Copyright 2009 International Herald Tribune
All Rights Reserved
The International Herald Tribune
September 3, 2009 Thursday
SECTION: Pg. 19
LENGTH: 506 words
HEADLINE: Engineering climate change;
In the Blogs: Green Inc.
BYLINE: Cornelia Dean
BODY:
ABSTRACT
No one can say for sure what the consequences of such geoengineering might be, but whether they would be ''acceptable'' is not a question that scientists or engineers have the authority to answer.
FULL TEXT
Some questions are relatively straightforward. For example: Could engineers pump chemicals into the atmosphere to increase the amount of sunlight reflected away from Earth, cooling the planet? Almost certainly, the answer will turn out to be yes.
But would the consequences of this step or any other climate-altering geoengineering be acceptable? From an engineering standpoint, that question is hard to answer - no one can say for sure what the consequences might be. Beyond that, though, what is ''acceptable''? This is not a question that scientists or engineers have the authority to answer.
Although geoengineering is a subject of lively debate among a relatively small group of scientists, so far there has been little public discussion of it. Now the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific academy, has entered the debate with a new report, ''Geoengineering the Climate.''
The technology of geoengineering ''is bedeviled by much doubt and confusion,'' the astrophysicist Martin Rees, who heads the Royal Society, writes in the introduction. ''Some schemes are manifestly far-fetched, others are more credible, and are being investigated by reputable scientists; some are being promoted over-optimistically.''
The report, by a panel of experts convened by the society, says that more research is needed on geoengineering techniques and that it should involve international collaborations and discussions with the public.
The best approach - the ''safest and most predictable,'' the report says - would be to avoid the need for geoengineering in the first place by drastically reducing emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. But unless emissions are cut to half of what they were in 1990, the report says, the planet appears to be on course for a rise in temperature of almost 4 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2.2 degrees Celsius, by the end of the century - enough to cause severe problems and, potentially, to prompt calls for geoengineering action.
But as Dr. Rees put it, ''the technology to do so is barely formed, and there are major uncertainties regarding its effectiveness, costs and environmental impacts.'' Because there is so little peer-reviewed research, he wrote, the report as a whole is based on ''necessarily preliminary and incomplete information.''
The other questions are more difficult. For example, using chemicals to make the planet more
reflective might cool things a bit, but it would do nothing to reduce other greenhouse-gas effects, like rising acidity in the oceans as they absorb more carbon dioxide.
Is that acceptable? Who decides?
As people look to geoengineering as a weapon against the effects of global warming, the report says, public attitudes toward geoengineering, ''and public engagement in the development of individual methods proposed, will have a critical bearing on its future.''
LOAD-DATE: September 9, 2009
Geoengineergin wins a high-profile advocate
Copyright 2009 International Herald Tribune
All Rights Reserved
The International Herald Tribune
September 5, 2009 Saturday
SECTION: Pg. 17
LENGTH: 546 words
HEADLINE: Geoengineergin wins a high-profile advocate;
In the Blogs: Green Inc.
BYLINE: John M. Broder
BODY:
ABSTRACT
Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish political scientist, says that the most cost-effective way to offset global warming is through technologies like so-called marine cloud whitening.
FULL TEXT
Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish political scientist (who found fame as the author of ''The Skeptical Environmentalist,'') has completed a study of the best ways to address the warming of the planet.
His chief finding: The most cost-effective and technically feasible approach is through geoengineering, the use of technology to deliberately alter the earth's climate. Specifically, Mr. Lomborg, along with the scientists and economists he has assembled, found that the most promising avenue was to invest $9 billion in accelerated research on so-called marine cloud whitening technology.
The idea is to create vast fleets of robot ships to pump seawater droplets into the clouds above the oceans to make them reflect more sunlight back into space. Mr. Lomborg said he was relying on a paper, ''An Analysis of Climate Engineering as a Response to Climate Change,'' by J. Eric Bickel of the University of Texas at Austin and Lee Lane of the American Enterprise Institute, for his conclusions.
He acknowledges that this sounds a bit like a salt-spray-in-the-sky solution to a vastly complex problem, but he is convinced that it holds more promise than the policies discussed or tried so far, including carbon taxes, global cap-and-trade programs and large-scale deployment of existing technologies like so-called clean-diesel cars.
He also admits that any climate-altering plan could have dangerous unforeseen consequences.
''What we're proposing is research to make sure that all the concerns are addressed,'' Mr. Lomborg, who looks a bit like a surfer and talks like a television evangelist, said Thursday in Washington. ''There is good reason to believe this works - and it's 1,000 times better than what we're proposing to do now.''
Mr. Lomborg, under the auspices of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which he heads, spent the past several days reviewing a series of research papers with a panel of 21 economists, including three Nobel laureates.
They ranked various approaches to climate change based on their cost and effectiveness, and geoengineering came out on top, followed by stepped-up investment in energy technology that would leapfrog fossil fuels and the current crop of clean-but-expensive alternatives like wind, solar and geothermal. The group also identified carbon capture as another potentially cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions.
At the other end of the scale, Mr. Lomborg found that global taxes on carbon dioxide emissions, ranging from 50 cents a ton to $68 a ton, were the worst way to address the problem. Too low a tax has no effect on the atmosphere and too high a tax impoverishes the population for too little benefit, the team found.
Mr. Lomborg has advocated a technology-based solution to climate change for some years and has drawn a lot of heat for his views. But he isn't budging. He says that the Kyoto protocol and the talks scheduled for his native Copenhagen in December are a waste of time because countries will not agree to policy prescriptions that are costly, have uncertain outcomes and unevenly distribute the burden of emissions cuts among countries.
LOAD-DATE: September 9, 2009
All Rights Reserved
The International Herald Tribune
September 5, 2009 Saturday
SECTION: Pg. 17
LENGTH: 546 words
HEADLINE: Geoengineergin wins a high-profile advocate;
In the Blogs: Green Inc.
BYLINE: John M. Broder
BODY:
ABSTRACT
Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish political scientist, says that the most cost-effective way to offset global warming is through technologies like so-called marine cloud whitening.
FULL TEXT
Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish political scientist (who found fame as the author of ''The Skeptical Environmentalist,'') has completed a study of the best ways to address the warming of the planet.
His chief finding: The most cost-effective and technically feasible approach is through geoengineering, the use of technology to deliberately alter the earth's climate. Specifically, Mr. Lomborg, along with the scientists and economists he has assembled, found that the most promising avenue was to invest $9 billion in accelerated research on so-called marine cloud whitening technology.
The idea is to create vast fleets of robot ships to pump seawater droplets into the clouds above the oceans to make them reflect more sunlight back into space. Mr. Lomborg said he was relying on a paper, ''An Analysis of Climate Engineering as a Response to Climate Change,'' by J. Eric Bickel of the University of Texas at Austin and Lee Lane of the American Enterprise Institute, for his conclusions.
He acknowledges that this sounds a bit like a salt-spray-in-the-sky solution to a vastly complex problem, but he is convinced that it holds more promise than the policies discussed or tried so far, including carbon taxes, global cap-and-trade programs and large-scale deployment of existing technologies like so-called clean-diesel cars.
He also admits that any climate-altering plan could have dangerous unforeseen consequences.
''What we're proposing is research to make sure that all the concerns are addressed,'' Mr. Lomborg, who looks a bit like a surfer and talks like a television evangelist, said Thursday in Washington. ''There is good reason to believe this works - and it's 1,000 times better than what we're proposing to do now.''
Mr. Lomborg, under the auspices of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which he heads, spent the past several days reviewing a series of research papers with a panel of 21 economists, including three Nobel laureates.
They ranked various approaches to climate change based on their cost and effectiveness, and geoengineering came out on top, followed by stepped-up investment in energy technology that would leapfrog fossil fuels and the current crop of clean-but-expensive alternatives like wind, solar and geothermal. The group also identified carbon capture as another potentially cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions.
At the other end of the scale, Mr. Lomborg found that global taxes on carbon dioxide emissions, ranging from 50 cents a ton to $68 a ton, were the worst way to address the problem. Too low a tax has no effect on the atmosphere and too high a tax impoverishes the population for too little benefit, the team found.
Mr. Lomborg has advocated a technology-based solution to climate change for some years and has drawn a lot of heat for his views. But he isn't budging. He says that the Kyoto protocol and the talks scheduled for his native Copenhagen in December are a waste of time because countries will not agree to policy prescriptions that are costly, have uncertain outcomes and unevenly distribute the burden of emissions cuts among countries.
LOAD-DATE: September 9, 2009
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