Home > climate, environment, Reisman > Geo-Engineering – a pound of technocrats or an ounce of Gore?

Geo-Engineering – a pound of technocrats or an ounce of Gore?

[update: see additional links at bottom – including to discussions of Austrian concerns]

[update2: at bottom] 

Climate change skeptic Benny Peiser of the Liverpool John Moores University recently circulated these links and excerpts via his “CCNet” mailing list ([email protected] (“subscribe cambridge-conference”)):

CCNet 167/2007 – 8 October 2007

GEO-ENGINEERING: HOW FEASIBLE ARE HIGH-TECH SOLUTIONS?
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– CAN SCIENCE REALLY SAVE THE WORLD?
Robin McKie and Juliette Jowit, The Observer, 7 October 2007

They are the ultimate technological fixes: schemes that will span our planet and involve scientists in reshaping our world to save it from global warming. Yet only a few years ago, such projects were dismissed as the stuff of science fiction. Today many engineers and researchers – fearful of the rate at which our planet is warming – say geo-engineering projects are now mankind’s only hope of saving itself from the impact of climate change.

Geo-engineering is one of the types of thing that are worth investigating. If we can generate 100 ideas, and 97 are bad and we land up with three good ones, then the whole thing will have been worthwhile.
Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 7 October 2007

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2185343,00.html

– HIGH-TECH SOLUTIONS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
Sue Carter, The Daily Telegraph, 8 October 2007

Scientists desperate to combat climate change have drawn up high-tech plans which include firing giant mirrors into space and covering the earth in a cloud of sulphur.  In the past, such advanced schemes, known as geo-engineering projects, were considered too outrageous to be put into action – but now some scientists believe they may be our last chance to reverse the impact of climate change.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/10/08/sciclimate108.xml

– Benny Peiser, National Museum Cardiff, 6 October 2007

Space-based geoengineering is controllable and reversible at any stage. Solar power generation will overcome the high cost of space-based climate control schemes
http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Cardiff-Peiser.ppt

– OPINION: THE LAST GREEN TABOO: ENGINEERING THE PLANET
Johann Hari, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5 October 2007

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/334444_hari07.html

“Geo-engineering” sounds like a bland and technical term but it is actually a Messianic movement to save the world from global warming, through dust and iron and thousands of tiny mirrors in space. It is also the last green taboo.  Environmentalists instinctively do not want to discuss it. The wider public instinctively thinks it is mad. But now, the taboo has been breached. James Lovelock, one of the founding fathers of modern environmentalism, proposed a way to slash global warming without cutting back on a single fossil fuel.

[update:]Finally, I note that Dr. Reisman also broached this subject earlier this year, with a thoughtful suggestion that we proceed with a program of open air testing of atom bombs in the Arctic, to confirm possible efficacy in creating  a mild “nuclear winter” – just in case:

– March 16, 2007 – Global Warming: Environmentalism’s Threat of Hell on Earth
George Reisman

http://blog.mises.org/archives/006389.asp

May 30, 2007 – Global Warming Is Not a Threat but the Environmentalist Response to It Is (Full Version)
http://blog.mises.org/archives/006700.asp

There is much further discussion of geo-engineering on these two posts.  One commenter (Roger M, now “Fundamentalist”) made the following interesting remark:  “”During the 3 days that the 9/11 disaster grounded all air travel in the US, a California scientist measured temperatures across the country and found them 3 degrees warmer than normal. He thinks airline contrails block 3% of the sun’s energy and cool the earth.  In India, pollution reduces the average temp by 10 degrees. So all we need to do to reduce the effects of global warming is fly more and pollute more.”
http://blog.mises.org/archives/006389.asp

I attach here a few further links that I noted there:

GEOENGINEERING: A CLIMATE CHANGE MANHATTAN PROJECT, Jay Michaelson (Yale JD), Stanford Environmental Law Journal January, 1998; http://www.metatronics.net/lit/geo2.html.
There have of course been many discussions of geoengineering over the past two decades. The topic is gaining interest, espcially after an article by Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen last year. More here, if you are interested:
Climate change: Is this what it takes to save the world? Long marginalized as a dubious idea, altering the climate through ‘geoengineering’ has staged something of a comeback. http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070508/full/447132a.html#B2

ALBEDO ENHANCEMENT BY STRATOSPHERIC SULFUR INJECTIONS: A CONTRIBUTION TO RESOLVE A POLICY DILEMMA? Paul Crutzen; http://downloads.heartland.org/19632.pdf

A Combined Mitigation/Geoengineering Approach to Climate Stabilization, T. M. L. Wigley; http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/~jclub/journalclub_files/Wigley_Science_2006.pdf

Geoengineering Earth’s Radiation Balance to Mitigate CO2 Induced Climate Change, Bala Govindasamy and Ken Caldeira Climate and Carbon Cycle Group, Lawerence Livermore National Laboratory; http://geocrisis.com/Geoenigineering%20Earth%20Radiative%20Balance.pdf

– Feasibility of cooling the Earth with a cloud of small spacecraft near the inner Lagrange point (L1), Roger Angel; http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/103/46/17184

Only mother nature knows how to fertilize the ocean; Natural input of nutrients works ten times better than manmade injections; http://planktonforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=5059
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-2.1/huyghe.htm
http://geocrisis.com/cpe_geoengineering_menu.htm

– “Climate change: Is this what it takes to save the world? Long marginalized as a dubious idea, altering the climate through ‘geoengineering’ has staged something of a comeback.” http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070508/full/447132a.html#B2

[update2:]

Global warming fix in can? By Andrew Richards
October 11, 2007; http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071011/CULTURE/110110077/1015

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0814-gw.html

 

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  1. TokyoTom
    October 13th, 2007 at 08:00 | #1

    Danny, as the climate warms, economic activity will naturally gradually shift to the north as opportunities arise.

    The last thing that would help us to efficiently allocate capital and resources if we experience a pinch due to rapid climate change would be direct governmental investments and subsidies.

    We do, however, need government involvement in clarifying and enforcing property rights to any Arctic assets that are now “public”.

  2. October 12th, 2007 at 13:50 | #2

    good post, i read that too. can you blog about POLAR CITIES re my blog here? thanks. pro or con okay.

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