This Month In Wired: Geoengineering and Ken Caldeira
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 07. 1.08
Ken Caldeira has graced our pages a number of times, and now graces Wired Magazine. We quoted him earlier saying "Many people argue that we need to prevent climate change. Others argue that we need to keep emitting greenhouse gases. Geoengineering schemes have been proposed as a cheap fix that could let us have our cake and eat it, too. But geoengineering schemes are not well understood. Our study shows that planet-sized geoengineering means planet-sized risks.”
According to Chris Mooney in Wired, he is analyzing those risks, and appears now to be confident that filling the stratosphere with sulfur dioxide might actually work in reflecting sunlight back into space, just like it did after Mount Pinatubo blew 20 million tons of it 22 miles into the atmosphere. Caldeira recognizes that there are risks, but according to Wired,
"Caldeira's response is that it's hard to see how those consequences would be anywhere near as nasty as simply letting global warming go unchecked. But the more geoengineering becomes a matter of public debate and concern, the more the downsides of a remade world come under scrutiny. First, there's the fear that injecting sulfate into the stratosphere could destroy much-needed ozone, which also declined markedly after Pinatubo." More in ::Wired
More from Ken Caldeira in TreeHugger
Giving Geo-Engineering Another Go: Dumping Limestone into the ...
When Your Best Isn't Good Enough: Zero-Emission Policy Only Way to ...
Planting Trees Helps Fight Global Warming, but Only in the Tropics ...
Geoengineering: A (Very) Risky Proposition Says Study
More on Geoengineering in TreeHugger
Wallace Broecker vs. Greenpeace: Climate Scientist Argues in Favor of Ocean CO2 Storage
Scientist Who Coined "Global Warming" Calls for the Deployment of 20 Million Carbon Scrubbers
Tim Flannery: Plant Forests with eBay, Pump Sulfur into the Stratosphere to Fight Climate Change
Pumping Sulfate Particles into the Stratosphere: Not Such a Hot Idea After All
Andy Revkin on Geoengineering
California's Marine Life Protection Act in Action: A Sheltered Sea
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France to Assess Annual Tax on Most-Polluting Vehicle Owners
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This stuff is scarier than global warming. The last thing we need is to go over board on deflecting heat from the sun and end up in a small ice age, as the one of the medieval period. We need to do something, but trying to manipulate the heat of the earth , when all we need are incremental changes in degrees. We could end up in a worst kettle of fish, not boiling but frozen.
These guys love the attention but they are dangerously wrong.
Sulfur compounds come out of the air and change the pH of the soil & water. It's already well documented that even the incidental sulfur already released by coal powerplants has disrupted both fresh and salt water biology. Some dead areas are large enough to be seen from space. Worldwide fish yield peaked in 1987.
A much better solution would be to stop burning coal & oil and transition to solar, wind & geothermal in an orderly manner.