Geo-Engineering to stop Climate Change

MattSparkes writes "Following the latest report of the United Nations climate change panel, there has been a flurry of renewed interest in so-called geo-engineering. This is the theory of using technological schemes to stop climate change. These can range from sun-shades orbiting the Earth, to pumping millions of tonnes of sulfur into the atmosphere to the bizarre idea of painting the ground white to reflect more light. Let's reduce our emissions now, before I have to go and paint my roof bright white." Thanks to jamie for pointing out another potential solution of seeding the southern oceans with iron to spur plankton growth.

Comments

anything

[polar red]

anything to stop the people from acting responsibly?

Re:anything

[CastrTroy]

This kind of crap just amazes me. People think up trillion dollar plans like putting up million of tiny umbrellas into geosynchronous orbit to deflect sunlight, but we can't get people to just not drive SUVs, or even go so low as to take the bus, or even walk to the store which is only a block away. I've never owned a car, and I'm really not convinced that I ever want to. There's only a couple instance where I would really want a car, like picking up groceries, but they have a delivery service anyway, for when I want a lot of groceries. Going away for the weekend isn't too much of a problem. Renting a car for 1 weekend a month costs less than most people's insurance.

Re:anything

[spellraiser]

The problem is that there's just too many people. Trying to control or influence all of them is nigh on impossible, short of making the things you describe illegal, which would probably lead to a revolt.

A large segment of the population, any population, will always be stupid, thoughtless, and self-centered.

It doesn't help that the fastest growing and arguably the most powerful ideology in America today, evangelism, actively encourages bigotry, narrow-mindedness and a contempt for scientific principles that would be funny if it weren't so dangerous. And oh, the icing on the proverbial cake is that it doesn't matter what we do with the planet anyway, because it's all going to pass away any day now, and the faithful few will be taken to a paradise where they don't have to worry about anything at all, while the faithless multitudes will burn in hell forever.

Re:anything

[Critical Facilities]

While I agree that the orbiting umbrellas is a ridiculous proposal, I think you're looking at things from a skewed perspective with regard to automobiles.

First of all, you obviously live in a major metropolitan area to be able to not own a car (that is, you must have copious and effective mass transit available to you). For many people across the country, owning a car is not an option if they are to be able to get ANYWHERE (see work, school, hospital, etc). While I agree that if one can feasibly find alternative means of transportation, then one should opt for that method, but we shouldn't demonize the very idea of owning a car under the assumption that the only reason people do so is out of selfishness/laziness.

Second, the problem isn't in owning SUV's or other gas guzzling cars, it's the fact that those cars (and car makers, oil companies, and government decision makers) are forcing us to power those vehicles with petroleum. The idea of getting rid of these vehicles is a crude attempt to treat the symptom and not the disease. Don't make it a bad thing for the family with 4 kids to drive an SUV because they need the space, make it bad that no one seems interested in solutions to powering these vehicles differently.

In short, just keep in mind that your particular circumstance (i.e. being able to walk to the store and carry your groceries home) isn't necessarily everyone else's (like the mother of 4 with the SUV...imagine her carrying those groceries when the nearest store is 7 miles away)

Re:anything

[ajs]

Actually, not driving SUVs doesn't help much. The real alternative to SUVs (and trucks, minivans, etc.) is lighter vehicles. Hybrids sound good, but really their efficiency is almost entirely based on their weight, not the fact that the oil is being burned at a powerplant rather than in your car. In fact, power generation is the largest contributor to greenhouse gasses.

What would help quite a lot is converting from coal and petroleum to nuclear power generation. That would pretty much solve the problem over-night, slashing our CO2 production by nearly 50%! What impact that would have on the climate... isn't actually 100% clear. It certainly is likely to have some impact, though.

Personally, I'm not concerned. I'd rather address mercury pollution than greenhouse emissions any day of the week. After all, warmer weather never caused my father to stop being able to tie his own shoes .... :-/

Re:anything

[jav1231]

Yep. We're all making the assumptions that Global Warming isn't a natural cycle of change. What if, like a hoard of scientists believe (granted, not the "gods" most environmentalists want to agree with), it is a natural warming? Then our efforts to reverse this are a perversion. We, then, become what we claim we loath: someone negatively impacting the environment. But hey, we can sit back on our fat grant checks living la vita green.

Re:anything

[GooberToo]

Don't make it a bad thing for the family with 4 kids to drive an SUV because they need the space

Simple fact is, most people don't need the space! People like to pretend that families never left home until the SUV came out. BS! Fact is, very, very, very few people actually need an SUV, 4x4 truck, dully truck, or other such gas hog. Fact is, most people can do quite well in a midsize car.

If you want to argue their right to own it...fine...but please stop with the false claims that most families need SUVs as that is complete garbage.

Re:anything

[Critical Facilities]

but please stop with the false claims that most families need SUVs as that is complete garbage.

I never claimed that. Nevertheless, you seem to get my basic point which is, let's solve the PARENT issue of what powers these vehicles and stop bickering over whether this person NEEDS the extra space/horsewpower/4x4/etc. I think the idea of conservation is obviously a good one, but I think that sometimes people like to throw this argument up as a red herring to distract from the much harder to answer question of "what are we going to do to reduce out dependency on oil?". I'm not suggesting that I have the answer (I wish I did), I just would like to see us all work on the same team toward a common goal rather than just start with the infighting.

Bad Idea

[ArcherB]

The road to permafrost is paved with good intentions.

Scares me...

[spikexyz]

...to think we're clever enough to find a technical solution that massive alters the fuctioning of a biosphere we understand to little about and not cause bigger, unanticipated problems.

Re:Well...

[Technician]

As an architect, let me say that the moment you try to force me to paint my beautiful roof-top gardens white, I will be forced to get...hostile...

Will enough roofs get painted white to counter the number of solar collectors being installed for hot water, pool heaters, PV and other dark surfaces?

You put up a black solar panel and you just thought you were doing the right thing.

Stop screwing with ecosystems

[ThePopeLayton]

How many times do we have to screw up an ecosystem before we learn that we don't understand ecosystems well enough to predict what our acts will do.

1st. In Moab, Utah the forest service planted Russian trees to prevent the erosion of the river bed, only to find out that the plants have drained the river and killed many endogenous plants and animals.

2nd. Cane Toads were introduced into Australia to eat the insects that prey on the sugar cane. It turns out that the insects that eat sugar cane in Australia and Hawaii are completely different and there are no predators that can eat the Cane Toads. Now Australia is over populated with a Cane Toads which again are killing the natural plant life and animal life.

3rd. I can't think of another off the top of my head but I am certain there are probably hundreds of examples of this.

We must stop screwing with the ecosystems. When I hear of orbiting solar shields and massive projects to paint the desert, I get really scared because a scientist who really understands the delicate balance of the ecosystem would never dare to suggest such an idea. Only one who doesn't and is looking to make a buck and get on time for "saving the planet from global warming" would do it. These ideas will only result in causing more problems then they solve.

Re:Stop screwing with ecosystems

[cvd6262]

3rd. In Arizona they planted broom grass (or something like that) to stop erosion, only to find that it bridged the natural fire breaks in the habitat. A region that used to suffer few fire is now threatened annually.

4th. By not allowing woodlands to burn periodically, we've created the potential for much worse destruction by fire.

5th. I'm sure people can think of others.

Fixing what isn't broken

[canuck57]

Ok, lets say the world is warming up. Is that bad? Seriously, is that really bad? Who has determined this? Where do they live? What are their motives?

At one time when for natural reasons the earth had lots of CO2 in the atmosphere it warmed up and taller trees grew towards the poles. Great prairie fires dumped millions of tons of CO2 in weeks. Warmer temperatures and more trees resulted. This reduced CO2 and on came a subsequent ice age. It also left behind coal, natural gas and tar sands where today it is too cold for this to happen.

Nature is just fine tuning for the 6.5 new critters crawling on it. It needs to warm up to have more vegetation to scrub out the CO2. Let nature do it's thing.

Man contemplating whole scale planetary changes like this is similar to giving children an atomic bomb kit.

Re:Fixing what isn't broken

[geomon]

"Ok, lets say the world is warming up. Is that bad? Seriously, is that really bad? "

Yes. Dumping a bunch of fresh water into the world's oceans can stop these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulat ion

Not only do they control coastal climates, they also control the deep circulation of nutrients bottom-to-top of the ocean's food chain. Stop these and the coasts become wetter and the interiors become dryer and colder. The moderating effects that these belts have on our climates allows us to have agriculturally productive continental interiors.

"Who has determined this?"

Scientists.

"Where do they live?"

Everywhere, around the world.

"What are their motives?"

We like to eat and live just like you do.

Funny that.

"Geo engineering"

[hackus]

Errrrr.......no.

Leave the planet alone please.

We know WAY too little about the planet to start screwing around with its Biosphere.

Not only that, but you do not get a second chance if you screw it up.

I say we start someplace else and experiment there, so if we do screw it up, no biggy.

Even the dumbest WINDOZE admin knows you always experiment on a TEST server before doing anything to your production server if you do not want downtime.

"Downtime" in this case would mean the Earths Biosphere.....I hope I do not have to explain what that means.

Besides, if we experiment with a different world, the WORST that can happen is it doesn't work.

Best possible thing that can happen is we get another planet to live on.

Half the people on this planet belong on Mars anyway....IMHO. :-)

-Hack

Oh and I'm not done ranting yet either...

[gd23ka]

I mean look at this, here someone is thinking of mucking around with the
planet far worse than people driving in their cars and cows passing gas,
like dumping million of tons of sulfur into the atmosphere
or painting large parts of the planet white or shading the planet from the
sun from orbit ...

believe me whoever comes up with these halfbaked (http://www.halfbakery.com)
ideas has no clue what could happen.

As Scientists, we had better be right

[finarfinjge]

This article and the one earlier, concerning the causitive nature of cosmic rays on climate should be read together. Many of the readers here are scientists, engineers (applied scientists) or at least capable of a fundemental understanding of science. To those people I say: If you are a proponent of man influenced climate change, you had better be right. This issue has now progressed to the point where the majority of people on the planet believe that there is no scientific doubt whatsoever about human influence and more precisely carbon dioxide. If this is wrong, if humans are not influencing climate or if that influence has nothing to do with carbon dioxide, science will be at fault and science will (rightly) lose credibility.

This means that arguments against intelligient design will now have to show how the "certainty" about evolution is any different from the "certainty" about global warming. Similar issues will come up in arguments for vaccination and other issues where real deaths could follow. Arguments will come up about funding levels at universities and research institutes. Arguments will come up against new initiatives for reducing pollution.

There are a large number of interest groups out there that are waiting with increasing anticipation that this issue will blow up in the face of the global warming proponents. A large number of the rest of us will get hit by the shrapnel of that explosion. As an engineer and consultant who gets a great deal of work and money out of efforts to curb green house gasses, I personally love the hype. As a believer in the importance of science in all of our lives, I am now getting very nervous about the future reputation of science.

Cheers
JE

The biological carbon sink idea is a bad one

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

If you go into the middle of the rain forest, and dig down a couple of feet you hit sand. You would think that if trees were removing all this carbon from the atmosphere the layer would be a 100 feet deep. What happens is the wood rots and releases most of the carbon as CO2 and methane.

I would say that most of the carbon 'sinking' is done by algae that dies and falls to the bottom of the ocean, where it is cold and oxygen is limited. We don't know though if we fertilize the ocean that the algae will end up in the right spot, or just find its way to an area where the carbon would return to the atmosphere.

Stop trying to fix the problem!

[Autonomous Crowhard]

The key is to stop adding to the problem. The planet will level things out over time if we give it a chance. If we actively try to fix the problem we'll be facing an ice age in a few centuries.

Yes, I said centuries. Look how quickly we started the whole global warming mess. I think we can reverse it even faster, but I doubt we're good enough to decelerate it and bring things bad to where they belong.

Control Chaos?

[thethibs]

The problem with this and all the other dingbat proposals is that climate is of its essence chaotic; there's no way to predict what any particular action will end up doing. That's why past climate models have been so far off the mark (of course, the next one will be bang-on!). That's how it is with dynamic systems: Even God can't predict climate, and humans certainly can't control it.

When we can control the flow of water down a mountain with a little push here and a nudge there instead of digging a ditch, we might be ready to start thinking about controlling climate.

Re:Halt!

[ogma]

The fact that this idiotic rant gets modded +5 insightful says more about the current state of slashdot than it does about the original poster.

The IPCC report states that it is 95% certain that humanity is influencing global climate change and this guy thinks it's some sort of global conspiracy? Slashdot what the fuck has happened to you?

Re:Global Warning

[gfxguy]

I think a failing of many environmentalists (and don't take that as a slam, because I consider myself an environmentalist) is they feel this need to "preserve" everything when nature itself doesn't do any such thing.

We are preserving forests with certain kinds of trees dominant when every few hundred or thousand years the dominant trees would have naturally cycled to another variety.

We try to strictly preserve animal populations when, for millions of years, the dominant animals have cycled between various predators that over hunt to various prey that thrives becasue predators died off.

And now we're going to try to preserve the global average temperature when, since the planet came in existence billions of years ago, the temperature has always cycled for various reasons. And there's more than one cycle at work, too.

We try to preserve every animal from exinction when nature has killed off far more species than man ever has. Now, I agree it's tragic when a species is lost, and it's more tragic when it's lost because mankind has over hunted them, but those are not the only protected species. It's a fact of nature that some species simply don't deserve to exist; evolution didn't treat them kindly. Most species die because they are NOT suited to the EVER CHANGING environment our planet gives us. So while I do agree with laws protecting species from over hunting, the fact is that we try to protect too many from nature itself.

Lastly, we are human beings. Unless you believe some alien dropped us here as an experiment, then we are part of nature, too.

So yes, I consider myself an environmentalist; I think we ought to stop polluting as much as we do, I think we need to protect our drinking water, I think we ought not hunt species to extinction. I many of the lightbulbs (no, not all) are flourescent. I turn the water off when I'm brushing my teeth and shaving. Both my cars are ULEV, and I make it a point to combine trips when I go out.

My question is why do so many environmentalists want to prevent nature from happening?