We already have Frankenfood — vegetables, fruit, and grains, genetically engineered to produce the maximum growth in the least amount of time with the maximum size, shape, etc., for transport. That’s why we get funny-tasting bananas and tasteless strawberries and squarish, pinkish tomatoes that travel well but taste like nothing. Is engineering of nature a trend we want to carry out on a planetary scale with our climate? We might not have a choice in the matter, say some scientists, due to America’s incredible procrastination on the crisis of climate change.
A “Frankenplanet” scenario might be necessary to take the existing C02 out of the atmosphere because we need to keep C02 levels at 350ppm and we are currently at 386ppm. Some scientists have suggested CCS — carbon capture and sequestration, to remove the C02. Some scientists are suggesting planting more plants to absorb the C02 and act as a “carbon sink”. Others are suggesting bio-char. Biochar is biomass burned at low levels of heat to make charcoal and then bury it in the soil to take it out of the carbon cycle. It seems like a huge job, but it’s what NASA scientist James Hansen recommends. Those are the sane suggestions.
Other scientists are recommending even stranger things to save our atmosphere from runaway climate change, like geoengineering. That’s a very drastic remedy, but consider that we aren’t doing anything at all about climate change, you can see why it might be necessary. And, all this supposes that we stop putting C02 into the air. This is the biggest problem and it’s not happening. Geoengineering is back in the news recently in articles published by the on-line magazine Yale Environment 360 and by The Economist .
In the photo above you can see a “dead zone”. It’s a zone of water off our coasts that contains insufficient oxygen for fish and other life to exist in it. These dead zones are caused by pollution, runoff and too much carbon in the water, because the ocean is a big carbon sink too, and it’s nearly saturated with carbon. So these dead zones are popping up all over the world and they are getting bigger every year. Geoengineering seems like it might be necessary after all, if we are ever to stop the spread of these dead zones and to get carbon out of the air.
Geoengineering is not necessarily a crazy idea by itself, but when combined with this fact it is: we could avoid it by acting now on climate change, — but we won’t. Endless meetings around the world is not “action”. Action would involve an immediate cap on C02 with a target date that might seem impossible but isn’t, because we’d do it. But our government doesn’t have the cojones to do that, so scientists must work on ways to reflect sunlight on a planetary scale in case of an “emergency”. Quick, planet-wide sunlight reflection. That’s really the crazy part.
Climateprogress.org gives us a nice brief summary of how sane they think geoengineering is:
- Geo-engineering is the practice of messing around with global life-support systems we don’t understand. If we did understand them, we might not be in the pickle we’re in today. Or at least it would be a greener pickle.
- Geo-engineering is a relatively new field based on the outdated and repeatedly discredited assumption that we humans are smart enough and wise enough to rule over the rest of the biosphere. Rather than applied engineering, we might call it “applied conceit”.
- Contrariwise and at the same time, geo-engineering is a symptom of our growing skepticism that we are able to stop climate change with rational solutions such as energy efficiency, renewable energy, carbon pricing and behavioral changes. In other words, interest in geo-engineering is rooted in the idea that although we’re too stupid to do the simple things that would slow climate change, we’re smart enough to do the improbable things.
- Geo-engineering is one outgrowth of our apparent learning disability about the law of unintended consequences. That law would be unleashed full-force once we started manipulating the oceans and atmosphere to create what one environmentalist calls “the Frankenplanet”. Geo-engineering is like a grownup version of whack-a-mole, where hammering down one problem causes others to pop up, to our great surprise.
Many geo-engineering ideas seem crazy, and probably are. Yet, at least some scientists feel they will be necessary on a planet-wide scale. “The Prospect Of Manipulating the Planet” sounds so extreme, why not just do something about carbon now instead of taking such drastic steps later? The EPA is now going to take steps to regulate C02, but it may very well be too late.
Taking care of the problem now would involve some sacrifice and Americans aren’t good at sacrifice. In fact, Americans want nothing at all to change about their lives, ever, no matter what. We saw that in the last eight years. Sacrifice is no longer in the American vocabulary. War with Iraq and Afghanistan? Give us tax cuts! Too much carbon in the air? Let’s make more SUVs! Record-breaking credit card debt in America? Go shopping! You see, we are not the best at planning ahead, sacrificing, or doing what is logical in a timely manner. So, we have to fix things after the fact, and that is always messier. (See the bank bailout stories for proof of that.)
Things being tossed out as more logical ideas than conservation and driving less and stopping coal plants: Carbon engineering which involves making volcanos blow up. I’m serious, this is what they are considering. That’s how far gone we are as a country.
“. . . . dumping iron in the ocean to stimulate plankton blooms to building stand-alone scrubbers that can pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. The second is albedo engineering, which refers to technologies that might be used to cool the planet by changing the earth’s albedo (i.e., reflectivity) by creating what amount to artificial volcanoes that shoot tiny particles into the stratosphere, for example, or building cloud-generation machines.”
“shoot tiny particles into the stratosphere”.
Who says this will even work? Meanwhile, our oceans are forming dead zones and they want to throw large amounts of iron into the water to “stimulate plankton blooms” — just in case. Oh, don’t worry, this is only for if we “need to cool the earth in a hurry”. We wouldn’t ever need to be in a hurry if we would just address the problem of climate change NOW!?
But, doing things that need to be done is no longer how Americans solve problems. From facing terrorism in 2000 to facing climate change when it became apparent it was a life-threatening problem, our “leaders” have looked the other way until it was too late. MO: Deny the problem exists until it’s too late, and then say it’s too late, and that’s now the excuse for doing nothing until it blows up in our face and we have to make volcanoes explode. It’s easy to see the absurdity of this “solution”.
Couldn’t we instead avoid these drastic measures by, for instance, shutting down coal plants, for one thing!?
What we have to focus on now is fixing the enormous problems not acting on climate change at all for eight years has done to the world. We are in a very serious time period in our history and we might even have to sacrifice a little bit. I think most people know this, but Republicans don’t. So they are coming up with all these wacky schemes to fix the problem — like dumping iron in the ocean. Nevermind that that might poison a food supply or destroy a coral reef! We need better solutions than this. We need Americans to get used to the ideas of conservation and some other minor lifestyle changes. It’s coming, whether we want it or not.
Step #1: Shut down coal plants.
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