Re:It's Time to Start Talking About Geoengineering
by shoo on Friday November 06, 2015 @06:12AM
(#10518874)
I listened to a talk by Clive Hamilton and Tim Flannery a few months ago, where they discussed geoengineering.
I liked Flannery's framing of geo-engineering. I'm probably slightly misrepresenting what he said, but it was something like this:
1. we need to be seriously pushing a transition to a decarbonised economy, i.e., actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions, before we start playing accounting games with negative emissions
2. then, as a secondary concern, at the same time as we're reducing our emissions, we also need to be pursuing geo-engineering options to remove carbon from the atmosphere
3. there are many different kinds of geoengineering options. some of these are more likely to strengthen or enhance existing earth systems, and other approaches will damage earth systems.
I am glad to see Morton agrees with point #2:
> I'm very keen to get across in this book is that I do not in any way see geoengineering as an alternative to a program of emissions reduction. I think that that would be a very foolish approach to the problem.
There is a very big risk that geo-engineering is perceived as a magical patch that will fix the problem - it can't fix the problem, but perhaps it can alleviate some of the symptoms. Any particular geo-engineering approach will have secondary implications (perhaps unanticipated, like the whole global warming thing).
It isn't realistic to think that we can completely reverse the changes we've set in motion - no reverse, only forward, into new and interesting (and potentially non-adaptable) conditions we haven't yet experienced as a species.
I liked Flannery's framing of geo-engineering. I'm probably slightly misrepresenting what he said, but it was something like this:
1. we need to be seriously pushing a transition to a decarbonised economy, i.e., actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions, before we start playing accounting games with negative emissions
2. then, as a secondary concern, at the same time as we're reducing our emissions, we also need to be pursuing geo-engineering options to remove carbon from the atmosphere
3. there are many different kinds of geoengineering options. some of these are more likely to strengthen or enhance existing earth systems, and other approaches will damage earth systems.
I am glad to see Morton agrees with point #2:
> I'm very keen to get across in this book is that I do not in any way see geoengineering as an alternative to a program of emissions reduction. I think that that would be a very foolish approach to the problem.
There is a very big risk that geo-engineering is perceived as a magical patch that will fix the problem - it can't fix the problem, but perhaps it can alleviate some of the symptoms. Any particular geo-engineering approach will have secondary implications (perhaps unanticipated, like the whole global warming thing).
It isn't realistic to think that we can completely reverse the changes we've set in motion - no reverse, only forward, into new and interesting (and potentially non-adaptable) conditions we haven't yet experienced as a species.