Planetary Engineering For Climate Crisis: What Are The Choices?
by John Laumer, Philadelphia 
on 08. 3.06
Remember Dr. Evil with his ‘earth destroying laser’? Well, it seems we now have an actual Nobel Prize winning atmospheric scientist, Dr. Crutzen , who “believes that political attempts to limit man-made greenhouse gases are so pitiful that a radical contingency plan is needed”. The good Doctor’s idea is to make like a volcano and purposefully inject enough sulfur particles into the stratosphere to reflect back, into space, significant amounts of the sun's energy. “A fleet of high-altitude balloons could be used to scatter the sulfur high overhead, or it could even be fired into the atmosphere using heavy artillery shells,…” He does have a good point when he asserts that "If sizeable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will not happen and temperatures rise rapidly, then climatic engineering,…, is the only option available to rapidly reduce temperature rises and counteract other climatic effects,…" So, it’s a sort of fail-safe “Plan B”, along the lines of several other proposed climate interventions, which range from the broken dream to the proven prototype. We’ll run through the list for you after the fold.
Implementation of a full-scale stratospheric sulfur injection project could best be performed by nations with plenty of equipment and bureaucracies left over from the Cold War. Russia seems comfortable in it's role as one of the world's larger suppliers of natural gas and oil, refusing to implement Kyoto, while the US officially does not admit that humans are a primary cause of climate change (a happy customer). That leaves the EU: a world consensus would be difficult. Obviously, the good Dr. is thinking a planetary-scale emergency will provide the clarity of vision to drive military powers to respond. What if the “Plan B” turned out to be technically insufficient, or that it had too many adverse side effects, or the governments failed to react in a timely manner? We need a backup to the backup plan.
The sulfur injection idea is described by Dr. Crutzen as “climatic engineering.” A variety of planetary scale interventions have been described with the catch-all term, “geological engineering” or “geo-engineering”, perhaps because we so often hear of the US government’s long standing, official promotion of “carbon sequestration” (a true geo-engineering idea). As our recent post on carbon dioxide injection demonstrates, “Plan C” (our term for C02 injection projects) seems to have a low probability of being a cost effective, rapid, and sustainable means of reducing the atmospheric carbon load. It's certainly not useful for “buying time” in emergency response.
There’s a more cost effective approach we’ve long been interested in here at TreeHugger. Iron seeding involves fertilizing marine plankton with iron salts, thereby greatly increasing, for a period of weeks to months, the rate of permanent C02 sequestration. Scale is a function of surface area treated. There's the added benefit of helping prevent collapse of ocean ecosystems from acidificaton. It can be implemented by a small fleet of ships using low tech dispersing technologies that don’t have to be government controlled. (This is a key benefit when some of the world’s most powerful governments actively deny the existence global warming and are ill prepared to handle natural disasters.) This idea might reasonably be termed “ecological engineering”. Lets call it “Plan E”.
Summarizing The Alternatives For Climate Change Mitigation.
“Plan A”: the Kyoto Convention was a meager starting point for slow, long term climate change mitigation efforts. Recently, Kyoto was halted by industry lobbying of national governments. (You know who you are.) So far, we see no movement toward a “Plan A!” involving the majority of the Kyoto signatories. We are left, it appears, to rely on the private sector, on several brightly greening city-states, a bit of kindergarten-level carbon trading, and the good will of those wacky tree-hugger, green-design types. (You also know who you are.) All long term stuff. Should a true climate emergency develop, and earth’s citizens then decided they wanted to buy some more time for a Plan A!, what are the possible emergency interventions to choose from? Here's our analysis.
“Plan B”: the atmospheric engineering or “Vulcan solution” of stratospheric sulfur injection, as proposed by Dr. Crutzen, requires full budget approval and project control by a politically unstable, major oil producing nation and/or one of its bigger customers. Right. We’ll wait for that to happen and love it when it finally (maybe) does.
“Plan C”: carbon dioxide injection deep into the earth’s bedrock. Requires cooperation of, and control by, coal fired utility companies, and governments, both of which, for the most part, deny that climate change is even happening. See Plan B summary, last sentence, for reliability discussion.
Plan “E”: Iron seeding of marine plankton blooms is cheap and flexible in comparison to A, B, or C,. As a practical matter, "E" can be done by any organization, whether governmentally supported or not, and does not require a ‘spear to the chest’ level of consciousness raising of an entire industrial sector and the world’s governments, by which time severe adverse effects could be well underway. The primary effects of iron seeding are transitory, and secondary ones do not involved falling artillery shells or SO2 formation. It's been tested, by the way, to good effect.
Which sort of climate control engineering would you bet on if the choice had to be made? Thinking of a hierarchy of implementation?
What happened to 'Plan D' you’re wondering? Tell us your idea for it and we’ll write about it in a future post.
====> Important Update See this LA Times special on ocean acidification.
Graphic credit: Pelee - Hawaiian Goddess of Volcanoes, via Crystalinks.
Sulfur injection concept of Dr. Crutzen, Via: CommnDreams
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Plan D - No Plan At All
I'm deeply cynical as to whether any plan that requires any form of global consenus will ever actually work. Even if the threat was clear, present, obvious and backed by undeniable evidence - the world would still not come together to save itself.
As for a "global plan", I'd opt for carbon ash as oppossed to sulphur to block out the sun's rays, as I can't help but wonder how much acid rain would be caused by loading the atmosphere with sulphur.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't sulfur in the atmosphere react with CO2 and form acid rain?
=== author's response follows ===
Probably. Leads to question as to whether the reaction rate is slowed at high elevations/low temps, and also the settling rate into lower atmosphere is high, where the conversion rate would be higher of course.
There was an old lady that swallowed a fly.....
Gee, I thought that iron seeding in the open ocean caused massive deadzones not dissimilar to those caused by the hyperabsorbent polymers used for hurricane-busting.
You're article would have been better served to enact criticism of ANY current plan that does more harm than good, in other words, ANY current plan. The open ocean is a vast but very fragile system, with a diversity of organisms that must be respected. Throw anything in it and something will 'boom', but at what expense, pan-eutrophication? It is embarassing to watch someone stand up for something only to be ironic.
=== author's response follows ====
I respect your opinon. However, I am not attempting irony I assure you. A backup plan for climate emergencies is needed. Your statement presumes that all such techniques produce excess harm in comparison to the good intended; yet you offer no evidence of that, only opinion.
For example, it would helpful to other readers if you'd provide a reference for evidence which you believe shows that iron seeding would have seriously adverse impacts that would overwhelm the climate mitigation benefits. In doing so please compare the extent of the unintended consequences you cite to the complete loss of marine ecosystems for millenia due marine acidification. There is evidence that this is already in progress, per the update link included in the post.
Eutrophication is not a single parameter function. Several nutrients have to be sustained in luxurious amount for an area to be permanently in a eutrophic state. Iron seeding does not supply all nutrients in excess.
ok perosnally i am all for desalinating the north atlantic so that gulfstream can keep on flowing.. and i totally dig those guys who had 5,000 brages pumping water onto the arctic ice to a) make it thicker and stave of melting and b) make it so thathe melting is salt water and not going to dilute the NAtlantic even more...
but while we're at it. whats so tough about carbon scrubbing (not only at coal plants with bioscrubbing algae, but) all around the atmosphere? i mean we've had corbon scrubbers on submarines for eons, so whats so tough about deploying them everywhere?? and what to do with all that carbon? well if you wanna be really bling aboutit, make diamonds! maybe not MC Style teeth-diamons, but at least the saw blad kind! much better than something we have to breathe...
The sulphur of plan B will come down as acid rain.
1) this means: dying of forest: extra craborndioxide release
2) The sulphur needs to be reinjected.
not very workable.
What about plan AAAA:
Take back the government.
All this macrogeoengineering is largely driven and entertained by people with their testicles at heart far moreso than anything living thing's sentient characteristics. It strikes me as a systems theorist and novice logician and mathematician that the arguments are grotesquely misrepresentative of the science, just as with the totality of this damned climate change project generally.
Its very well documented that iron seeding has plenty of significant and worrying ecological implications. As someone edifying the rest of us you should be the one to share them - id est unless you trying to sell something.
Drawing together a premature 'solution' requiring wideranging, severe imbalance of one of this planet's most confounding and convoluted systems as justified by assumption of mass-acidification - which is NOT an accurate description of what is happening, save for by journalistic 'standards' - only promotes yet more incresingly senseless ecological disasters.
Carbon density is dependant on temperature, which is why the ocean outgasses carbon at the tropics, a spike of which confounded regretable atmospheric "scientists" working in Hawaii two years ago. You can't put more carbon in than the physics will allow, except indierctly by means of life forms. Indeed, iron seeding extends that allowance in the form of a particle rain. I admit, for all I know at this point, in enriching the downwelling to an ocean floor life-system that is almost as stripped of life to handle the same as terrestrial Earth, this could just wipe out what remains. Unless you know better, this could extend the 'catastrophe' you purport to be solving, since mollusks are a significant sink, but not much good as such when they are DEAD.
But I get the distinct impression that you don't much respect the needs of life forms as much as want to take up a sword.
I did appreciate your article, but the way you present your 'magic bullet' just says far more about your 'manliness' than it does about this planet, and for me it ruined what critical thinking was available in the rest of it.
It is certainly NOT "well documented" that iron seeding causes harm. In fact, there is every reason to believe that iron seeding can be done quite safely. The only thing that has been well documented is that a small but vocal group of scientists have spent a lot of time and effort trying to obstruct the progress of the science, for purely political reasons.
Check out my post in CarbonSequestration Blog
http://carbonsequestration.blogspot.com/2006/07/open-letter-to-marine-science.html
Yes, a shameless plug for my blog! I'm linking this treehugger article now.
Golly gee, you must be smart, eh. So maybe you can explain this to all us bimbos?
...
"Scientists studying the 70-mile-long zone of oxygen-depleted water, along the Continental Shelf between Florence and Lincoln City, conclude that it is being caused by explosive blooms of tiny plants known as phytoplankton, which die and sink to the bottom, then are eaten by bacteria which use up the oxygen in the water."
http://www.physorg.com/news74168967.html
===author's response ===
Have a look at the previous posts on TH regarding Planktos. You'll see that seeding is proposed for the deep mid-ocean zones where nutrients, trace minerals especially, are deficient. Very different than just off the continental shelf where esturaries and local runoff create eutrophic conditions. Observant is the term I prefer.
Oh I get it now, so dead zones in the "mineral deficient"(sic) open ocean are an acceptable expendature to your macroengineering prowess.
A large percentage of the 'natural' phytoplankton blooms already occur in the open ocean. Dust storms off Africa and South America already promote more than has occurred in the recent past - never mmind upwelling that is always happening anyway.
Point is, obviously there are severe dangers to iron seeding - and YOU ought to be the first one to point them out. Again, the open ocean is already a very decrepit and debased system. Please spare it your testosterone panacea - or at least present on HOW to do it with respect to the continuation of life for organisms that require oxygen. For instance, many fish species mature under commercial skids, trees and refuse that floats in the open ocean - using the same for shelter - and will not depart from these shelters.
If you create a phytoplankton bloom and it wanders near same, they're all dead. Nice going. No danger at all.
Right, who cares about the biosphere, you've got an idea!
these decisions are for the children to make,
not for those who have already lived a life,
or for those who have any investments in the the present, future or past.
innocence will save,
information must prioritized by the people,
for the people;
not by old people.
I love Ho Humm's words. She/he is eloquent. We would do better face to face I expect.
just a comment on:
Scot says (August 3, 2006: does sulfur in the atmosphere reacts with CO2 and form acid rain.
Sulfur quickly get oxidized in SO2 . Then SO2 quickly reacts with water to give sulfuric acid aerosols. If this injection occur in the stratosphere, then these aerosols reflect sunlight and cool down the Earth.
This was well documented in the case of the Tambora (1815) eruption, and the Super eruption of Toba, about 74,000 years ago, that cooled the earth by about 4 to 5 °C, during 4-5 years, thus generating a volcanic winter.
Next they settle down and sure enougn they are going to produce acid rains, that will quickly generate sulfates (like those found in mineral water).