UK Royal Society Claims Geo-Engineering Feasible

krou writes "The BBC is reporting that a UK Royal Society report claims that geo-engineering proposals to combat the effects of climate change are 'technically possible.' Three of the plans considered showed the most promise: 'CO2 capture from ambient air'; enhancing 'natural reactions of CO2 from the air with rocks and minerals'; and 'Land use and afforestation'. They also noted that solar radiation management, while some climate models showed them to be ineffective, should not be ignored. Possible suggestions included: 'a giant mirror on the Moon; a space parasol made of superfine aluminum mesh; and a swarm of 10 trillion small mirrors launched into space one million at a time every minute for the next 30 years.'"

Comments

Reducing emissions does nothing

[QuantumG]

I really like the way the article seems to indicate that geo-engineering is the short term solution and conservation is the long term solution.. I've always seen it as exactly the opposite. If we were to stop all greenhouse gas producing industry *right now* there would still be a global warming problem. If the problem is real then the only solution is global engineering. Hiding in the dark will only buy us time, the world needs a plan to use that time to find a solution.

Re:Reducing emissions does nothing

[faquino]

The most simple geoengineering technique would be the most effective one: JUST PLANT TREES INSTEAD OF BURNING THEM

Re:Reducing emissions does nothing

[BuR4N]

Geo-engineering is a short term last resort solution when everything else fails. It has so many unknown factors that in worst case it can lead to an even worse disaster than the one its trying to prevent.

Reducing emissions is the best way in the long run. Part from reducing the Co2 emissions it drives technology development towards more efficient use of energy, new products, new companies, new jobs etc etc.

We have to face the facts, quick fixes does not exists to this problem, we have to clean up our mess and take the consequences.

Re:Reducing emissions does nothing

[QuantumG]

You're really not listening.. to me or to the article.. geo-engineering is not a short term solution, nor a quick fix.. it's a required on-going effort that will last forever. Imagine you're in a spaceship, what do you need to maintain life? You need active management of your environmental systems or, in the long term, they will fail and you'll die. Well guess what, we are on a spaceship, and it's called Earth.

Re:Reducing emissions does nothing

[BuR4N]

Worsening water crisis?

The water crisis is not about total amount of water, it is the displacement of water from one point to another.

Water in the form of glacier ice in the Himalayas (providing drinking water for millions and millions down stream), that instead becomes rain in Australia , is a water crisis.

Re:Reducing emissions does nothing

[faquino]

The point in my previous post is that there are already machines available which are capable of capturing CO2 from the atmosphere using nothing else than solar power, these machines are also auto-replicating and their fabrication process doesn't produce additional CO2 emissions. Furthermore some of their subproducts can be used to feed animals or build... buildings (excuse my poor english pleas). We have these machines already. We know them as PLANTS. I'd rather not get into the real motivations of the current push in favour of geoengineering, but I'm sure it comes from the same people always trying to make money from human disgrace.

Re:Reducing emissions does nothing

[davetv]

not to Australians like me ... there's so little water here that we have to survive on beer.

Re:Reducing emissions does nothing

[QuantumG]

You are aware that James Lovelock is a fucking kook who has been discredited more times than creationists in Kansas right?

No scientifically educated person thinks the commonly used term "Mother Earth" is anything more than a pleasant analogy. There's nothing written in the stars that says the Earth will be good to us if we're good to it. If we stopped all industry right now the majority of people on Earth would die, and the remaining would be overtaken and killed by "nature".

Re:Reducing emissions does nothing

[Rogerborg]

Warming, schwarming. If we can't head off the next ice age, then we're royally boned. Not completely as a species, but our post-ice-age descendants will have to bootstrap themselves from wood to nuclear, since we've used up all the easily accessible fossil fuels. Sucks to be them.

Re:Reducing emissions does nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

And in contradiction to yourself, trees are actually responsible for helping create water. Ever seen a desert with trees? Nope...

Also, trees create wind. Notice how whenever it's windy, the trees are always flapping about?

Re:Reducing emissions does nothing

[TheUglyAmerican]

Trees are only effective removing co2 from the atmosphere during their growth phase. Once they mature it's pretty much a wash - the co2 they remove vs the methane they emit due to organic decomposition. To use trees for geo-engineering we first need to cut down the old growth forests (including as much of their root system as possible) and use the lumber in a way that will sequester the co2 (like build housing). This will free up land on a huge scale so we can then plant new trees.

reversable solutions

[Anghwyr]

I would prefer a method that we can reverse if it turns out that we misunderstood a bit of the carboncycle.. so please not the millions of tiny mirrors?

Re:stupid

[$RANDOMLUSER]

News bulletin: We've already fucked with it. (Without understanding).

Re:Global warming is a scam.

[nomad-9]

Global warming is a scam.

http://tinyurl.com/globalwarmingisascam

That site is loaded with pseudo-scientific data & outright lies. A few examples:

• It claims NASA studies have shown that the sun is responsible for GW. This is a lie. NASA said the opposite. Go the NASA Web site & verify by yourself (http://climate.nasa.gov/)
• The "founder of the Weather Channel" (John Coleman) is not a climate scientist. If you watch his YouTube series, you'll notice how he's confusing weather (short-term) with climate (long-term)
• The "GW swindle" documentary has been sued in court for misrepresenting the opinions of the scientists interviewed. ex: Sir David King, the Government's former chief scientist.
• The typical strawman of "CO2 is not a pollutant" has been addressed many times over. No scientist claimed CO2 was a pollutant. It is the excess of CO2 coming form industrial waste that is having heat trapping effects and causes ocean acidification: http://royalsociety.org/document.asp?id=3249
• The US senate is no authority on GW. The US Academy of Sciences is. The latter subscribes to man-made GW.
• etc..

There is a difference between the FACTS of GW, and the solutions proposed. The only thing that I agree with that site you mentioned, is that some of the policies & the utilization for political ends of GW are questionable.

As George Carlin Put It..

[Anonymous Coward]

The planet's fine.The people are fucked.

Or else ...

[alexibu]

Or we could just have a brief and rather blunt conversation with our friends in the coal, oil and beef industries.
Which is what world leaders are tiptoeing around trying to avoid, pretending terrestrial biofuels were an option, pretending carbon sequestration is an option. All of this stuffing around to avoid some uncomfortable conversation about facts that both the politicians, the people and the companies know are true.

Must we be stupider as a species than our individual parts ?

Re:Or else ...

[Attila Dimedici]

Or we could just have a brief and rather blunt conversation with our friends in the coal, oil and beef industries.

And all of their customers. You know there is a reason that the people in these industries have the power that they do. See, if you force the oil industry to take some action that costs them money, the price of fuel goes up. When the price of fuel goes up, the cost of producing things (such as food) goes up. The cost of getting things (such as food) to people goes up. People get upset and yell at the politicians, possibly vote them out of office in democracies, riot in the streets, etc.. Similar things happen in the coal and beef industries.

Re:10 trillion mirrors?

[Plekto]

I make that 10,000 launches which over 30 years is nearly a launch a day. I was under the impression that rocket launches have a negative environmental impact not including the impact of actually building so many.

The obvious solution here is to build an orbital cannon. The biggest built and successfully used was in the 60s by the U.S. Navy to launch atmospheric probes up to 100 miles into the atmosphere. Building a 50-100m long gun up the side of a mountain(or even underground in a mine shaft or silo) isn't that technically hard. Estimates for the gun itself run about 200 million to build. The idea is to have each payload have its own small positioning rocket and external case. Drop the mirrors in the case and lob into space - the small engine moves it out to the proper position. Since we're talking just scattering the mirrors, there's nothing else required here - just position and open it up. Once a day is trivial. 10,000 launches would cost a mere 1-2 billion dollars. Even if it required 10x that many launches, with it firing off every couple of hours, it would be simple enough to accomplish. With ten of them, this could be done in just 3-5 years.

2-3 billion for an array of ten of these. Problem solved in a new years.

http://www.tbfg.org/
This is the latest company that is working on this. They will have a test-launch next year.

Depends where you stand...

[fake_name]

From the point of view of Australia having water locked into glacier instead of raining down on our farmland is a crisis.

So if we all start geo-engineering rainfall on a global level what happens when one country wants water that other countries also want? What stops us geo-engineering our deserts to steal your rain? Who sets a quota describing how much rain we're allowed to have, and how will that be enforced?

There are some big technical problems with this plan, but there are also massive social and political problems to be overcome also.

Re:Global warming is a scam.

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Such a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful troll. All the more breathtaking because you actually seem to believe the crap you're spewing. It's interesting to me how your "argument" style parallels the way the Intelligent Designers present their frothing whackjobisms. Even the words and phrases are similar. I know for certain I won't be able to sway you with such trifles as facts or logic, or even carry on a reasoned discussion, but perhaps you could enlighten us:

1. Swindle?/Scam?/Fraud? Perpetrated by who? For what purpose? Who (which golem "them") gains exactly what from preventing this "global warming/climate change" that "they" say is happening and you insist is not? What is their payoff? And why are you so dead-set against it?

2. Are you seriously denying that humanity has, since the start of the Industrial Age, pumped trillions of tons of carbon (we'll ignore the sulfides, the chlorine, etc.) back into the atmosphere that have been locked away as coal and oil for hundreds of millions of years? Really? That just didn't happen? Really? It couldn't possibly have an effect? Really? And you're certain of this, how?

3. What's it to you? Why does it bother you so that people are worried about this and want to do something about it? Why are you so determined to stop them doing so?

Excess CO2 has nothing to do with global warming in fact rising CO2 is an effect of increased global temps not a cause.
A good case can be made for the good caused by a warming planet.

Facepalm.
Increased ocean temperatures == releases of methane hydrate == more atmospheric methane == increased ocean temperatures.
Have you heard of the notion of "tipping points"? Runaway positive feedback?

The US senate means nothing. The hundreds of scientists that disagree with the climate change fraud do.

Can you name THREE? Reputable environmental scientists, climatologists, even (real) meteorologists? You know, scientists with expertise in the field we're talking about? Do they have any, what's that word, evidence? Because the glaciologists and geologists and oceanologists are pretty convinced that something pretty wildly out-of-scale for the time frames involved, (in the absence of any other environmental factors: supervolcanos, large meteor strikes) is going on. Do these reputable environmental scientists really think that climate change isn't a real and worrisome threat, that mankind's stewardship of the planet hasn't been incredibly shocking irresponsible?

Re:Global warming is a scam.

[nomad-9]

You believe what you want.

No, I believe the facts. My personal desires are irrelevant.

You don't need to be a scientist to realize which side is correct.

Yes, you do. AFAIK, climatology is a science.

The nasa article in the link speaks for itself.

Which essentially means you didn't even bother to verify it by going to the NASA site I mentioned. Looks like it is YOU who believe what YOU want.

I don't care who John Coleman is what he says makes sense.

He doesn't make sense. Weather is distinct from climate. He is not qualified .

The court case involving the gw swindle ended in a decision that the content was essentially true.

Ofcom, the UK media regulator has ruled that The Great Global Warming Swindle was unfair to the IPCC, David King, and Carl Wunsch and breached a requirement of impartiality about global warming policy.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/ofcom_rules_that_the_great_glo.php

Excess CO2 has nothing to do with global warming in fact rising CO2 is an effect of increased global temps not a cause. The US senate means nothing. The hundreds of scientists that disagree with the climate change fraud do. Think for yourself for a minute. CO2 is what we exhale and what plants inhale. A good case can be made for the good caused by a warming planet. The facts indicate that there has not been any warming. Studies have shown that incorrect measurements taken in hot heat island city environments can account for the change.

You're repeating the same old already disproved fallacies over. Go to the NASA site I mentioned earlier & try your best at looking at the facts.

Natural variation makes a lot more sense than the idiocy of the global warming "proof".

Natural variation has been disproved by NASA.

Go on and believe the few "experts" ignore the others and follow what Al Gore says.

I believe the facts, and that independently of what Al Gore might think. BTW, the "few experts " are the majority. That includes NASA who has the largest concentration of climate scientists, the academies of sciences of 27 countries, and all the major scientific institutions like National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Physics, National Center for Atmospheric Research, American Meteorological Society, US Geological Survey etc...

Re:not again

[Odinlake]

The belief, that we humans can 'engineer' the earth and bend it to our expectations is exactly, what got us into this mess in the first place. How about re-engineering ourselves instead for the better?

What, are you saying we tried to "engineer the earth" with the industrial revolution? Are you trying to "engineer the earth" when you drive your car? No, before now I don't think anyone (of consequence) has been trying to "engineer the earth" in the sence of the entire globe we live on.

Now, quite obviously, we have the capability to "engineer the earth" (in relatively minor ways) even though any such project would be huge (maybe Terra$'s). The problem is that we only have one system to test on and no Live CD with which to fix a misstake. But at some point we may very well find our selves in a situation where an option seems "safe enough" relative the consequences of inaction. Not researching these "options" because you're afraid of the consequences is just stupid.

"Engineering ourselves" on the other hand is something we have been doing since, well, I don't know - who first said "think what kind of children these two would have?"? And recently we are doing it more concretely to win basketball games. But in a larger sence than that no one has a clue what the heck "for the better" would be. Though I have my theories.

Geoengineering? Haven't we had enough of that?

[divisionbyzero]

We have been doing that for the last couple hundred years with horrible effect. You know the funny thing about each of these recommendations is that they say these projects are feasible but don't talk about what could go wrong, how to fix them, and the cost of both. Ridiculous. In my mind we should of course reduce production of CO2 but we should also prepare for the inevitable fact that governments will move too slowly and we are going to need to mitigate a lot of the damage. Some of these mitigation strategies are going to take a long time to plan and we should start now.

A dark God!

[nten]

If Gaia existed it would be the most capricious and brutal god imaginable. Only the strong survive, unless a rock falls on them, or a supernova goes off too close. Nature isn't the default state, the safe state, that we should try to cower in. Nature is the ravening maw of a stochastic greedy optimization technique with an arbitrary value function, that wants to test each individual of our species every moment of every day until we mess up and get squished. Nature is the enemy and we aren't safe until we subjugate it.