American corresponded with science historian James Fleming of Colby College in Maine, author of Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control, about the history of geoengineering--ranging from filling the air with the artificial aftermath of a volcanic eruption to seeding the oceans with iron in order to promote plankton growth--and whether it might save humanity from the ill effects of climate change.... This idea of detonating bombs in near-space was proposed in 1957 by Nicholas Christofilos, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.... In short, I think it may be infinitely more dangerous than climate change, largely due to the suspicion and social disruption it would trigger by changing humanity's relationship to nature. ... Anything that makes climate change seem tame is a bit of all right with me, even if it's "infinitely more dangerous than climate change"! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Feb 1, 2011 from Yale360: Ocean Fertilization to Cut CO2 Has Low Chance of Success, Study Says The first comprehensive survey of plans to remove CO2 from the atmosphere by seeding the oceans with iron or other nutrients shows that even widespread fertilization would remove only modest amounts of CO2 from the air over the next century. The summary of existing studies said ocean fertilization also carries a risk of causing unintended long-term harm to marine ecosystems. Ocean fertilization involves dumping iron and other nutrients into the ocean to trigger the growth of phytoplankton, which consumes CO2 as it grows. But the summary, released at a conference on climate geoengineering schemes in California, said the risks of ocean fertilization probably far outweigh the rewards, as it is extremely difficult to assess the impact of the technique over wide swaths of ocean. ... I'm sure we'll figure something out. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Jan 9, 2011 from Chemical and Engineering News: Scrubbing Carbon Dioxide From The Air And Ocean New research points toward a solution that could kill two birds with one stone: Remove CO2 from a natural-gas-powered plant's waste gas stream using seawater and mineral calcium carbonate, and then pump the resulting calcium bicarbonate into the sea to neutralize it.... Roughly one-third of anthropogenic CO2 emissions come from burning fossil fuel in electricity plants.... Rau built a lab-scale scrubber that used seawater and mineral carbonate to remove CO2 from a simulated flue gas stream. The scrubber worked by pumping CO2 over or through a porous bed of limestone particles sprayed with a continuous flow of water. He found that the process removed up to 97 percent of the CO2 in the gas. Water hydrated the waste CO2 to produce carbonic acid, which then reacted with, and was neutralized by the limestone. As a result, the CO2 gas transformed into dissolved calcium bicarbonate. Dumping the dissolved calcium bicarbonate into the ocean would provide a second benefit: The calcium bicarbonate can increase seawater alkalinity, Rau says, by speeding up a natural but very slow process known as carbonate weathering, which captures carbon in the ocean. The world's oceans would benefit from increasing alkalinity because they absorb as much as one-third of man-made CO2 emissions and are becoming more acidic. Ocean acidity in turn threatens the health of coral reefs, calcareous plankton, and other sea life. "We might be able to safely modify ocean chemistry to help mitigate both CO2 and ocean acidification," Rau says. ... Y'know, lab-scale solar works really well too! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Dec 4, 2010 from Associated Press: As climate talks drag on, more ponder techno-fixes Like the warming atmosphere above, a once-taboo idea hangs over the slow, frustrating U.N. talks to curb climate change: the idea to tinker with the atmosphere or the planet itself, pollute the skies to ward off the sun, fill the oceans with gas-eating plankton, do whatever it takes. As climate negotiators grew more discouraged in recent months, U.S. and British government bodies urged stepped-up studies of such "geoengineering."... Schemes were floated for using aircraft, balloons or big guns to spread sulfate particles in the lower stratosphere to reflect sunlight, easing the warming scientists say is being caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted by industry, vehicles and agriculture. Others suggested assembling gargantuan mirrors in orbit to fend off the solar radiation. Still others propose -- and a German experiment tried -- seeding the ocean with iron, a nutrient that would spur the spread of plankton, which absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. ... Hey, if we can't get real work done, we might as well fire up the bong! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Nov 15, 2010 from Louisiana State University via ScienceDaily: Oceanography Researchers Discover Toxic Algae in Open Water Louisiana State University's Sibel Bargu, along with her former graduate student Ana Garcia, from the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences in LSU's School of the Coast & Environment, has discovered toxic algae in vast, remote regions of the open ocean for the first time... Harmful algal blooms, or HABs, are reported as increasing both geographically and in frequency along populated coastlines. Bargu's research shows that the ubiquitous diatom Pseudo-nitzschia -- an alga that produces the neurotoxin, domoic acid, or DA, in coastal regions -- actually also produces DA at many locations in the open Pacific. The presence of these potent toxins in deep water environments is worrisome, given that in coastal waters, where the phenomenon has been studied, DA can enter the food chain, forcing the closure of some fisheries and poisoning marine mammals and birds that feed on the contaminated fish. The main concern, though, is that the adding of iron to ocean waters -- one of the most commonly proposed strategies to reduce global warming -- appears now to likely result in promoting toxic blooms in the ocean. ... This bloom... could be our doom. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Nov 3, 2010 from Scientific American: Geoengineering faces ban A last-ditch remedy for an ailing planet, or a reckless scheme that could be a greater threat to life on Earth than the problem it aims to solve? Opinions are sharply divided on geoengineering--potential massive interventions in the global climate system, intended to forestall the worst effects of climate change. Last week, participants in the international Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) made their views clear at a meeting in Nagoya, Japan. They included in their agreement to protect biodiversity a moratorium on geo-engineering "until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks." The moratorium, expected to be in force by 2012, isn't legally binding, and given the preliminary nature of studies in the area it is unlikely to affect researchers in the near future. But some scientists fear that the CBD's stance will sow confusion and delay at a time when governments and research groups are exploring how geo-engineering might feasibly be undertaken if global warming accelerates disastrously. ... Why would geoengineering concern biodiversity scientists? Complex living ecosystem interrelationships have nothing to do with corporate-military politics. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Oct 5, 2010 from Washington Post: Threat of global warming sparks U.S. interest in geoengineering It's come to this: Climate-conscious policymakers are beginning to contemplate the possibility of playing God with the weather in the hope of slowing global warming. For years it was considered downright wacky in official Washington to discuss geoengineering: altering the climate by reflecting sunlight back into the sky, sucking carbon dioxide from the air - or a host of other gee-whiz schemes. But in the past year the wacky has won a following, spurred in part by the recent collapse of climate legislation as well as by growing interest among private entrepreneurs and foreign officials. ... That whole "playing God" thing has worked out great so far! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Sep 27, 2010 from EnvironmentalResearchWeb: Geoengineering: nanoparticles could beat sulphates Most geoengineering research today considers the effects of adding sulphate particles to the atmosphere. But David Keith of Canada's University of Calgary reckons that nanoparticles could overcome at least some of the problems such a solution would bring.... "Engineered nanoparticles would first need to be tested in laboratories, with only short-lived particles initially deployed in the atmosphere so any effects could be easily reversible," said Keith. In his paper Keith considers the geoengineering potential of a 50 nm-thick disk with a radius of roughly 5 microns.... While Keith believes that it is worth researching the potential of such nanoparticles, he says their use would create more unknowns than sulphate particles, which volcanoes have already released into the atmosphere. "We lack the direct natural analogue provided by volcanic injection of sulphur dioxide," he writes in PNAS. "This lack of analogue means that we should be more concerned about unexpected side effects, unknown unknowns, and consider how a careful progression from testing to monitored subscale deployment could constrain the risks."... According to Keith, geoengineering cannot offset the risks that come from increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. "If we don't halt man-made carbon dioxide emissions, no amount of climate engineering can eliminate the problems - massive emissions reductions are still necessary," he said. ... A geoengineer with humility? What's up with that? ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Sep 26, 2010 from Anthony Doerr, in The Morning News, via OnlyInItForTheGold: Planet Zoo and the Cliff During my sophomore year, 1992, 1,500 scientists, including more than half the living Nobel laureates, admonished in their Warning to Humanity: "A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated." So what have we done? Not much. From 1992 to 2007, global CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels rose 38 percent. Emissions in 2008 rose a full 2 percent despite a global economic slump. Honeybees are dying by the billions, amphibians by the millions, and shallow Caribbean reefs are mostly dead already. Our soil is disappearing faster than ever before, half of all mammals are in decline, and a recent climate change model predicts that the Arctic could have ice-free summers by 2013. Unchecked, carbon emissions from China alone will probably match the current global level by 2030.... Sure, it's socially acceptable nowadays to compost your coffee grounds and turn off your thermostat and grow strawberries on the porch, but it's still considered uncool to suggest that the American capitalist system is untenable.... Maybe even more astounding, they've found antibiotic-resistant E. coli in French Guiana, in the intestines of Wayampi Indians--people who have never taken antibiotics.... Eventually the ice caps will resolidify; new species will arise, the forests will teem once more. It's Homo sapiens we need to worry about. Some geologists have taken to calling the past 8,000 years or so the Anthropocene Period -- a time when we've burned coal, impounded rivers, and reconfigured ecosystems. And now, in our lifetimes, we're learning that perhaps this period is untenable, and like billions of species before us, we are not immune to extinction. ... In zoos, primates fling their shit everywhere. We try telling them not to, but it doesn't do much good. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Sep 19, 2010 from Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies: Could precisely engineered nanoparticles provide a novel geoengineering tool? In a nutshell, David's idea is to engineer discs around 10 micrometers across and 50 nanometers thick, with a core of aluminum, a top layer of aluminum oxide, and a bottom layer of barium titanate. Injected high enough into the atmosphere (so Brownian motion didn't muck things up) the discs should align with the lighter aluminum/aluminum oxide side facing up, and the heavier barium titanate side facing down. This is important, because the way these two surfaces interact with air molecules when the particles heat up - as they would do in sunlight - means that there would be a net force pushing the discs up (photophoresis). In effect, the particles would levitate to a stable position in the atmosphere, while keeping their shiny side to the sun - thus reflecting sunlight away from the earth (or increasing albedo).... The neat thing of course is that this is a concept that can be tested reasonably easily in the lab, using simulated atmospheres and prototype particles. And with advances in materials manufacturing in recent years, it shouldn't be too hard to make small batches of the discs.... In his paper, David estimates that around 10 billion kg of these nano-discs would be needed. That's a lot - but probably economically viable with large-scale investment in production and if the benefits were deemed important enough (David runs the figures assuming the cost of manufacture is less than 1 percent the cost of abating CO2 emissions, and arrives at a cost of less than $60/kg). ... Only $600,000,000,000 dollars, and I can still run my lights all night? Let's do it! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Aug 30, 2010 from University of Copenhagen, via EurekAlert: Dramatic climate change is unpredictable By analysing the ice cores that are drilled through the more than three kilometer thick ice sheet in Greenland, scientists can obtain information about the temperature and climate going back around 140,000 years. The most pronounced climate shifts besides the end of the ice age is a series of climate changes during the ice age where the temperature suddenly rose 10-15 degrees in less than 10 years. The climate change lasted perhaps 1000 years, then - bang - the temperature fell drastically and the climate changed again.... "We have made a theoretical modelling of two different scenarios that might trigger climate change. We wanted to investigate if it could be determined whether there was an external factor which caused the climate change or whether the shift was due to an accumulation of small, chaotic fluctuations", explains Peter Ditlevsen, a climate researcher at the Niels Bohr Institute. He explains that in one scenario the climate is like a seesaw that has tipped to one side. If sufficient weight is placed on the other side the seesaw will tip - the climate will change from one state to another. This could be, for example, an increase in the atmospheric content of CO2 triggering a shift in the climate.... [I]t was the chaos-dynamical fluctuations that were the triggering cause of the dramatic climate changes during the ice age. This means that they are very difficult to predict. ... If I can't predict it, how can I control it? ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Aug 24, 2010 from PNAS, via Scientific American: All-out geoengineering still would not stop sea level rise Mimicking volcanoes by throwing particles high into the sky. Maintaining a floating armada of mirrors in space. Burning plant and other organic waste to make charcoal and burying it--or burning it as fuel and burying the CO2 emissions. Even replanting trees. All have been mooted as potential methods of "geoengineering"--"deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment," as the U.K.'s Royal Society puts it.... Arguably a more devastating consequence would be the rise of the seas as warmer waters expand and melting icecaps fill ocean basins higher, potentially swamping nations and the estimated 150 million people living within one meter of high tide. Can geoengineering hold back that tide? That's what scientists attempted to assess with computer models in a paper published online August 23 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In their words, "sea level rise by 2100 will likely be 30 centimeters higher than 2000 levels despite all but the most aggressive geoengineeering." In large part, that's because the ocean has a lot of thermal inertia: it only slowly warms as a result of increasing greenhouse gas levels--and it will only slowly cool down again.... Perhaps the only way to reduce warming enough to minimize the rise of the oceans is an all-out effort that also includes burning biomass as fuel (either to replace coal or gasoline or both) and pairing it with CO2 capture and storage. Together, they could suck down greenhouse gas levels by 180 ppm--more than enough to bring us below pre-industrial levels. As a result, sea level rise is held to just 10 centimers by 2100, according to the author's modeling. Such extensive geoengineering seems impractical given its economic (and environmental) cost. ... We can't just build an armada of floating refrigerators? ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Aug 8, 2010 from SciDev.net: Scientists reject aerosol geoengineering Geoengineering schemes that could help some countries deal with global warming could have the opposite effect in others, according to a study.... Previous studies only examined a small number of scenarios for [Solar Radiation Management (SRM)] and did not look at how those impacts would differ on regional level. But a study published in the August issue of Nature Geoscience examined the effects of 54 different approaches to deflecting solar radiation on 23 macro-regions of the world and found that the impacts of SRM could vary at regional levels. Pumping aerosols into the atmosphere, for example, would have different effects on climate in China and India. The differences would grow with time, posing challenges to international governance of such interventions. The analysis showed that while a given action could restore climate in both countries to the baseline before man-made global warming, by the 2070s, the strategies needed to achieve the same results in different countries would conflict with each other. ... I think that's called "the free market." We're free to screw everyone else, right? ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Jul 31, 2010 from IEEE Spectrum: Technically Speaking: Hacking the Planet My goal here, as usual, is to focus on the new language being generated by geoengineers and others in this burgeoning field, and there's plenty of it. The overall goal of solar radiation management (or SRM)--the various schemes to reflect sunlight back into space and thus reduce global warming--is global dimming, which is the gradual reduction in the amount of sunlight reaching Earth's surface. One way to do this is to increase Earth's overall reflectivity, which is also called its albedo, so this form of planet hacking is known as albedo engineering. Examples of proposed projects include cloud brightening, increasing the reflectivity of marine clouds (also called cloud whitening); creating a stratoshield through stratosphere doping.... These two procedures are linked as carbon capture and storage, or CCS. Strategies include adding nutrients to the ocean to increase the number of organisms that can capture carbon, known as ocean nourishment (when the nutrient is iron, this technique is also called iron fertilization); making artificial trees with plastic "leaves" that capture carbon; creating carbon sinks, reservoirs that store carbon; injecting carbon into underground geological structures (geosequestration) or into biological entities (biosequestration), particularly a form of charcoal called biochar; and pumping carbon into the deep ocean, where it dissolves (ocean dissolution). ... Now that we have a special language for geoengineering, we're ready for groupthink! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Jul 26, 2010 from Discover Magazine: The Best Flavor of Geoengineering Stills Leaves a Bad Taste In theory, geoengineering seems like the ideal remedy for our climate ills. Some white reflective roofs here, a little ocean fertilization there, a few simulated volcanic eruptions, and voila! you have a potential fix for one of the world's most intractable problems. But there's good reason to believe that many of these proposed schemes would prove much costlier to the planet over both the short- and long-term than more mainstream approaches to addressing climate change--and leave a number of critical problems, like ocean acidification, in the lurch.... The rapidly changing nature of climate models, from which most of these findings are drawn, also makes it inherently difficult to predict with any uncertainty what this scheme's exact outcome will be. What is certain, however, is that it would have a fair number of unintended consequences--almost all of which would be bad. According to a new paper in Nature Geoscience, stratospheric geoengineering, or "solar-radiation management," as the authors refer to it, would affect different parts of the world differentially (go figure), helping to cool down some countries while cooking others. ... It doesn't just taste bad. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jun 30, 2010 from PhysOrg: Nutrients, viruses and the biological carbon pump Adding nutrients to the sea could decrease viral infection rates among phytoplankton and enhance the efficiency of the biological pump, a means by which carbon is transferred from the atmosphere to the deep ocean, according to a new mathematical modelling study. The findings, published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, have implications for ocean geo-engineering schemes proposed for tackling global warming. Tiny free-floating algae called phytoplankton dominate biological production in the world's oceans and sit at the base of the marine food web. Their population dynamics are controlled by sunlight, nutrient availability, grazing by tiny planktonic animals (zooplankton) and mortality caused by viral infection. "Viruses are the most abundant organism in the world's oceans, and it is thought that all phytoplankton species are susceptible to infection. Our aim was to model the interaction between viruses, phytoplankton, zooplankton grazing and nutrient levels".... The researchers took an 'eco-epidemic' modelling approach, taking into account the mutual interaction between the effects of ecology and disease epidemiology. This approach has been used previously to model the effects of infection by pathogens on the population dynamics of mammals and invertebrate animals.... Artificial enhancement of the biological carbon pump by fertilizing the oceans with nutrients has been proposed as a possible geo-engineering 'fix' for global warming caused by the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide from anthropogenic sources. "The decrease in viral infection rates caused by artificially adding nutrients to the sea could in the future benefit humans by increasing the efficiency of the biological carbon pump, making these proposed ocean geo-engineering schemes more viable," said Dr Rhodes. ... As far as I know, extra nutrients never caused any problems anywhere else. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jun 24, 2010 from Telegraph.co.uk: Iron to be dumped at sea to reduce global warming Thousands of tonnes of iron will be dumped at sea in an attempt to cut global warming by sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it has been reported. The iron will lay vast amounts of phytoplankton, which absorbs CO2 as the grow, The Times reported. When the phytoplankton die it sinks to the bottom of the ocean, storing away the carbon for more than 50 years, the paper added.... Aircraft would spray iron sulphate liquid over almost 4,000 miles of the Southern Ocean, The Times claimed. It is thought that if successful the project could remove almost a billion tonnes of carbon a year from the atmosphere - 12 per cent of total CO2 emissions produced by humans.... Scientists, however, have admitted that fertilising the ocean with hundreds of tonnes of iron could have a negative impact on marine life because the dying phytoplankton would cause a reduction in oxygen. ... Pffft. That's only a little of the ocean suffocating. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Jun 7, 2010 from TreeHugger: Reforestation & Biochar: Two Geoengineering Methods That Won't Cause More Harm Than Good Geoengineering has been a slow burning controversy for some time now, with some truly wacky ideas proposed, as well as some which take a more sober look at the prospect of intentionally tinkering with the climate to stop the effects of human activity disturbing it in the first place. Let's look at a couple of those geoengineering methods which won't cause more harm than good: Biochar and Reforestation/Afforestation.... Biochar is essential using charcoal made through pyrolysis of biomass and then burying it mixed in with the soil. It has a long history of use in Amazonia, where it's known as terra preta, for its benefits in making soil more fertile. In regards to long-term carbon storage potential, biochar can work on a millennial scale with, in most cases, no negative soil side effects. Some estimates show biochar having the potential to sequester one billion tons of CO2 each year. ... That's no way to grow the economy! ApocaDoc permalink Fri, May 14, 2010 from Guardian: Bill Gates' cloud-whitening trials 'a dangerous experiment' Campaigners have criticised plans for a sea trial of cloud-whitening technology, funded by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. A US-based research body, Silver Lining, which has received $300,000 from Mr Gates, is developing machines to convert seawater into microscopic particles to be sprayed into clouds. Scientists believe this will increase the whiteness, or albedo, of clouds and increase their ability to reflect more sunlight back into space, reducing global warming. The Gates-backed sea trial would be the largest known attempt to geoengineer the climate so far, reported to be conducted over an area of 10,000km2. However, campaigners say such a large-scale trial is 'risky' and that a global ban on geoengineering experiments should be put in place until regulations governing the sector can be introduced. ... The fearful Vista, from my Windows, is that the XPeriment may lead to the "blue sky of death." ApocaDoc permalink Sat, May 8, 2010 from ABC (Australia): Alternative Reality Geoengineering Game Moving Forward [Story note: billionaire founds alternative reality game which is in fact a cover for a real geoengineering project to spray sulfur dioxide particulates unilaterally into the atmosphere. The "whistleblower" has online presence, leaves clues, links to other possibly-fictional sites.... In many ways related to Walter Jon Williams' novel This Is Not A Game. -- 'Doc Michael] Lots has unfolded in ABC's Alternate Reality game, Bluebird, this week...with a big code break this morning by one of you (someone called 'GirlWhoRuled'). Players are cracking codes, sleuthing locations, and on the chase in the race to find out what eco-entrepreneur & billionaire, Harrison Wyld, might be up to with a certain Mr Kruger. A campaign has been launched, and a rival one by Wyld too. Meanwhile, the young whistleblower scientist, Kyle Vandercamp, has woken up today to find that none of his plastic works. Catch up on the story so far at http://abc.net.au/bluebird (with links to the key blogs and websites involved). ... I've longed for an alternative reality for quite a while. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Apr 28, 2010 from HandsOffMotherEarth: Hands off Mother Earth Hands Off Mother Earth (H.O.M.E) is a global campaign to defend our one precious home, Planet Earth, against the threat of geoengineering experiments. The HOME campaign provides a common platform for organizations and individuals around the world to register their opposition to geoengineering experiments. The campaign asserts that the seas, skies and soils of our home planet should not be used as a laboratory for these unjust and risky technological fixes. The HOME campaign was launched in April 2010 at The World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba Bolivia by a coalition of international civil society groups, indigenous peoples organizations and social movements. These groups invite other organizations worldwide as well as individuals to sign up in support of the campaign. ... Aw, c'mon. WE understand Nature better than Nature does. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Mar 28, 2010 from Science: Scientists Call for 'Climate Intervention' Research With 'Humility' An international group of scientists, ethicists, and governance experts meeting here this week has agreed that research into large-scale modification of the planet is "indispensable" given the "threats" posed by climate change... a 5-day meeting on geoengineering, the idea of deliberate tinkering with the climate to reduce global warming. More than 175 scientists from 15 countries spanning the geosciences, ethics, business, and political science, convened on the leafy grounds of the Asilomar Conference Center along the Pacific Ocean in Northern California. Molecular biologist met here 35 years ago to hash out initial ethical and safety rules on recombinant DNA. So researchers dubbed this meeting "Asilomar 2." Scientists emphasized that they are not saying whether large-scale geoengineering to combat climate change is needed--or if it is morally acceptable. Indeed, the statement urged that any discussion of the topic should be undertaken with "humility." ... We won't need geoengineering if we adopt "humility" as a lifestyle. Now. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Mar 16, 2010 from New York Times: A Risk of Poisoning the Deepest Wells Fertilizing the oceans with iron has been proposed as a way of fighting climate change. The idea is that iron will promote blooms of phytoplankton that will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. When the phytoplankton dies and sinks, the carbon will effectively be sequestered in the deep ocean. Enthusiasm for the idea has waned, in part because of concerns about large-scale manipulation of ocean ecosystems. Now, a study in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences points out a specific risk: by promoting the growth of certain organisms, iron enrichment may result in the harmful production of a neurotoxin[, domoic acid].... The researchers found evidence that increased domoic acid production enabled Pseudonitzschia to outcompete other phytoplankton. "So it's more toxic than it was before," Dr. Trick said, "and there's more of it." ... Good thing we have other consequence-free geoengineering options to turn to! ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Feb 19, 2010 from ASU, via EurekAlert: Idea of restoring 'natural systems' misses mark as response to climate change challenges Particularly in the debates about how to respond to atmospheric greenhouse gas buildup, climate change and humankind's impact on the global environment, Allenby says, "We are often framing the discussion from narrow and overly simplistic perspectives, but what we are dealing with are systems that are highly complex. As a result, the policy solutions we come up with don't match the challenges we are trying to respond to."... One misstep in such endeavors is that we are searching for solutions that will restore natural systems. But Allenby contends "the planet no longer has purely natural systems. What we have is an integrated natural-human environment, one shaped over centuries by a combination of natural factors and technological evolution." The questions in which we must frame discussion of potential geoengineering solutions should be grounded in awareness of this reality, he says. "Responding to something like climate change is not just a scientific and technical matter," he says. "Whatever attempted solutions we chose, or reject, will have significant cultural and ethical implications." ... Centuries, as compared to the mere millions that evolved us to here. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Feb 18, 2010 from National Oceanographic Centre, UK: Ocean geoengineering scheme no easy fix for global warming Pumping nutrient-rich water up from the deep ocean to boost algal growth in sunlit surface waters and draw carbon dioxide down from the atmosphere has been touted as a way of ameliorating global warming. However, a new study led by Professor Andreas Oschlies of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) in Kiel, Germany, pours cold water on the idea. "Computer simulations show that climatic benefits of the proposed geo-engineering scheme would be modest, with the potential to exacerbate global warming should it fail," said study co-author Dr Andrew Yool of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS).... In the new study, the researchers address such questions using a more integrated model of the whole Earth system. The simulations show that, under most optimistic assumptions, three gigatons of carbon dioxide per year could be captured. This is under a tenth of the annual anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, which currently stand at 36 gigatons per year.... More significantly, when the simulated pumps were turned off, the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and surface temperatures rose rapidly to levels even higher than in the control simulation without artificial pumps. This finding suggests that there would be extra environmental costs to the scheme should it ever need to be turned off for unanticipated reasons. ... Who could have expected unexpected consequences? ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jan 13, 2010 from Guardian (UK): Climate scientists to convene global geo-engineering summit Scientists are to hold a high-level summit to discuss how the world could take emergency measures such as blocking out the sun to slow dangerous global warming. Experts from around the world have been invited to attend the meeting in March in California, which will examine possible field trials of so-called geo-engineering schemes, such as pumping chemicals into the air and oceans to combat climate change. The move follows the failure of the recent Copenhagen climate talks to set meaningful carbon reduction targets, and comes amid mounting concern that such controversial techniques may be the only way to curb rising temperatures. ... EXPERTS?! There are no experts in geoengineering, only amateurs, pretending they understand. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Dec 14, 2009 from Associated Press: Governments Turn to Cloud Seeding to Fight Drought SACRAMENTO, California -- On a mountaintop clearing in the Sierra Nevada stands a tall metal platform holding a crude furnace and a box of silver iodide solution that some scientists believe could help offer relief from searing droughts. This is a cloud-seeding machine designed to increase rainfall by spraying a chemical vapor into the clouds. Under the right conditions, it can help water droplets grow heavy, coalesce and fall to the ground. Faced with water shortages, growing populations and the threat that climate change could make matters worse, governments around the globe have increasingly turned to cloud seeding in an attempt to wring more rain and snow from the sky. ... We call this feat of geoengineering the trickle-down effect! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Nov 12, 2009 from The Daily Climate: The escape route Some ideas are the stuff of science fiction: 15 trillion mirrors positioned in orbit to shield the planet from the sun's rays; a fleet of blimps 20 kilometers up feeding a constant stream of sulfur into the stratosphere; a navy of robot-controlled ships prowling the world's oceans, spraying seawater skyward to generate reflective clouds. Others are more mundane: Plant trees to soak up carbon dioxide or paint roofs white to reflect sunlight. Most are unproven. All have major drawbacks. None offset ocean acidification. But the concept is gaining more traction as politicians, confronted with the ugly reality of trying to wean economies off fossil fuels, cast about for a strategy that will work if climate changes quickly or in nasty ways. ... I know! Let's engineer a whole new planet! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Nov 4, 2009 from London Guardian: Can we manipulate the weather? The unseasonal snow that fell on Beijing for 11 hours on Sunday was the earliest and heaviest there has been for years. It was also, China claims, man-made. By the end of last month, farmland in the already dry north of China was suffering badly due to drought. So on Saturday night China's meteorologists fired 186 explosive rockets loaded with chemicals to "seed" clouds and encourage snow to fall. "We won't miss any opportunity of artificial precipitation since Beijing is suffering from a lingering drought," Zhang Qiang, head of the Beijing Weather Modification Office, told state media... Officials said the blue skies that brightened Beijing's parade to celebrate 60 years of communism last month were a result of the 18 cloud-seeding jets and 432 explosive rockets scrambled to empty the sky of rain beforehand. Last year, more than 1,000 rockets were fired to ensure a dry night for last year's Olympic opening ceremony. ... No harm can come from exploding rockets full of chemicals, right? ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Sep 24, 2009 from New Scientist: Climate change may trigger earthquakes and volcanoes FAR from being the benign figure of mythology, Mother Earth is short-tempered and volatile. So sensitive in fact, that even slight changes in weather and climate can rip the planet's crust apart, unleashing the furious might of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and landslides. That's the conclusion of the researchers who got together last week in London at the conference on Climate Forcing of Geological and Geomorphological Hazards. It suggests climate change could tip the planet's delicate balance and unleash a host of geological disasters. What's more, even our attempts to stall global warming could trigger a catastrophic event... ... The Apocalypse... is gonna be like a themepark ride! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Sep 16, 2009 from COP15: EU climate change unit warns against geoengineering Rockets that release dust particles into the stratosphere, plans to fertilize oceans, or huge mirrors that reflect the sun's radiation may sound like handy shortcuts to cool the earth. "It's a temporary cure and doesn't solve anything, and the second thing is that we don't know the earth system enough to start playing with it," says Frank Raes, head of the climate change unit at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in an interview with EurActiv.... "We have to stay very careful about how to use afforestation and deforestation so that we really have a benefit for the climate," Raes says. Instead, he is advocating for geo-renovating. "It is about discussing very sophisticated ways of solving the problems of climate change and air pollution rather than resorting to hard geo-engineering," Frank Raes says in the interview. ... But without geoengineering, how will we use our surplus wealth to further enrich big corporations? ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Sep 12, 2009 from Huffington Post: New Dr. Strangeloves and the Prospect of Geo-Engineered Climate 'Adaptation' He said, "We may have to do the impossible and the unforgivable to address the unavoidable."... I let those words percolate. And then I pondered... Even more problematically, geo-engineering approaches and theory enshrine a false sense of control over the uncontrollable, while simultaneously institutionalizing desperate measures. They play into the agendas of business-as-usual proponents, holding out a mechanistic hope that science and engineering schemes to cool the planet would extend the shelf life of entrenched economic, political, and corporate structures.... Nourished by hubris, enthralled by a cold rationality, geo-engineering advocates live comfortably in flats in London, Stockholm, or Palo Alto. They work at Royal Dutch Shell or the Royal Swedish Academy of Science or the Royal Society, or some equally reputable academic, corporate, or scientific institution. They think they're qualified to talk about love and hope, when their real experience centers on attempting to influence business outcomes via scenario planning or, even more implausibly, planetary and civilization outcomes via the climate system's non-existent thermostat. ... Gimme an H! a U! a B-R-I-and-S! Hu-bris, Hu-bris, that's what we love best! ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Sep 6, 2009 from Financial Times: Thumbs up to geo engineering, thumbs down to carbon taxes from Lomborg group We now have the results of the study by the Copenhagen Consensus -- a group of economists brought together by Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Sceptical Environmentalist -- showing which options for averting dangerous climate change they judge to offer the best value for money. Five economists -- Finn Kydland, Thomas C. Schelling, Vernon L. Smith, Nancy L. Stokey, and Jagdish Bhagwati (the first three are Nobel laureates) decided the rankings. ... So stupid they're not just wrong, but criminally wrong. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Sep 2, 2009 from BBC (UK): Engineering Earth 'is feasible' A UK Royal Society study has concluded that many engineering proposals to reduce the impact of climate change are "technically possible". Such approaches could be effective, the authors said in their report.... Of the two basic geo-engineering approaches, the report concluded that those involving the removal of carbon dioxide were preferable, as they effectively return the climate system closer to its pre-industrial state. But the authors found that many of these options were currently too expensive to implement widely.... The study also said that many of these approaches had huge logistical demands, and it could take several decades for them to be implemented. ... I am sanguine in my belief that humans understand ecosystem complexities well enough to predict all the consequences of our actions. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Aug 23, 2009 from Kansas City Star: Advocates of geoengineering work on man-made fixes for global warming The same way technology got the planet into this climate-change mess, more than a few scientists figure modern know-how can get us out. Crank up plankton growth. Blanket deserts in reflective plastic. Pump greenhouse gases into rock formations. Make clouds shinier. Build volcanoes. These ideas -- called geoengineering -- are not just the stuff of fantasists.... Mainstream scientists -- many of the same people who are convinced that mankind accidentally and dangerously cranked up Earth's temperatures -- think man should at least contemplate his power to deliberately control the climate. ... We need a peaceful, charismatic world leader in charge of this! ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Aug 7, 2009 from BBC (UK): Climate fixes 'pose drought risk' The use of geo-engineering to slow global warming may increase the risk of drought, according to a paper in Science journal. Methods put forward include reflecting solar radiation back into space using giant mirrors or aerosol particles. But the authors warn that such attempts to control the climate could also cause major changes in precipitation. They want the effect on rainfall to be assessed before any action is taken.... They cite the powerful effects on rainfall of volcanic eruptions which also prevent solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface, albeit by throwing up dust rather than reflecting the radiation back into space. For example in 1991, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo not only reduced global temperatures but also led to increases in drought.... The article warns that geo-engineering of this type, combined with the effects of global warming could produce reductions in regional rainfall that could rival those of past major droughts, leading to winners and losers among the human population and possible conflicts over water. ... Why don't all these crises recognize that we need to be able to fix them? ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jul 21, 2009 from American Meteorological Society, via EurekAlert: Geoengineering climate requires more research, cautious consideration and appropriate restrictions Geoengineering -- deliberately manipulating physical, chemical, or biological aspects of the Earth system to confront climate change -- could contribute to a comprehensive risk management strategy to slow climate change but could also create considerable new risks, according to a policy statement released by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) today. According to the Society, geoengineering will not substitute for either aggressive emissions reduction or efforts to adapt to climate change, but it could help lower greenhouse gas concentrations, provide options for reducing specific climate impacts, or offer strategies of last resort if abrupt, catastrophic, or otherwise unacceptable climate-change impacts become unavoidable by other means. However, AMS scientists caution that research to date has not determined whether there are large-scale geoengineering approaches that would produce significant benefits, or whether those benefits would substantially outweigh the detriments. ... Why would meteorologists say this kind of thing? Don't they control the weather? ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Jul 17, 2009 from National Geographic: Shading the Earth Some call it hubris; others call it cool reason. But the idea that we might combat global warming by deliberately engineering a cooler climate -- for instance, by constructing some kind of planetary sunshade -- has lately migrated from the fringe to the scientific mainstream. We are already modifying climate by accident, say proponents of geoengineering; why not do something intentional and intelligent to stop it? "If a country starts thinking it's in their vital interests to do this, and they have the power, I find it hard to imagine them not doing it," says Ken Caldeira, a climate expert at the Carnegie Institution. Caldeira is talking about the easiest, cheapest form of geoengineering: building a sunshade in the stratosphere out of millions of tons of tiny reflective particles, such as sulfate. ... Or.... we could put giant sunglasses on the sun... ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Jul 6, 2009 from Guardian (UK): Just add lime (to the sea) -- the latest plan to cut CO2 emissions Putting lime into the oceans could stop or even reverse the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere, according to proposals unveiled at a conference on climate change solutions in Manchester today. According to its advocates, the same technique could help fix one of the most dangerous side effects of man-made CO2 emissions: rising ocean acidity. The project, known as Cquestrate, is the brainchild of Tim Kruger, a former management consultant. "This is an idea that can not only stop the clock on carbon dioxide, it can turn it back," he said, although he conceded that tipping large quantities of lime into the sea would currently be illegal.... Kruger admits there are challenges to overcome: the world would need to mine and process about 10 cubic kilometres of limestone each year to soak up all the emissions the world produces, and the plan would only make sense if the CO2 resulting from lime production could be captured and buried at source. ... Management consultants make recommendations, and make up catchy branding. They rarely analyze unintended consequences. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jun 16, 2009 from Carnegie Institution, via EurekAlert: Global sunscreen won't save corals Emergency plans to counteract global warming by artificially shading the Earth from incoming sunlight might lower the planet's temperature a few degrees, but such "geoengineering" solutions would do little to stop the acidification of the world oceans that threatens coral reefs and other marine life, report the authors of a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters*. The culprit is atmospheric carbon dioxide, which even in a cooler globe will continue to be absorbed by seawater, creating acidic conditions.... Rising levels of carbon dioxide make seawater more acidic, leading to lower mineral saturation. Recent research has indicated that continued carbon dioxide emissions will cause coral reefs to begin dissolving within a few decades, putting the survival of these ecosystems at extreme risk. Geoengineering's minimal effect on ocean acidification adds another factor to the debate over the advisability of intentionally tampering with the climate system. ... You mean there's no universal technological fix? But that's unamerican! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, May 26, 2009 from Times Online (UK): Steven Chu: paint the world white to fight global warming The Nobel prize-winning physicist appointed by President Obama as US Energy Secretary wants to change the colour of roofs, roads and pavements so they reflect more of the Sun's light and heat to combat global warming, he said today.... By lightening all paved surfaces and roofs to the colour of cement, it would be possible to reduce carbon emissions by as much as taking all the world's cars off the roads for 11 years, he said.... Pale surfaces reflect up to 80 per cent of the sunlight that falls on them, compared to about 20 per cent for dark ones, which is why roofs and walls in hot countries are often whitewashed. An increase in the number of pale surfaces would help contain climate change both by reflecting more solar radiation into space and by reducing the amount of energy needed to keep buildings cool by air-conditioning.... Professor Chu said: "There's a friend of mine, a colleague of mine, Art Rosenfeld, who's pushing very hard for a geo-engineering we all believe will be completely benign, and that's when you have a flat-top roof building, make it white. ... That's so reasonable it just... might... work! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, May 7, 2009 from The Engineer (UK): Hot topic: Geoengineering There are two main methods of doing this. One is reversing the greenhouse effect by pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and locking it away in a planetary version of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) scheme. That may sound ambitious, but it is nothing compared to the other option: create a giant sunshade to prevent some of the sun's rays from hitting the atmosphere in the first place. As far fetched as these ideas seem, they are now beginning to gather attention and are the subject of serious research. To some, however, particularly in the environmental movement, they are seen as a distraction from the matter of reducing emissions and developing renewable technologies.... Some of the effects of global warming are only just becoming apparent and this drastic form of global cooling could easily have effects that are difficult to predict. 'One important consideration is: if it goes wrong, can you turn it off?' Vaughan added. ... Lifestyle change? Me? Heck, just let the scientists and engineers fix it. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Apr 9, 2009 from London Guardian: Obama climate adviser open to geo-engineering to tackle global warming The global warming situation has become so dire that Barack Obama's chief scientific adviser has raised with the president the possibility of massive-scale technological fixes to alter the climate known as 'geo-engineering'. John Holdren, who is a member of the president's cabinet, said today the drastic measures should not be "off the table" in discussions on how best to tackle climate change.... The suite of mega-technological fixes includes everything from placing mirrors in space that reflect sunlight from the Earth, to fertilising the oceans with iron to encourage the growth of algae that can soak up atmospheric carbon dioxide. Another option is to seed clouds which bounce the sun's rays back into space so they do not warm the Earth's surface. Such global-scale technological solutions to climate change may seem fantastical, but increasing numbers of scientists argue that the technologies should at least be investigated. ... Let's not rule out asking the Justice League to help. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Mar 25, 2009 from Mongabay: Ocean fertilization will not help reduce CO2 levels, suggests experiment A controversial 'ocean fertilization' experiment suggests seeding the seas with iron to boost carbon-absorbing phytoplantkon will not sequester much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Some -- including researchers and private companies -- had hoped iron fertilization might be an easy fix for climate change. The Lohafex experiment, conducted by Indo-German team of scientists from the National Institute of Oceaonography and the Alfred Wegener Institute earlier this year, dumped 20 tons of iron sulphate into the Southern Ocean and measured the carbon uptake by plankton. Fertilization stimulated a short burst of phytoplankton growth which was negated by increased predation by crustaceans known as amphipods. "As a result, only a modest amount of carbon sank out of the surface layer by the end of the experiment," said the Alfred Wegener Institute in a statement. ... Damn! Time for "Plan C"? ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Mar 15, 2009 from London Times: Artificial trees and brightened clouds may help to cool us down THE threat of devastating climate change is now so great that some scientists say it is time to investigate a Plan B - geo-engineering on a planetary scale. Such methods of altering the world’s climate may become necessary, they say, unless emissions of greenhouse gases fall within five years. Ideas that were once the realm of science fiction - such as creating artificial trees to absorb carbon dioxide, or reflecting sunlight away from the Earth - are coming under serious scrutiny as temperatures and CO2 emissions continue to rise. The issue has become so pressing that the Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, is preparing a report on the feasibility of geo-engineering.... One method under detailed analysis is to make clouds brighter – especially in the Pacific where the ocean temperature has great influence on world climate.... Professor Stephen Salter of Edinburgh University is investigating how ships could spray droplets of sea water into the atmosphere where they would evaporate, leaving tiny salt crystals to rise on air currents into the clouds. The crystals would act as “nuclei” around which water vapour could condense and thus increase the reflective power of the clouds, bouncing more of the sun’s energy back into space. ... I've looked at clouds from both sides now... ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Feb 25, 2009 from New Scientist: Hacking the planet: The only climate solution left... 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.... What's more, geoengineering could turn out to be relatively cheap. Early estimates suggest some schemes could cost a few billion dollars, small change compared to the cost of slashing emissions - estimated by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern to be at least 1 per of global GDP per year. In his testimony to the UK politicians last year, John Latham of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, argued that all of the above reasons make it "irresponsible" not to examine geoengineering. ... Unintended consequences 'R' us? ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Feb 20, 2009 from Telegraph.co.uk: Customising clouds to stop global warming Stephen Salter, professor of engineering design at the University Edinburgh, and Professor John Latham, from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, have been using Salt Flares to test if it is possible to seed or even create Marine Stratocumulus Clouds. These clouds, which are common, low-flying clouds, could help reflect the suns rays and therefore combat global warming. Prof Salter said: "We need to make them reflect about 10 per cent more than they are reflecting now." Prof Latham added: "We’ve got the most massive global problem that we’ve ever had, so we’ve got to think big." The flares will spray up salt water into the clouds. When the particles rise into a cloud they redistribute the moisture, increasing its reflectivity. As a result the cloud bounces more sunlight back into space. ... I smell the salt breeze of... Denver? ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Feb 17, 2009 from Telegraph.co.uk: Astronomer devises giant sun shield to reverse global warming Professor Roger Angel thinks he can diffract the power of the sun by placing trillions of lenses in space and creating a 100,000-square-mile sunshade. Each lens will have a diffraction pattern etched onto it which will cause the sun's rays to change direction. He intends to use electromagnetic propulsion to get the lenses into space. If work was started immediately Prof Angel thinks the sunshield could be operation by 2040. He said: "Things that take a few decades are not that futuristic." ... Perhaps the headline should be: Astronomer has great press agent! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Jan 26, 2009 from Telegraph.co.uk: Ocean 'fertilisation' team ordered to halt global warming experiment An expedition including British scientists that hoped to "fertilise" the ocean to combat global warming was last night ordered to stop because of concerns that the experiment could breach international law. ... Environmentalists had claimed that the experiment -- aimed at creating a 186-square-mile bloom of plankton between Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope so big that it will be visible from outer space -- could have a devastating impact on the oceans and may even speed up global warming. ... The "unintended consequences police." Again! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Jan 10, 2009 from New Scientist: 'Climate fix' ship sets sail with plan to dump iron The ambitious geoengineering expedition has caused a stir among some campaigning groups, but has the scientific backing of the UK, German, and Indian governments, as well as the International Maritime Organisation. Within weeks, the ship's crew hope to dump 20 tonnes of ferrous sulphate into the Southern Ocean. Plankton need iron to grow, and the aim of the expedition is to trigger a plankton bloom and boost the amount of carbon that is sucked out of the air and locked up at the bottom of the ocean.... "Twenty tonnes of iron particles in the vast ocean is very much drop in the bucket and is unlikely to have a lasting effect," says Ken Caldeira of Stanford University. "The rational concern is that experiments will lead down some slippery slope -- that small experiments could be scaled up without any regulation." ... We have no doubts about humankind's ability to do such geoengineering. Nor about their eventual success in having unintended consequences. ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Jan 2, 2009 from London Independent: Climate scientists: it's time for 'Plan B' An emergency "Plan B" using the latest technology is needed to save the world from dangerous climate change, according to a poll of leading scientists carried out by The Independent. The collective international failure to curb the growing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has meant that an alternative to merely curbing emissions may become necessary. The plan would involve highly controversial proposals to lower global temperatures artificially through daringly ambitious schemes that either reduce sunlight levels by man-made means or take CO2 out of the air. This "geoengineering" approach – including schemes such as fertilising the oceans with iron to stimulate algal blooms – would have been dismissed as a distraction a few years ago but is now being seen by the majority of scientists we surveyed as a viable emergency backup plan that could save the planet from the worst effects of climate change, at least until deep cuts are made in CO2 emissions. What has worried many of the experts, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as a Nobel Laureate, is the failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions through international agreements, namely the Kyoto Treaty, and recent studies indicating that the Earth's natural carbon "sinks" are becoming less efficient at absorbing man-made CO2 from the atmosphere. ... What the hell. Let's skip B and go right to Plan C! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Dec 18, 2008 from UCLA, via EurekAlert: No quick or easy technological fix for climate change, researchers say Global warming, some have argued, can be reversed with a large-scale "geoengineering" fix, such as having a giant blimp spray liquefied sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere or building tens of millions of chemical filter systems in the atmosphere to filter out carbon dioxide. But Richard Turco, a professor in the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a member and founding director of UCLA's Institute of the Environment, sees no evidence that such technological alterations of the climate system would be as quick or easy as their proponents claim and says many of them wouldn't work at all.... "The size distribution of the particles is critical," Turco said. "If the particles are too large, that will actually create a warming effect, a greenhouse warming. Small particles are not useful because they don't reflect much radiation; you need something in between, and we have shown that is hard to achieve reliably." ... I do believe in Tech Fixes, I do believe in Tech Fixes, I do I do I do I do.... ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Dec 8, 2008 from Cosmos: Seven wacky ways to battle global warming Some of the stranger schemes proposed to tackle global warming were knocked down by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change when it met in Thailand, last year... Due to slow political progress, though, and panic about the pace and scale of warming now being reported, some of these quick fixes may soon be back in favour... Here, we share seven bold and unconventional solutions put forward to solve the climate change conundrum. ... By golly, nothing's too wacky for us! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Oct 30, 2008 from Scientific American: Geoengineering: How to Cool Earth--At a Price Three recent developments have brought [geoengineering] back into the mainstream. First, despite years of talk and international treaties, CO2 emissions are rising faster than the worst-case scenario envisioned as recently as 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "The trend is upward and toward an ever increasing reliance on coal," says Ken Caldeira, a climate modeler at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif. Second, ice is melting faster than ever at the poles, suggesting that climate might be closer to the brink -- or to a tipping point, in the current vernacular -- than anyone had thought. And third, Paul J. Crutzen wrote an essay. The 2006 paper in the journal Climatic Change by the eminent Dutch atmospheric chemist, in which with heavy heart he, too, urged serious consideration of geoengineering, "let the cat out of the bag," Keith says. Crutzen had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the destruction of atmospheric ozone in 1995; if he was taking geoengineering seriously, it seemed, everyone needed to. ... Sounds like it's time to let all the cats out of all the bags! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jun 5, 2008 from Environmental Research Web: Geoengineering could lead to droughts Geoengineering schemes to cut the amount of sunlight reaching the earth have been proposed as a measure to reduce temperature rises brought about by increased levels of greenhouse gases. But now a team of researchers in the US has shown that such a move would decrease mean global precipitation, potentially leading to drought. "Global mean rainfall changes are more sensitive to solar forcing than to carbon dioxide forcing," Govindasamy Bala of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, US, told environmentalresearchweb. "Therefore, if you turn down the sun to counter carbon dioxide effects, you will end up with less rainfall and droughts." ... Drat! I was so looking forward to seeing the sun through a planetary umbrella, darkly. ApocaDoc permalink Copyright 2009 The Apocadocs.com