[February 2021] - Climate Change, Ice911, Geoengineering

[George Mochrie]

This month's video is a seminar given at Stanford University in September of 2016 on the subject of geoengineering, presented by two of the scientists directly involved in the front line of the technological fight against climate change.

Geoengineering projects attempt to influence the earth's systems, in the context of climate this is generally done to counteract the warming effect of greenhouse gas emissions. These projects fall into two broad categories: Solar Radiation Management which attempts to reduce the energy the earth receives from the sun, and Carbon Sequestration which attempts to reduce the levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

The IPCC has identified carbon sequestration as essential for meeting global warming targets, however our video focuses more on Solar Radiation Management. The two speakers are members of two of the most promising plans to cool the planet. The talks are mostly accessible, although when Armand Neukermans starts talking about the details of how to produce water droplets of a very specific size it gets quite technical. There's probably time to make a cup of tea before the summary.

I found an interesting analogy relating to geoengineering elsewhere: our de-stabilising climate is like a car skidding on ice. Of course we want to take our foot off the accelerator (reduce, ideally eliminate, carbon emissions). There is a danger in applying the brakes (geoengineering), we risk further destabilisation of a system we don't understand completely, we risk making the problem worse.



What are your thoughts? Do you think geoengineering has the potential to reverse the damage done to the climate? Are you wary of unintended consequences? Is it too late not to attempt geoengineering, as the IPCC has concluded?