“It would be more literally accurate to rename geo-engineering “smoke and mirrors”, as those are the two most widely discussed measures for managing incoming solar radiation”
published by geoengineering experts in which they (among other things) attempted to relaunch geoengineering as “climate remediation”. Romm accuses the panel of “inanely and pointlessly” renaming geoengineering with a “nonsensical greenwashing term that simply isn’t going to catch on”. Given that three members of the panel did not agree with the introduction of the term, Romm probably has a point.
It isn't surprising that some proponents of geoengineering would try to turn their hand to marketing when you consider that geoengineering as a term has developed a bad reputation. Keith (2001: 420) proposes that it is a label reserved for “technologically overreaching proposals that are omitted from serious consideration”. Furthermore “the acceptability of geoengineering will be determined as much by social, legal and political issues as by scientific and technical factors” (Shepherd, 2012: 4167) so if geoengineering is ever to be implemented it has some bad press to shake off.
The concerns and issues surrounding geoengineering go deeper than just poor branding. While it would be better to resolve the “scientific and technical factors” before working on the sales pitch it is worth remembering that as a term, geoengineering is broad, contested and ill-defined. For this reason it is worthwhile examining different examples of geoengineering individually, and assessing them on their individual merits and risks.
There are ways of broadly categorising geoengineering. These categories could be science fiction and “all too feasible” (Hamilton, 2013: 2) or they could be grouped from the benign to the reckless. The mainstream categories are carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM). There is a distinction between the two.
Carbon dioxide removal would address the issue of too much CO2 in the atmosphere and so it gets close to the cause of the problem. It could be argued that it isn’t really climate engineering but is more like “pollution-mitigation” (Keith, 2001: 420).
Conversely solar radiation management addresses the issue of a warming planet; a side-effect of too much CO2. To borrow a much used analogy it deals with a symptom of the illness but not the root cause.
The significance of this distinction is another issue.
Hamilton, C (2013) Earth Masters Playing God with Climate. Allen & Unwin
Thanks for the interesting blog. The Sleipner Vest Project in the North Sea is an example of a successful carbon sequestration project as well as other small projects worldwide. Carbon sequestration has been shown to work. Plumes of CO2 do spread and become diffuse underground - so in some ways this might well be one of the less-scary geoengineering options.
ReplyDeleteHowever the magnitude of the problem versus the availability of suitable sites might present some challenges, as well as potential costs involved. Still this would seem to one viable, even safe geoengineering option - one would work in tandem with the earth's natural carbon cycle - given enough political and corporate will.