“The longer climate targets are missed, the more likely geoengineering is to be used...” Part 1

• “... 'climate geoengineering' was often framed in terms of a last-ditch response option to climate change if climate change damage should produce extreme hardship. Such deliberate intervention in the climate system was often considered a taboo subject. Although the likelihood of eventually considering last-ditch efforts to address damage from climate change grows with every year of inaction on emissions control, there remains a lack of information on these ways of potentially intervening in the climate system.” - “Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth”, The National Academy of Science, 2015
• “Geoengineering refers to a wide range of techniques for modifying the climate system, from planting trees to fiddling with clouds. Untested technologies to manage solar radiation – essentially, dim the sun – pose the biggest concerns. Ideas include releasing aerosol particles from airplanes to reflect sunlight away (mimicking the effects of volcanic eruptions) and spraying seawater drops into clouds to make them more reflective. But they could also change weather patterns, disrupting agriculture and exacerbating geopolitical tensions. And if this is not accompanied by emissions reductions, more will be needed to sustain the temperature effect – “practically forever”. - “Switzerland puts geoengineering governance on UN environment agenda”, Sara Stefanini, Climate Home News, Feb. 2019

This article is Part 1 of a 2 part series on climate geoengineering

1.0 Weather modification - the antecedents of climate geoengineering 

If “the future can only proceed at the rate of the past’s momentum unless there is a major crisis or revolution...”, then our evolution from the hay days of rainmakers to the weaponization of climate control during the Cold War is proving the truth of this anonymous quotation. This brief history charts the field of weather modification for the rainmakers of the Dust Bowl and later years through to the Pop-eye Operation during the war in Vietnam and the subsequent international treaty outlawing the “Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques”. 

2.0 A new term and policy tool is born - “geoengineering”

David Keith, in a published paper, said that the term geoengineering (where it means “applied to proposals to manipulate the environment with the goal of reducing undesired climate change caused by human influences”) first appeared in 1971. Thereafter, this new field of scientific endeavour exploded with a variety of schemes to manipulate the environment that sounded more like science fiction novels from Robert Heinland and Issac Asimov. This segment of the article provides a brief catalogue of the reported climate geoengineering schemes - carbon dioxide removal - CDR, solar radiation management - SRM and earth radiation management - ERM

Part 2 ventures into the Technology Assessment of climate geoengineering:

3.0 Climate geoengineering should be subjected to a Technology Assessment 

All of the reports acknowledge that the two main techniques/technologies - carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management - have the potential to reduce warming, - but these august scientific bodies fall short of endorsement. The reports of the NAS, IPCC and the U.S. Global Change Research Program all have misgivings about the technical feasibilities, costs, risks, co-benefits, and governance. 

I argue that we need a full-blown Technology Assessment of the climate engineering options - i.e. “a scientific, interactive, and communicative process that aims to contribute to the formation of public and political opinion on societal aspects of science and technology.” 

4.0 Moving climate geoengineering from its technical “bubble”to a broader public discourse

The climate change scientists are operating in a self-contained “bubble” that excludes and fails to engage the other stakeholders and the public. Fears about the ‘slippery slope’ that (researching SRM will lead inevitably to the formation of vested interests that will ensure its deployment) and about the ‘moral hazard’ (that climate geoengineering options will be seen by some as a justification for less-vigorous mitigation efforts by governing entities) should be subjected to a wider public debate.

  1.0 Weather modification - the antecedents of climate geoengineering

The purpose of this segment is to lay the ground work for the subsequent examination of climate geoengineering and the proposition that some government will see it as the least worse option (compared to decarbonization of their economy and the disruptions that would involve) and launch it to avoid an impending climate catastrophe. 

Foreign Policy in their 2013 article “Geoengineering: A Short History”, claimed it all began in 1841 when James Pollard Espy (an American meteorologist) published his theories of storm formation and a method through which “rain may be produced artificially in time of drought.” 

We have a rich history of enterprising inventors and self-declared experts in ‘rain-making” who appealed to drought ridden communities and their farming families. The desperate conditions of the droughts in the 30’s decimated rural communities in Canada and the U.S. Clutching at straws, communities sought hope in the employ of these enterprising ‘rainmakers’. 

When global warming gets close to the tipping point ( IPCC 1.5°C Report) and climate catastrophes get worse and affect greater numbers of people and businesses, will we see a similar call for climate geoengineers to save us? 

1.1 Charles Hatfield The ‘Rainmaker’

In late 1915, San Diego hired Charles Hatfield (a “moisture accelerator” ) during a drought. He was said to have delivered on his promise to deliver enough rain to fill the empty reservoirs, but there was too much rain, causing a deadly flood.

• “During a drought in California, Hatfield was hired by the San Diego city council with a four-to-one vote and promised $10,000 in a handshake deal if he could make it rain.
• To inject his rainmaking concoction into clouds overhead, he built a 20-foot tower in the area and burned the chemical mixture from the top of the structure. Witnesses claimed he shot the chemicals into the air like bombs, spurting fumes and smoke to ascend into the sky and convince the cumulus clouds to send down rain.
• On January 1, 1916, the rain started in San Diego and it didn’t stop for the entire month, resulting in 30 inches of rain. The floods destroyed the dam, washed out roads, lifted railroad tracks, caused property damage across the region and killed an estimated 14 to 50 citizens.
• Hatfield never got his money. The city council claimed the floods were an act of God, not an act of Hatfield.” - “In 1915, San Diego Hired A Rainmaker And Floods Ensued”, Here and Now, June 2015 

1.2 The 1946 discovery of cloud seeding by Schaefer & Langmuir

David Keith, in his book “Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect” states that geoengineering schemes for climate engineering have been around for more than half a century

• “In the United States, despite common use of the phrase “weather and climate modification,” the emphasis was almost entirely on weather control, particularly on the enhancement of precipitation... The 1946 discovery of cloud seeding by Schaefer & Langmuir at the General Electric research labs ignited a commercial boom in weather modification.”
• “ In the USSR, sustained interest in weather modification predated World War II. Beginning with the establishment of Leningrad’s Institute of Rainmaking in 1932, work on cloud modification moved outside the laboratory, with airborne cloud seeding experiments using calcium chloride beginning as early as 1934...the Soviet Communist Party listed the development of climate-control methods among the most urgent problems of Soviet science ... most of the work during this period addressed the possibility of climate change owing to hydrological modifications such as the construction of large reservoirs and the physical or chemical control of evaporation. There was also persistent interest in the grand project of removing the arctic sea ice to warm Russia.” - “Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect”, David W. Keith, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, 2000

1.3 ‘Weather Control’

This pioneering work of the General Electric Research Laboratory on weather modification was primarily the work of Vincent Schaefer and Irving Langmuir, who are credited with making the first snowstorm in a laboratory and inducing precipitation outdoors. Their work on cloud seeding was seen as the panacea to fight droughts, control storms, reduce hail and fight forest fires.

During the 1950s and 1960s, “Weather and climate modification” or “weather control”, became a priority for both the United States and the USSR, in another race for superiority.

•  â€œIn the late 1950s weather modification became entangled in the politics of the cold war. ... Instead of regulating a growing industry, the focus became national security, and during the next decade the issue moved to the top drawer of national science politics. Apparently central to this transformation was growing knowledge of the Soviet effort in the area, combined with concern about the possibility of superior Soviet scientific accomplishment marked by the launch of Sputnik in 1957.” - “Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect”, op.cit.

In addition to the race with the USSR to develop more and more nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, the race to control the weather became known as “climatological warfare”.

Dr. Langmuir (a Nobel laureate) was quoted in a 1950 newspaper article as saying “Rainmaking or weather control can be as powerful a war weapon as the atom bomb... the government should seize on the phenomenon of weather control as it did on atomic energy”. These comments occurred in an environment that openly discussed the use of weather modification as a weapon:

• “...included using colored pigments on the polar ice caps to melt them and unleash devastating floods, releasing large quantities of dust into the stratosphere creating precipitation on demand, and even building a dam fitted with thousands of nuclear powered pumps across the Bering Straits...”
• “ It may someday be possible to cause torrents of rain over Russia by seeding clouds moving toward the Soviet Union. Or it may be possible — if an opposite effect is desired — to cause destructive droughts which dry up food crops by “overseeding” those same clouds. And fortunately for the United States, Russia could do little to retaliate because most weather moves from west to east.” - “Weather Control as a Cold War Weapon”, Matt Novak, Smithsonian.com, Dec. 2011

1.4 The Cold War and the weaponization of weather

In parallel but on different tracks, the Soviets were continuing their research on their forms of climatic warfare:

• “British government papers, just released by the National Archives, show that throughout the Seventies there was deep mistrust between the two superpowers over environmental warfare. The documents reveal that both the US, which led the field, and the Soviet Union had secret military programmes with the goal of controlling the world’s climate.” - “Weather War?”. The Daily Express (U.K.), July 2005
• “The Soviet Union has invested considerable effort and resources in developing a well organized and extensive program in climate modification research. The Director of the Soviet Hydrometeorological Service has declared that active modification of climate is an objective of this research. A number of specific projects have been proposed to alleviate the harsh Russian climate with attendant benefits to agriculture, navigation, and resource exploitation. These include removal of the Arctic pack ice, damming of the Bering Straits, and diversion of Siberian rivers. 
• These programs clearly might affect the climate of other parts of the world, including the United States and its allies. Even marginal changes in temperature and rainfall could drastically damage agriculture, shipping, and indeed the entire economy. Military operations would also be impacted if the boundaries of pack ice, the ice-free seasons of naval bases, the frequency of obscuring clouds, etc. were altered. Thus climatic changes are clearly potentially grave threats to national security, and have consequent implications for military planning.” - “Weather Modification: the Evolution of an R&D Program into a Weapon System”, Federation Of American Scientists, June 1975

1.5 President’s Advisory Committee on Weather Control

In 1953 a President’s Advisory Committee on Weather Control was established to determine the extent to which the United States should experiment with’ “engage in, or regulate activities designed to control weather conditions”. Capt. H.T. Orville (Navy) became chairman of this Advisory Committee and is reported to have advised:

• “If an unfriendly nation gets into a position to control the large-scale weather patterns before we can, the results could be more disastrous than nuclear warfare.” - “Weather Modification: the Evolution of an R&D Program into a Weapon System”, op.cit.
• “A U.S. congressman, speaking on behalf of legislation to provide funds for weather modification experimentation, offered among his reasons for supporting the bills the following:
• ‘In the fourth place, we need this legislation and appropriation because we must beat Russia to the punch ... America could become as subject to Russia’s whims as a rat in a laboratory to an experimenter. If Russia beats us to the punch on learning how to control the natural laws governing weather changes, they could conceivably produce a drought over our whole continent or a disastrous flood. We know that the Russians are devoting great energy and scientific talent to learning how to control the weather. It is urgent that the United States not fall behind in this race.’ 

In 1963 Adm. William F. Raborn included the following description in an article titled ‘New Horizons of Naval Research and Development’:

• The possibilities for the military employment of the “weather weapon” may be as diverse as they are numerous. An ability to control the weather could introduce greater changes in warfare than those which occurred in 1945 with the explosion of the first nuclear weapons.
• A severe storm or hurricane striking a naval force may well inflict greater damage than could an enemy. The capability to change the direction of destructive storms and guide them toward enemy concentrations may exist in the future arsenal of the naval tactical commander.
• Ground, sea, air, and amphibious operations might be supported by the dissipation of fog or clouds, or by the production of rain or drought. Conversely, the creation of solid, low overcasts might be used to conceal troop concentrations, movements, and task force deployments. Large-scale weather control techniques might be used to cause extensive flooding in strategic areas or even to bring a new “iceage” upon the enemy. By influencing the ionosphere and atmosphere simultaneously, magnetic,acoustic, and pressure effects might be generated in such a way that ocean-wide sweeping of mines would occur.” - “Weather Modification: the Evolution of an R&D Program into a Weapon System”, op.cit.

1.6 Operation Popeye- The first use of weather modification as a weapon in war

It was the United States that was the first nation to use weather modification as a weapon in war. This took place in an extensive program in the Indochina Theater from 1967 to 1972. The code names of the program Operations Pop-eye, Intermediary, Compatriot, all referred to the same program that ultimately flew more than 2600 sorties.

• “During October 1966, a scientifically controlled test of the concept and seeding techniques was conducted in the Laos Panhandle... The White House ...authorized an operational phase which began on March 20, 1967, and was conducted each subsequent year during the rainy Southeast Asia monsoon season until July 5, 1972. The areas seeded were over Laos, Cambodia, and North and South Vietnam. Because the program was considered so politically sensitive, responsibilities for the program were lodged within that part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff responsible for covert operations.” - “Weather Modification: the Evolution of an R&D Program into a Weapon System”, op.cit.

Operation Popeye first came to public light in March 1971, when reporter Jack Anderson published a story based on a secret 1967 memo from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to President Johnson. The memo read: “Laos operations – Continue as at present plus Pop Eye to reduce the trafficability [sic] along infiltration routes & Authorization requested to implement operational phase of weather modification process previously successful tested and evaluated in some area”.

This launched an increase in the media coverage of the first-time use of weather modification as a weapon of war.

1.7 The Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques ... also known as the Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD)

The public outcry after Jack Anderson broke the story about weather modification in Vietnam was based on the belief that using weather modification for military purposes was somehow immoral. This public outcry was significant enough that the Nixon Administration proposed an international agreement “to limit environmental modification for military purposes when the impacts would be ‘widespread, long-lasting and severe’. Nixon and Brezhnev met in July, 1974, and signed a bilateral agreement that was called the Moscow Summit agreement.

The Soviet Union recognized the weasel wording in the U.S. proposal - ‘widespread, long-lasting and severe’. Although the Soviets tried to change the wording to ban all environmental modifications for military purposes in the proposals for the U.N. treaty, the Americans were able to ensure that the final treaty included the words ‘widespread, long-lasting and severe’. 

• “Prompted in part by a Senate resolution in 1973 that urged the US government to secure an international agreement outlawing ‘any use of an environmental or geophysical modification activity as a weapon of war’, and by the public release of the transcript of the secret Congressional hearings in 1974, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (or ENMOD) in 1976. It came into force in October 1978. “ - “Popeye the Weatherman”, https://geographicalimaginations.com/tag/operation-popeye/
• “December 1976 - Moved to act by the United States’ cloud-seeding activities in Vietnam, the U.N. General Assembly approves the Environmental Modification Convention, which bans weather warfare and other hostile uses of climate manipulation “having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects.” The treaty goes into effect a little less than two years later and is eventually ratified by 76 countries.  - “Geoengineering: A Short History”, Ty McCormick, Foreign Policy, Sept. 2013 

Having evolved from hiring rainmakers to launching cloud seeding to increase precipitation over selective areas of Laos, Indonesia and Vietnam, governments have demonstrated their willingness to act in the face of threats. Nothwithstanding the deniers (whose denials contribute to delayed action), the scientific consensus is that global warming is a major threat to civilization. If we are not able to reduce anthropogenic caused emissions, people, organizations and governments will probably begin giving climate geoengineering a serious second look.

2.0 A new term and policy tool is born - “geoengineering”

David Keith (“Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect”) says that the term geoengineering came into being in 1971

• “The first use of the term geoengineering in approximately the sense defined above [i.e. applied to proposals to manipulate the environment with the goal of reducing undesired climate change caused by human influences] was by Marchetti in the early 1970s to describe the mitigation of the climatic impact of fossil fuel combustion by the injection of CO 2 into the deep ocean. The term entered the mainstream of debate about climate change during the past decade, particularly with publication of the 1992 NAS assessment.” - “Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect”, op. cit.

The 1992 report from the National Academy of Sciences tendered the term ‘geoengineering’ in a pioneering fashion that was consistent with its ground breaking report but went to lengths to caution readers that they were not endorsing this cluster of offsetting approaches. 

• “Table 6.3 presents what the panel calls geoengineering options. The geoengineering options in this preliminary analysis include several ways of reducing temperature increases by screening sunlight (e.g., space mirrors, stratospheric dust, multiple balloons, stratospheric soot, and stimulating cloud condensation nuclei) as well as stimulation of ocean uptake of CO2. Several options, including space mirrors and removal of CFCs from the atmosphere, are not included among those recommended for further investigation in Chapter 9.” - “Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming: Mitigation, Adaptation, and the Science Base”, National Academy of Science, 1992

Geoengineering is the study and implementation of technical ways to change (and arguably improve) things like weather patterns, river paths, soils, climates and sea currents on Earth. Recently, geoengineering has received special attention for efforts to combat global warming.

For our purposes, the term ‘ climate geoengineering’ refers to schemes/projects/proposals that are designed/intended as global-scale efforts to ‘supplement’ society’s efforts (stop carbon emissions in the first place) to mitigate climate change/global warming by several competing approaches:

• by removing CO2 from the air (carbon dioxide removal - CDR); or 
• limiting the amount of sunlight reaching the planet’s surface (solar radiation management - SRM); or
• allowing heat to escape into space (earth radiation management - ERM). 

A preliminary catalogue of types of climate geoengineering schemes

The following is a brief/superficial description of the range of climate geoengineering schemes and proposals that have emerged in the past decade or more. I say superficial because some of the technologies involved would require massive technical explanations to adequately cover the science involved. The purpose of this catalogue is to illustrate the amazing range of schemes and proposals that have been developed in the hunt to beat back global warming. It is not briefing on the detailed science underlying each scheme.

I have not included the outermost schemes such as putting small lenses in space that would bend sunlight away from earth (trillions of lenses) or the 55-year-old Peruvian inventor, Eduardo Gold’s efforts to paint the Chalon Sombrero peak in the Andes white to restore a glacier. Although I should mention it was it was one of the 26 winners from around 1,700 submissions in the World Bank’s “100 Ideas to Save the Planet” competition at the end of 2009.

The National Academy of Sciences included a generic caution that applies to geoengineering in its many manifestations:

•  â€œGeoengineering options have the potential to affect greenhouse warming on a substantial scale. However, precisely because they might do so, and because the climate system and its chemistry are poorly understood, these options must be considered extremely carefully. We need to know more about them because measures of this kind may be crucial if greenhouse warming occurs, especially if climate sensitivity turns out to be at the high end of the range considered in this study. Efforts by societies to restrain their greenhouse gas emissions might be politically infeasible on a global scale, or might fail. In this eventuality, other options may be incapable of countering the effects, and geoengineering strategies might be needed. Some of these options are relatively inexpensive to implement, but all have large unknowns concerning possible environmental side-effects. They should not be implemented without careful assessment of their direct and indirect consequences. "

2.1 Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) or Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR)

CDR acts on the cause of global warming by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and storing it, thereby reducing the greenhouse effect. One cluster of these technologies is called “negative emissions technologies”—systems that capture carbon dioxide and store it.

This section includes:

• Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
• Direct Air Capture (DAC)
• Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS)
• Ocean Fertilization
• Enhanced Weathering (EW)
• Biochar

2.1.1 Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)

Description of the Technique/Technology

Carbon capture and sequestration/storage) involves capturing CO2 at its source (usually from the burning of fossil fuels at power plants and other large industrial facilities) and then permanently storing it underground in a liquified state. 

It can also include carbon utilization once the CO2 is captured by converting CO2 into potentially commercially viable products, such as chemicals, fuels, cements, and plastics which can offset the cost of capturing the CO2.

Commentary

• “The Petra Nova plant in Texas is the only U.S. fossil-fueled power plant currently generating electricity and capturing CO2 in large quantities (over 1 million tons per year). Globally, the Boundary Dam plant in Canada is the only other large-scale fossil-fueled power plant with CCS. Both facilities retrofitted post-combustion capture technology to units of existing plants, and both offset a portion of the cost of CCS by selling captured CO2 for the purpose of enhanced oil recovery (EOR).” - “Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) in the United States”, Peter Folger, Congressional Research Service, Aug. 2018

Brief Assessment/Critique

The concerns about CCS appear to center on:

• there are no current large scale setups that can capture and store enough CO2 to make the required contribution to emissions reduction targets;
• CCS technologies are is very costly, small-scale and demand a great deal of energy to operate;
• the technology being used by proponents of the fossil fuel sector to justify business-as-usual because CCS will offset their emissions

2.1.2 Direct Air Capture (DAC)

Description of the Technique/Technology

Unlike CCS which captures CO2 at the stacks of a power plant or other large industrial facility, direct air capture (DAC) does what the words say, the technology extracts/grabs the CO2 directly out of the air, usually by large fans that move the air through a filtering process that grabs the CO2. 

Commentary

• “All DAC systems work by forcing huge volumes of air through devices called contactors, where the CO2 molecules are adsorbed by chemical compounds. The chemicals are either hydroxides or amines. All require heat to release the concentrated CO2, with far higher temperatures needed for hydroxide systems. Electricity is required for the large fans; natural gas or electricity can provide the heat. In the case of amines, waste heat from industrial processes can be used”. - “Can carbon capture from air shift the climate change equation?”, Physics Today, Sept. 2018

As with CCS, the captured CO2 can be used as a feedstock for manufacturing, resulting in CO2 being stored in the products created from the CO2. As one Vox article said “ To state the bottom line clearly: The ability to pull carbon out of the air is not a silver bullet. It is not the cheapest or most effective way to fight climate change. It won‘t allow us to bypass any of the hard work of reducing our emissions.”

• “Myself and my colleagues at Carbon Engineering do not view DAC as similar with solar geoengineering. In the next decades--an eternity for a start-up company--it is likely to be deployed only in niche markets to make lower carbon-intensity products, or to help mitigate emissions from sectors of the economy with few technical alternatives. As an enabler of low-carbon transportation fuels, DAC is a conventional industrial technology, covered by existing environmental and safety regulations. It does not have the same potential for incredibly fast and cheap impact that necessitates such careful study and governance as solar geoengineering.” - “Direct Air Capture”, The Keith Group, Harvard University, https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/direct-air-capture

Brief Assessment/Critique

The concerns about direct air capture focus on:

• post-combustion capture of stack gas won’t be a viable technology without government regulations establishing a substantial price on CO2 emissions;
• the large scale/size of the physical plant (i.e. plant size in kilometer lengths) and the amount of land involved necessary to create a viable operation;
• feasibility studies to date have not included the costs of underground storage;
• limitations on the ability of these technologies to contribute on a global scale

2.1.3 Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS)

Description of the Technique/Technology

As the title suggests, BECCS captures the CO2 that is released by facilities (ethanol bio-refinery plants and municipal solid waste recycling centers) that burn biomass (includes agricultural residues & waste, forestry residue & waste, industrial & municipal wastes, and energy crops specifically grown for use as fuel) to produce energy and then the CO2 is diverted to bedrock for permanent storage. 

Commentary

• “Bioenergy is energy generated from food crops such as grains, sugar cane and vegetable oils (first generation bioenergy) or from cellulose, hemicellulose or lignin sourced from non-food crops or inedible waste products (second generation bioenergy). Bioenergy may play an important role in mitigating climate change. It can be used as liquid fuel in the transport sector to replace fossil-energy based fuels,leading to lower CO2 emissions. It can also be used in the power sector as a replacement for coal or natural gas. In power and in hydrogen production, bioenergy can also be combined with CCS to create a technology which could actually remove emissions from the atmosphere (known as BECCS). Through this approach, CO2 is absorbed during the growth phase of the biomass, and then captured and stored when the biomass is converted to power or hydrogen”.

• “Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage – better known by the acronym “BECCS” – has come to be seen as one of the most viable and cost-effective negative emissions technologies. Even though they have yet to be demonstrated at a commercial scale, negative emissions technologies – typically BECCS – are now included by climate scientists in the majority of modelled “pathways” showing how the world can avoid the internationally agreed limit of staying “well below” 2C of global warming since the pre-industrial era.” - “Timeline: How BECCS became climate change’s ‘saviour’ technology”, 2016, https://www.carbonbrief.org/beccs-the-story-of-climate-changes-saviour-technology

Brief Assessment/Critique

Critics of BECCS have expressed concerns about:

• the availability of biomass supplies (fast-growing trees, switchgrass, agriculture waste, or other sources);
• although there are viable examples of the technology at a small scale, there is skepticism and a lack of proof that this technology will be successful at a large scale;
• the cancellation of the White Rose Carbon Capture Project in the UK (a power company plant which would capture 90 percent of the carbon emissions from a 428-megawatt plant that burns coal and biomass) and FutureGen, a highly touted CCS project in Illinois (a “clean coal” project using carbon capture and storage, without biomass);
• like CCA and DAC, BECCS is seen by some as a dangerous distraction from the underlying need to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide in the first place.

2.1.4 Ocean Fertilization

Description of the Technique/Technology

Ocean fertilization involves adding nutrients to the upper (sunlit) layers of the ocean in areas with low biological productivity to stimulate phytoplankton activity (photosynthesis) in an attempt to draw down atmospheric CO2 levels. In theory, adding iron or other fertilizers to the ocean could cause man-made phytoplankton blooms. The resulting phytoplankton explosion would absorb atmospheric CO2 and then die, falling to the ocean bed and trap/sequestering the carbon.

Commentary

“A new study has found that large segments of the Pacific Ocean lack sufficient iron to trigger healthy phytoplankton growth... and the tropical Pacific Ocean may photosynthesize 1-2 billion tons less atmospheric carbon dioxide than was previously thought. Global ocean carbon uptake is estimated at 50 billion tons, so the reduction in the estimate of the uptake is significant - about 2 to 4 percent.

The role of the ocean in the global carbon cycle is critical - and nowhere is it more pronounced than the tropical Pacific Ocean. As phytoplankton plants grow, they suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to build new cells. A better understanding of this carbon cycle is a key to studying global climate change. Iron fertilization of phytoplankton is also a key to a healthy marine food chain.” - “New Study Shows Importance of Iron in Ocean Productivity, Carbon Uptake”, Oregon State University, 2009

Brief Assessment/Critique

Critics from the research and NGO communities have repeatedly expressed their concerns about ocean iron fertilization (OIF):

• ocean fertilization would have to operate at so large scale that the consequences for getting something wrong are immense and potentially irreversible;
• the London Convention on maritime pollution and dumping warning that OIF could, among other things, transform planktonic communities and disrupt marine food webs;
• this large/global scale makes it difficult to properly test concepts without incurring the potential environmental risks;
•  the potential of iron-induced carbon sequestration is far lower than previously estimated.

2.1.5 Enhanced [Rock]Weathering (EW)

Description of the Technique/Technology

Weathering is normally a slow natural process where CO2 in the atmosphere reacts with silicate minerals to form carbonate rocks. Enhanced weathering is an attempt to upscale this natural process by spreading crushed rock material (basalt) on a large area of land. 

Commentary

“The process begins with rain, which is usually slightly acidic having absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere on its journey to the ground. The acidic rain reacts with the rocks and soils it lands on, gradually breaking them down into minute rock grains and forming bicarbonate in the process. Eventually, this bicarbonate washes into the oceans, where the carbon is stored in dissolve form for hundreds of thousands of years or locked up on the sea floor.

Enhanced weathering scales up this process. It involves pulverising silicate rocks such as basalt – left over from ancient volcanic eruptions – to bypass the slow weathering action. The resulting powder, with a high reactive surface area, is then spread on large areas of agricultural land where plant roots and microbes in the soil speed up the chemical reactions.” - “How ‘enhanced weathering’ could slow climate change and boost crop yields”, David Beerling and Stephen Long, Feb. 2018, https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-enhanced-weathering-could-slow-climate-change-and-boost-crop-yields

Thorben Amann from Universit?t Hamburg’s Institute for Geology, Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability co-author of the first comprehensive assessment of costs and possibilities [of EW] now published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, concluded “To sequester one billion tons of CO2, more than 3 billion tons basalt would have to be spread... Grinding the rocks and spreading the powder over roughly one fifth of global cropland would be necessary”. - “Enhanced weathering of rocks can help to pull CO2 out of the air -- a little”, Science Daily, March 2018

• “But the potential is significant. For example, applying 50 tonnes of basalt powder per hectare per year to 70m hectares of the corn belt of North America might sequester as much as 1.1bn tonnes of CO2 in the long run – equivalent to 13% of the global annual emissions from agriculture.” - “Guest post: How ‘enhanced weathering’ could slow climate change and boost crop yields”, Prof David Beerling and Prof Stephen Long, carbonbrief.org, 2018 

Brief Assessment/Critique

Criticisms of enhanced weathering by spreading crushed rock on large land masses includes:

• the issue of scale -EW would require large amounts of crushed rocks such as basalt, large areas of land(although the land could also be used simultaneously for agriculture);
• could require large amounts of land in tropical areas with historically low emissions without regard for the effects on local inhabitants;
• the potentially adverse environmental effects of mining, grinding and spreading rocks on a large-scale;
• the lack of research, development and demonstration across a range of different climates and spatial scales;
• to the degree that it works, EW simply removes previously-emitted GHGs from the earth system, whereas mitigation seeks to avoid the emissions in the first place.

2.1.6 Biochar

Description of the Technique/Technology

Biochar is a method of converting biomass into charcoal and then mixing it into soils to store the burnt carbon. Char is made when organic matter smoulders in an oxygen-poor environment, rather than burns. The approach is apparently inspired by Amazonian Terra Preta black soils where indigenous communities have used charcoal to improve fertility. The charcoal is then mixed into soils as a soil additive, directly burying carbon into the soil. 

Commentary

• “... the sheer amount of carbon they can stash away is phenomenal. In 1992, Sombroek published his first work on the potential of terra preta as a tool for carbon sequestration. According to Glaser’s research, a hectare of metre-deep terra preta can contain 250 tonnes of carbon, as opposed to 100 tonnes in unimproved soils from similar parent material. The extra carbon is not just in the char — it’s also in the organic carbon and enhanced bacterial biomass that the char sustains.” - “Black is the new green”, Emma Marris, Nature, Aug. 2006
• “The problems with biochar aren’t with the technique itself, but with scaling it to a large enough level that it has a global impact. The Royal Society survey says that “substantial research” is needed to prove biochar’s effectiveness when deployed widely. Some critics suggest that we’d need to chop down 4% of our forests to deal with half of our carbon emissions. Clearly chopping down forest to produce biochar is a bad idea, and this really isn’t the way to go about it. A more reasonable way is proposed by big biochar backer James Lovelock: What we have to do is turn a portion of all the waste of agriculture into charcoal and bury it. Consider grain like wheat or rice; most of the plant mass is in the stems, stalks and roots and we only eat the seeds. So instead of just ploughing in the stalks or turning them into cardboard, make it into charcoal and bury it or sink it in the ocean. We don’t need plantations or crops planted for biochar, what we need is a charcoal maker on every farm so the farmer can turn his waste into carbon.” - “Reforestation & Biochar: Two Geoengineering Methods That Won’t Cause More Harm Than Good”, Mat McDermott, Treehugger.com, 2010

Brief Assessment/Critique

In spite of the enthusiasm many articles have for ‘terra preta’, critical reviews have made the following comments:

• to grow biomass merely to provide biochar may well not be a viable option;
• the potential for proponents to adopt crop monoculture for producing feedstock;
• lack of scientific field studies to show whether or not the basic claim that biochar will sequester carbon over long periods is valid;
• global-scale biochar climate geoengineering would require land-conversion to plantations on a vast scale;
•  dependent on government setting a high enough price for carbon.

2.2 Solar Radiation Management (SRM)

SRM aims to reflect sunlight away from the Earth, thus cooling the planet and counteracting the impact of increased greenhouse gas concentrations. Rather than acting on the cause of the problem SRM would treat one of its symptoms 

This section includes:

• Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI)
• Surface Albedo
• High-Albedo Crops
• Desert covering
• Ice covering
• White Blankets
• Snow Forest Clearance
• Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB)
• Microbubbles

2.2.1 Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) - “dimming the sun.”

Description of the Technique/Technology

This climate geoengineering technique would pump millions of tiny sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, where these sulfide gases (e.g. sulfuric acid,[3] hydrogen sulfide (H2S) or sulfur dioxide (SO2) are expected to act as a reflective barrier to reflect some of sunlight radiation back into space before it reaches the Earth. Other reflective minerals (e.g. titanium or aluminum) have also been proposed. Proposals for delivering/placing the sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere have included the use of artillery, high altitude aircraft (such as the KC-135 Stratotanker and KC-10 Extender) and high-altitude balloons using tanks or bladders to lift precursor gases.

Commentary

• “The Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx) will inject calcium carbonate particles high above the earth in an attempt to reflect some of the sun’s rays back into space. It will likely mark the first time the controversial concept of dimming the sun — more scientifically known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) — will be tested in the real world... The Harvard team, led by scientists Frank Keutsch and David Keith, has been working on the SCoPEx project for several years.” - “First sun-dimming experiment will test a way to cool Earth”, Jeff Tollefson, Nature, Nov. 2018

Brief Assessment/Critique

Critics have argued that SAI has the following weaknesses/limitations:

• that solar climate geoengineering has never been tried before;
• potential SAI projects have many risks including disturbing the stratosphere’s chemistry and circulation;
• aerosols emitted into the stratosphere would eventually return to the lower atmosphere as air pollutants;
• cooling can take place rapidly, within a year of the injection, but only lasts for a few years unless additional material is injected;
• it’s only a temporary solution that might divert resources from more essential efforts like emissions reduction;
• potential hindrance of emissions reduction research.

2.2.2 Surface Albedo

Description of the Technique/Technology

The amount of energy that is reflected by a surface is determined by the reflectivity of that surface, called the albedo. A high albedo means the surface reflects the majority of the radiation that hits it and absorbs the rest. A low albedo means a surface reflects a small amount of the incoming radiation and absorbs the rest. For instance, fresh snow reflects up to 95% of the incoming radiation. Therefore, fresh snow has a high albedo of .95. By contrast, water reflects about 10% of the incoming radiation, resulting in a low albedo of .10. Since 30% of the sun’s energy is reflected by the entire earth, the earth has an average albedo of .30. Generally, dark surfaces have a low albedo and light surfaces have a high albedo. - “Albedo”, North Carolina Climate Office, https://climate.ncsu.edu/edu/Albedo

Commentary

• “...albedo modification approaches (in particular stratospheric aerosol injection and possibly marine cloud brightening) are the only ways that have been suggested by which humans could potentially cool Earth within years after deployment.” - “Climate Intervention - Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth”, National Academy of Sciences, 2015

Brief Assessment/Critique

In general, climate geoengineering projects designed to increase the reflectivity of lands or waters, have been the subject to the following cautions and criticisms:

• the uncertainties in modeling the consequences of albedo modification render reliable, quantitative statements about relative risks, consequences, and benefits of albedo modification impossible to determine;
• albedo modification at climate-altering scales includes unknown political, social, legal, economic, and ethical dimensions;
• albedo modification attempts to counter some effects of high greenhouse gas concentrations without addressing the causes;
• the success of albedo modification could reduce the incentive to curb anthropogenic CO2 emissions (i.e. the ‘moral hazard’).

2.2.2.1 High-Albedo Crops

Description of the Technique/Technology

Called crop albedo climate geoengineering, it is based on research that has found certain crop canopies could cool the atmosphere by reflecting more solar radiation back into space. - i.e. barley is cited as having an albedo of 0.23 around the temperate zone and sugar beet, with its broad leaves, would reflect 26 percent of solar radiation.

Commentary

“Instead of advocating switching from crop type the researchers state lighter varieties per crop type deserve special attention. Albedo differences between different subspecies of wheat would be as high as 16 percent. Lighter crop varieties could bring additional benefits, as these tend to have greater water use efficiency and reduced leaf heating, potentially increasing agricultural productivity, and could therefore fit in climate adaptation programs as well. In creating the lighter varieties the researchers do not rule out GMO may have a role to play.” - “Crop albedo geoengineering: plant albino sugar beet and have a 1 degree cooler summer”, 2011, https://www.bitsofscience.org/crop-albedo-geoengineering-1082/

• “Researchers are proposing that one way of temporarily reducing global temperatures would be to replace existing crops with variant strains that reflect more solar energy back out to space. The overall effect would be the same as making large areas of the planet more mirror-like. Their calculations suggest this could cause average summer temperatures in temperate zones to fall by as much as 1°C.” - “A high-albedo diet will chill the planet”, New Scientist, January 2009

Brief Assessment/Critique

Although the scientists and NGOs supporting these crops argue that this bio-geo-engineering approach has fewer limitations than other types of climate geoengineering, there are a number of concerns:

• the scale required is such that it would be a Herculean challenge to change the varieties grown of all major crop plants;
• farmers would need to be given incentives (including financial) to buy high-albedo varieties;
• “plant breeding would take 10 to 15 years to get the varieties developed and into farmers fields in a major way.”;
• would not reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

2.2.2.2 Desert covering

Description of the Technique/Technology

Alvia Gaskill’s proposal was to cover up to 4-million square miles of desert land with a plastic that reflects 80% of the incident solar radiation. The proposal was to occur over a 60 year period (2010-2070) allowing sufficient time for carbon emissions to be reduced by improvements in energy technology and carbon mitigation efforts of society. - “Global Warming Mitigation by Reduction of Outgoing Longwave Radiation Through Large-Scale Surface Albedo Enhancement of Desert Using White Plastic Polyethylene Film – the Global Albedo Enhancement Project (GAEP), Alvia Gaskill, Jr. and Charles E. Reese, 2003. https://www.slideshare.net/AlviaGaskillJr/theglobalalbedoen

Commentary

• “He said the ideal candidates for surface albedo enhancement are the world’s deserts, citing their advantages of being largely uninhabited, sparsely vegetated, flat and stable with a high solar flux and low humidity (meaning less absorption of solar and IR by water vapor) and generally useless and noting their primary disadvantage of having the highest reflectivity of all surface areas except the ice cap.” - “Summary of Meeting with U.S. DOE to Discuss Geoengineering Options to Prevent Abrupt and Long-Term Climate Change”, Alvia Gaskill, Environmental Reference Materials, Inc., 2004
• “...proposal to cover deserts like the Saharra and Gobi over with white plastic sheeting for at least sixty years had several drawbacks...covering ‘removes the land for other uses for possibly hundreds of years’ and ‘will kill all plant and animal species in the covered areas’...it would be a disaster ecologically...” - “Carbon Footprint Wars: What Might Happen If We Retreat From Globalization”, Stuart Sim, Edinburgh University Press, 2009

Brief Assessment/Critique

The major concerns are:

• the climate-altering scales (67,000 square miles of desert every year until 2060) would have geo-political implications for the countries containing the Sahara, Arabian and Gobi deserts and their neighbourng countries; - “Tech Reckoning: A Green White-wash”, Jim Thomas, ETC Group, 2008
• the timelines (60 to 100 years) are too long given the current pressures for more timely interventions;
• deserts are not sterile, their ecosystems would be altered and the lives of inhabitants changed in countless unknown ways;
• skepticism about feasibility and high costs.

2.2.2.3 Ice covering

Description of the Technique/Technology

Similar to desert covering's ambitions to cover large areas, small glass beads would be applied to Arctic ice as a “reflective band aid” to insulate rapidly melting snowpack and glaciers. The experimental project is led by Leslie Field, an engineer at University of California, Berkeley. She describes this approach as “ just to buy time until we can adopt new energy technologies and become more energy-efficient”.

Commentary

• “The world’s polar ice caps act like giant temperature ballasts because they reflect a great deal of solar radiation back into the atmosphere, thereby keeping the Earth pleasantly habitable. Multi-year ice does a better job at this than new ice, because new ice has less imperfections and that makes it less reflective. Melting polar ice kicks off an ice-albedo (albedo is a measure of how much radiation is reflected) feedback effect, which means as more ice melts, massive areas of reflective surface are lost, speeding up melting and ultimately raising global temperatures and affecting sea levels and global weather patterns...
• After years of testing on sites in California and elsewhere, Ice911’s technology consists of salt-grain sized hollow glass spheres that can boost the reflectivity of existing low-albedo ice. The material is sprinkled on vulnerable ice, and is essentially made of silica, the main component in sand. â€œIt’s embarrassingly simple as a concept,” Field says. “Hollow glass spheres are everywhere — in paints and building materials, basically anywhere there’s a need to make things lightweight and not thermally conductive. Some of them are even bright white. I wanted them to float as well, which turns out to be useful on first-year ice.” - “One big reflective band-aid “, Daniel McGlynn, 2017, https://engineering.berkeley.edu/2017/01/one-big-reflective-band-aid

Brief Assessment/Critique

• concerns about the concept of resurrecting the reflectivity lost by the Arctic as sea ice that has receded due to a warming atmosphere and ocean;
• the concept of increasing the reflectivity of the ice with small glass spheres is still at the testing stage;
• the cost and logistics are substantial, preliminary estimate is $750 million; 
• unclear how the sand grains will be distributed - ship-based deployment versus aircraft.
• concerns about the feasibility of covering 19,000 sq. miles of sea ice.

2.2.2.4 White Blankets 

Description of the Technique/Technology

This is another category of SRM that uses white coverings (paint, blankets, tarps) to reflect the sun’s rays and prevent/reduce the temperature rise in roofs, buildings, glaciers, etc.

Commentary

“Each summer, residents of the Swiss Alps make their way through the mountains to the edge of the famous Rh?ne Glacier. There, fleecy white blankets in hand, they cover up the ice. They’re trying to reflect the sun and prevent the glacier from melting. The Rh?ne is one of many glaciers around the world that have noticeably shrunk in recent decades. The blankets are a simple fix, but they seem to help — Swiss glaciologist David Volken has previously suggested to Agence France-Presse that they may reduce melting by up to 70 percent.” - “Can we refreeze the Arctic? Scientists are beginning to ask”, Chelsea Harvey, E&E News Climatewire: March 2018

• “As part of a project known as Cool Roofs, volunteers in New York City have been painting black roofs white and have so far covered more than 500,000 square meters of roof, though that’s less than one percent of the possible area. The U.S. Department of Energy suggests such reflective rooftops can keep a given roof 30 degrees C cooler than surrounding traditional rooftops. Even better, according to new research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, white roofs are the cheapest roofing option based on a study of 22 commercial roofing projects. The lab’s research confirms the Arizona findings that white roofs reduce global warming, proving three times more effective at countering climate change than even green roofs, thanks to all that reflected sunlight. - “Cool Roofs Might Be Enough to Save Cities from Climate Overheating”, David Biello, Scientific American, February 2014

Brief Assessment/Critique

The concerns for these proposals and schemes were described in terms of:

• impacts are just local, not global;
• too small a scale to have much impact for the effort involved;
• given the public involvement aspects, may be seen by the public involved as a replacement for reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the first place.

2.2.2.5 Snow Forest Clearance

Description of the Technique/Technology

Snow Forest Clearance would involve removing vast swaths of boreal forest to create “white deserts of snow” in the winter months to ‘naturally’ boost reflectivity of a large area of the Earth. This is the exact opposite and countervailing technique/tool of afforestation/reforestation which seeks to increase forest cover fix atmospheric carbon in biomass and soils. 

The boreal represents 29% of the world’s forest cover and extends across Canada and Alaska, most of Sweden, Finland and inland Norway, much of Russia, and the northern parts of Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Japan. 

Commentary

• “Studies by forestry schools at Yale, with partial funding from the US Department of Energy, indicated at least local cooling effects, though these “white deserts” could destroy Subarctic ecosystem productivity, affecting the caribou, migrating birds and other fauna, as well as the plants and people that depend on them. Eliminating forest would negatively affect the regulation of regional and local climates. Carbon contained in forest would also be lost. Proponents admit that there are many complexities. There would also be a one-time (and final) bonanza for timber companies.” - “Snow Forest Clearance”, Engineering Monitor, file:///Users/robbogilvie1/Desktop/Proposed%20Geoengineering%20Technologies%20%E2%80%93%20Geoengineering%20Monitor.html

Brief Assessment/Critique

Needless to say, this proposal elicited a volume of strident criticisms:

• antithetical to afforestation/reforestation schemes (generally not considered climate geoengineering but equally important) which are based on sequestration of carbon;
• to have an impact on the global climate, it will have to be deployed on a massive scale;
• such a massive scale will likely have transboundary implications - see the 8 Arctic Council countries;
• would have major socio-economic-environmental impacts in Arctic regions Canada, U.S. and Russia in particular;

2.2.3 Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB)

Description of the Technique/Technology

This Solar Radiation Management technique involves increasing the ‘whiteness’ of the cloud cover over the oceans in an attempt to increase the reflectiveness of the clouds thereby reflecting more sunlight back into space. The technique is also referred to as ‘aerosol climate geoengineering’ because the technique and its variations are all based on modifying the Earth’s radiation budget by the addition of aerosols into the atmosphere.

Perhaps the most studied aerosol climate geoengineering approach is to spray aerosols, or gaseous precursors like SO2, into the lower stratosphere to form a layer of reflective particles, which is similar to the dimming aerosol blankets observed after explosive volcanic eruptions. The aerosols would increase the amount of reflected solar radiation and hence cool the climate.

Commentary 

• “... aerosol geoengineering does little to offset the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. All three approaches only marginally enhance carbon removal from the atmosphere. These aerosol injection geoengineering approaches cannot be seen as substitutes for emission reductions... Questions remain whether these types of climate action would reduce some aspects of global harm, and work toward helping the sustainable development goals, compared to global warming. No clear “showstoppers” were identified for any of the approaches in this study... Showstoppers could still arise in the technical realization of such technologies, however, or in physical processes that are not explicitly simulated in the model. The aerosol geoengineering methods would be nonrestorative of the climate to an unperturbed state, and new and different climate conditions would result from any such large-scale deployment. Neither would all symptoms of climate change be addressed by such forms of geoengineering. The atmospheric CO2 burden with associated feedbacks on the carbon cycle, including ocean acidification for instance, would not be alleviated.” - “Climate Response to Aerosol Geoengineering: A Multimethod Comparison”, Helene Muri, University of Oslo, Published Online, July 2018
• “...marine cloud brightening – It is, however, the most controversial because of the nature, scale and uncertainty of its effects. A Harvard University research project could begin outdoor experiments this year and there is growing concern over where this line of inquiry might take us. Its supporters suggest aerosol injection, if it proves feasible, could become part of our toolkit to limit the worst effects of global warming. Its opponents reject it as a dangerous techno-fix to what they see as a socio-economic problem. For the moment, however, the world simply doesn’t know enough to decide.” - “Cool idea or hi-tech madness?”, Janos Pasztor, The World Today, Chatham House, United Kingdom, February & March 2019

Brief Assessment/Critique

MCB, in a manner similar to stratospheric aerosol injection, has drawn/attracted the following criticisms:

• the technical problems associated with engineering a spraying device capable of spraying particles 0.8 micron in size;
• the number and cost of specially designed ships to spray the aerosols;
• the potential side-effects of MCB on the scale needed are not well understood - i.e. it could prompt droughts, flooding, and catastrophic crop failures;
• A BBC article even mentioned fear of MCB being weaponized like weather modification was during the Vietnam war;
• like other climate geoengineering schemes, some fear that it could be used as an excuse to slow down emissions reduction.

Microbubbles/Foam

Description of the Technique/Technology

This technique is based on the fact that the reflectance of sea/ocean foam can be more than ten times higher than the ocean itself. Hence, the technique is basically to increase the albedo of the surface of the ocean by creating tiny microbbubbles or spreading foaming agents, that are kept buoyant by various materials. By making the ocean and other water bodies’ surfaces more reflective, the expectation is that these large water bodies will reflect more sunlight back into space. 

Commentary

• “Low-power consumption technologies for generating microbubbles could potentially be used to brighten the ocean surface for geoengineering purposes. ...The smaller the microbubbles or the larger the volume of air in the water (i.e., a much larger number of microbubbles of the same size), the greater the albedo. ... In practice one might have to compensate for the presence of chlorophyll by generating greater volume concentrations of bubbles. Increasing the lifetime of bubbles in ship wakes would increase the areal extent of the wake so could also be used to brighten the ocean surface. Microbubble lifetimes in sea water are strongly dependent on the amount of natural surfactant (surface-active carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids often derived from phytoplankton) and amphiphilic nanoparticles which help stabilize microbubbles. There are few measurements of microbubble lifetimes in seawater from different ocean locations, but it is unlikely that lifetimes are longer than the order of a few minutes. Additional surfactant has been shown to extend bubble lifetimes to a year in fresh water and to produce long-lasting (3 months) foams in sea water in the laboratory”. - “Can increasing albedo of existing ship wakes reduce climate change?”, Julia A. Crook, Lawrence S. Jackson, and Piers M. Forste, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2016

Brief Assessment/Critique

The major criticisms of using sea/ocean microbubbles or foam are:

• if parts of the ocean are engineered to be more reflective and consequently absorb less heat, there is the potential that regional climate and weather would be affected;
• affecting the way oceans absorb and retain heat may impact crucial ocean currents, causing unusual weather in some places;
• although it is difficult to predict ,cooler ocean temperatures and less sunlight is expected to have some effects on marine life;
• there might be more risk of ocean acidification because colder water also holds more CO2;
• without large-scale testing, there is no way to assess how large the risks are.

2.3 Earth Radiation Management

Cirrus cloud thinning appears to be an orphan that does not fit under either CDR or SRM. I have adopted the classification used by the Geongineering Monitor - i.e. Earth Radiation Management. 

2.3.1 Cirrus Cloud Thinning (CCT)

Description of the Technique/Technology

Cirrus clouds have a warming effect on the climate because they trap longwave radiation. Cirrus cloud thinning (CCT), unlike maine cloud brightening (MCB), is a technique that seeks to let longwave radiation escape into the atmosphere thereby cooling the earth. This is accomplished by spraying/seeding the ‘wispy, elongated clouds at high levels’ with ice nuclei or concentrations of suitable ice nuclei like mineral dust to cause the the growth of larger and fewer ice crystals which ‘sediment out of the upper troposphere’- thereby letting longwave radiation escape.

Commentary

• “The third aerosol geoengineering approach considered in this study is cirrus cloud thinning, which was first proposed by Mitchell and Finnegan (2009). ... cirrus cloud thinning primarily acts on the longwave radiation. High, thin ice clouds have a net warming effect on the climate, as they trap longwave radiation. The idea is therefore to reduce the emissivity and lifetimes of these clouds in order to let more longwave radiation escape the atmosphere. This could, in theory, be achieved by seeding the clouds and cloud forming regions with highly effective ice nuclei to draw upon the competition effect between homogeneous and heterogeneous freezing. Heterogeneous freezing can occur at lower supersaturations than homogenous freezing. Hence introducing potent ice nuclei in regions dominated by homogeneous freezing, or with low ambient concentrations of suitable ice nuclei like mineral dust, one could initiate freezing and grow larger and fewer ice crystals than otherwise. As the ice crystals grow larger, the terminal velocity increases and they would eventually sediment out of the upper troposphere. The location and purity of the cirrus clouds would determine where this method would be the most effective.” - “Climate Response to Aerosol Geoengineering: A Multimethod Comparison”, Helene Muri, University of Oslo, Published Online, July 2018

Brief Assessment/Critique

Cirrus cloud thinning has many of the same criticisms and cautions as the previous techniques:

• uncertainties about the feasibility. If feasible, should be most effective at high latitudes;
• haven’t even been fully designed let alone modelled and tested;
• potentially adverse effects on marine ecosystem;
• adverse public reaction based on conspiracy theories on social media that the US government was spreading harmful chemicals into the atmosphere (identifiable by the â€˜Chemtrails’ left behind by planes);
• given the global patterns of cloud movement, the risks associated with geopolitics remain largely unknown and unattended;
• “Over-seeding” might lead to warming, as opposed to the desired cooling.

2.4 Summing up these climate geoengineering techniques/technologies

Usually a catalogue is a publication of items, that have been tested and met government standards, for sale. This catalogue has described items for sale/funding, but with a couple of exceptions using CDR , either the good housekeeping seal of approval is pending or scientific approval is some distance in the future after the necessary testing and proof of concept has been completed. 

CDR Techniques/technologies generally attract less controversy

• “Technologies designed to remove carbon from ambient air generally attract less controversy than solar geoengineering proposals. Indeed, many commentators argue that CDR is merely an extension of existing land management practices and carbon capture and storage from power stations and should simply be regarded as greenhouse gas mitigation technology. However, there have been strong objections to experiments with iron fertilization of the ocean.” - “Is There a Place for Geoengineering in Addressing Climate Change?”, Briefing Note #7, Climate Geoengineering Governance Project

SRM techniques/technologies seem to trigger the most alarm

Although CDR seems to be of less concern, SRM techniques/technologies are clearly of concern to many scientists.

• Fiddling with the dimmer switch may prove an almost irresistible political fix for governments. It gets powerful lobbies off their backs, gives the green light to burn more coal, avoids the need to raise petrol taxes, allows unrestrained growth and is no threat to consumer lifestyles.
• In short, compared to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, geoengineering gets everyone off the hook. No government is yet willing to lend official support to geoengineering. However, the pressure is building and the day when the government of a major nation like the United States, Russia or China publicly backs Plan B cannot be far off. Then the floodgates will open.
• Even now, beneath the radar, Russia has already begun testing. Yuri Izrael, a Russian scientist who is both a global-warming sceptic and a senior adviser to Prime Minister Putin, has tested the effects of aerosol spraying from a helicopter on solar radiation reaching the ground. He now plans a full-scale trial.” - “The Frightening Politics of Geo-engineering”, Clive Hamilton, Our World, United Nations University, 2010

The leading scientific bodies are still cautious about climate geoengineering and refrain from using the expression

• “CDR and SRM methods may have future roles in helping meet global temperature goals. Both methods would reduce global average temperature by reducing net global radiative forcing: CDR through reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations and SRM through increasing Earth’s albedo.
• The evaluation of the suitability and advisability of potential climate intervention actions requires a decision framework that includes important dimensions beyond scientific and technical considerations. Among these dimensions to be considered are the potential development of global and national governance and oversight procedures, geopolitical relations, legal considerations, environmental, economic and societal impacts, ethical considerations, and the relationships to global climate policy and current GHG mitigation and adaptation actions. It is clear that these social science and other non-physical science dimensions are likely to be a major part of the decision framework and ultimately control the adoption and effectiveness of CI actions. This report only acknowledges these mostly non-physical scientific dimensions and must forego a detailed discussion.” - “Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) 2017/2018”, Volume 2, entitled “Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States”, U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2018

Part 2 of this article on climate geoengineering (under construction)

Part 2 of this article moves from describing the evolution and techniques/technologies to the current debates about the efficacy and acceptability of this ... last-ditch response option to climate change if damage should produce extreme hardship...”

3.0 Climate geoengineering should be subjected to a Technology Assessment 

All of the reports acknowledge that the two main techniques/technologies - carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management - have the potential to reduce warming, - but these august scientific bodies fall short of endorsement. The reports of the NAS, IPCC and the U.S. Global Change Research Program all have misgivings about the technical feasibilities, costs, risks, co-benefits, and governance. They briefly allude to the socio-economic-political implications/consequences while offering that these non-technical matters will be considered in some future report.

I argue that we need a full-blown Technology Assessment of the climate engineering options - i.e. “a scientific, interactive, and communicative process that aims to contribute to the formation of public and political opinion on societal aspects of science and technology.” 

The health care field has a requirement that any new medical technology under go a Technology Assessment before it can be considered/used. We should do no less. I know this raises the issue of scientific autonomy versus regulation in governing geoengineering. But let’s find out what the benefits and risks are before we argue what to do about the risks.

4.0 Moving climate geoengineering from its technical “bubble”to a broader public discourse

The climate change scientists are operating in a self-contained “bubble” that excludes and fails to engage the other stakeholders and the public. Fears about the ‘slippery slope’ that (researching SRM will lead inevitably to the formation of vested interests that will ensure its deployment) and about the ‘moral hazard’ (that climate geoengineering options will be seen by some as a justification for less-vigorous mitigation efforts by governing entities) should be subjected to a wider public debate.

• "...The general public can be characterized as oblivious to and worried about SRM. An emerging literature discusses public perception of SRM, showing a lack of knowledge and unstable opinions. The perception of controllability affects legitimacy and public acceptability of SRM experiments.” - “Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) 2017/2018”, U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2018, nca2018.globalchange.gov

 The net effect of this echo chamber is that policy makers are left without any cogent sense of what the stakeholders consider legitimate and the public is left to make up their own nightmare versions of the outcomes of geoengineering. All of which contributes to great media headlines and social media conspiracy theories. We can’t afford to have our geoengineering “insurance policies” discredited and discarded in the dust bins.

I argue that we need to harness the potential of climate geoengineering before we are in the midst of a global catastrophe and that we need to engage the public in an all encompassing process that supports the robust options and discredits (to the extent one can) the hobgoblins and conspiracy theories.

In conclusion

• Principal fear of climate geoengineering seems to be that it “would weaken resolve to reduce carbon emissions”
• “Although ideas for climate engineering have been around for at least twenty years, until recently public discussion has been discouraged by the scientific community. Environmentalists and governments have been reluctant to talk about it too. The reason is simple: apart from its unknown side-effects, geoengineering would weaken resolve to reduce carbon emissions. - “The Frightening Politics of Geo-engineering”, Clive Hamilton, Our World, United Nations University, 2010

Sources and References

Sources and references are listed here in the order they occurred in the article.

“The longer climate targets are missed, the more likely geoengineering is to be used...” - The Economist. April 2019

“Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth”, The National Academy of Science, 2015

“Switzerland puts geoengineering governance on UN environment agenda”, Sara Stefanini, Climate Home News, Feb. 2019

“In 1915, San Diego Hired A Rainmaker And Floods Ensued”, Here and Now, June 2015

“Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect”, David W. Keith, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, 2000

“Weather Control as a Cold War Weapon”, Matt Novak, Smithsonian.com, Dec. 2011

“Weather War?”. The Daily Express (U.K.), July 2005

“Weather Modification: the Evolution of an R&D Program into a Weapon System”, Federation Of American Scientists, June 1975

“Popeye the Weatherman”, https://geographicalimaginations.com/tag/operation-popeye/

“Geoengineering: A Short History”, Ty McCormick, Foreign Policy, Sept. 2013

“Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming: Mitigation, Adaptation, and the Science Base”, National Academy of Science, 1992

“Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) in the United States”, Peter Folger, Congressional Research Service, Aug. 2018

“Can carbon capture from air shift the climate change equation?”, Physics Today, Sept. 2018

“Direct Air Capture”, The Keith Group, Harvard University, https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/direct-air-capture

“Timeline: How BECCS became climate change’s ‘saviour’ technology”, 2016, https://www.carbonbrief.org/beccs-the-story-of-climate-changes-saviour-technology

“New Study Shows Importance of Iron in Ocean Productivity, Carbon Uptake”, Oregon State University, 2009

How ‘enhanced weathering’ could slow climate change and boost crop yields”, David Beerling and Stephen Long, Feb. 2018, https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-enhanced-weathering-could-slow-climate-change-and-boost-crop-yields

“Enhanced weathering of rocks can help to pull CO2 out of the air -- a little”, Science Daily, March 2018

“Guest post: How ‘enhanced weathering’ could slow climate change and boost crop yields”, Prof David Beerling and Prof Stephen Long, carbonbrief.org, 2018

“Black is the new green”, Emma Marris, Nature, Aug. 2006

“Reforestation & Biochar: Two Geoengineering Methods That Won’t Cause More Harm Than Good”, Mat McDermott, Treehugger.com, 2010

“First sun-dimming experiment will test a way to cool Earth”, Jeff Tollefson, Nature, Nov. 2018

“Albedo”, North Carolina Climate Office, https://climate.ncsu.edu/edu/Albedo

“Crop albedo geoengineering: plant albino sugar beet and have a 1 degree cooler summer”, 2011, https://www.bitsofscience.org/crop-albedo-geoengineering-1082/

“Summary of Meeting with U.S. DOE to Discuss Geoengineering Options to Prevent Abrupt and Long-Term Climate Change”, Alvia Gaskill, Environmental Reference Materials, Inc., 2004

“Carbon Footprint Wars: What Might Happen If We Retreat From Globalization”, Stuart Sim, Edinburgh University Press, 2009

“Tech Reckoning: A Green White-wash”, Jim Thomas, ETC Group, 2008

“A high-albedo diet will chill the planet”, New Scientist, January 2009

“Global Warming Mitigation by Reduction of Outgoing Longwave Radiation Through Large-Scale Surface Albedo Enhancement of Desert Using White Plastic Polyethylene Film – the Global Albedo Enhancement Project (GAEP), Alvia Gaskill, Jr. and Charles E. Reese, 2003. https://www.slideshare.net/AlviaGaskillJr/theglobalalbedoen

“One big reflective band-aid “, Daniel McGlynn, 2017, https://engineering.berkeley.edu/2017/01/one-big-reflective-band-aid

“Can we refreeze the Arctic? Scientists are beginning to ask”, Chelsea Harvey, E&E News Climatewire: March 2018

“Cool Roofs Might Be Enough to Save Cities from Climate Overheating”, David Biello, Scientific American, February 2014

“Snow Forest Clearance”, Engineering Monitor, file:///Users/robbogilvie1/Desktop/Proposed%20Geoengineering%20Technologies%20%E2%80%93%20Geoengineering%20Monitor.html

“Climate Response to Aerosol Geoengineering: A Multimethod Comparison”, Helene Muri, University of Oslo, Published Online, July 2018

Cool idea or hi-tech madness?”, Janos Pasztor, The World Today, Chatham House, United Kingdom, February & March 2019

“Can increasing albedo of existing ship wakes reduce climate change?”, Julia A. Crook, Lawrence S. Jackson, and Piers M. Forste, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2016

“Climate Response to Aerosol Geoengineering: A Multimethod Comparison”, Helene Muri, University of Oslo, Published Online, July 2018

“Is There a Place for Geoengineering in Addressing Climate Change?”, Briefing Note #7, Climate Geoengineering Governance Project

“Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) 2017/2018”, Volume 2, entitled “Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States”, U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2018

“The Frightening Politics of Geo-engineering”, Clive Hamilton, Our World, United Nations University, 2010

Posted by Robb Ogilvie - Creator, policy wonk, facilitator and curator of information and knowledge