Geo-engineering global politics

If participation means investment, and non-participation means one gets to keep the purse intact and still enjoy the fruits of the outcome, who wouldn’t participate? Guess again. A game-theoretic model developed by Ricke, Caldeira, and their colleague Juan Moreno-Cruz from the Georgia Institute of Technology showed that when it comes to geo-engineering, the opposite is true.
Solar geo-engineering is a proposed approach to reduce the effects of climate change due to greenhouse gasses by deflecting some of the sun's incoming radiation. This type of proposed solution carries with it a number of uncertainties, however, including geopolitical questions about who would be in charge of the activity and its goals. New modeling work from Carnegie's Katharine Ricke and Ken Caldeira shows that if a powerful coalition ever decided to deploy a geo-engineering system, they would have incentive to exclude other countries from participating in the decision-making process.
Their work is published by Environmental Research Letters and is available online.
Smaller coalitions would be more desirable to the participants, not less, because those members could set the target temperature to their liking without having to please as many parties. Likewise, countries that aren't included in the coalition would actually want to join so that they could move the thermostat, so to speak, in the direction that better suits their interests.
Large volcanic eruptions cool the planet by creating lots of small particles in the stratosphere, but the particles fall out within a couple of years and the planet heats up again. The idea behind solar geo-engineering is to constantly replenish a layer of small particles in the stratosphere, mimicking this volcanic aftermath and scattering sunlight back to space.
Goes to show how global concerns like climate change also have the scope to trigger global anarchy! Someone wants a cooler climer, someone else wants it warmer. How is one to arrive at a consensus? As Caldeira says, it is good to maintain openness and inclusiveness in geo-engineering coalitions, so that all people who want a voice in the decision-making process are able to have that voice. But in the power game between nations, will the smaller ones have a voice? Are we simply imagining newer kinds of conflicts here?

Seeding the oceans not economical

Geo-engineering schemes to reduce levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and so reduce the risk of global warming and climate change keep cropping up. Ocean fertilization is one such. This involves dispersing large quantities of iron salts in the oceans to fertilize otherwise barren parts of the sea and trigger the growth of algal blooms and other photosynthesizing marine life. Photosynthesis requires carbon dioxide as its feedstock and when the algae die they will sink to the bottom of the sea taking the locked in carbon with them.

But there are so many aspects of marine dynamics which come into play and which we do not still understand. This has been the warning issued by many experts.

According to Daniel Harrison of the University of Sydney Institute of Marine Science, NSW who calculated the impact of iron seeding schemes in terms of the efficiency of spreading the iron, the impact it will most likely have on algal growth is low. The tonnage of carbon dioxide per square kilometer of ocean surface that will be actually absorbed compared to the hypothetical figures suggested by advocates of the approach is lower. In essence it is going to be a very costly affair!

His calculations take into account not only the carbon dioxide that will be certainly be sequestered permanently to the deep ocean but also subtracts the many losses due to ventilation, nutrient stealing, greenhouse gas production and the carbon dioxide emitted by the burning of fossil fuels to produce the iron salts and to power their transportation and distribution at sea. His calculations suggest that on average, a single ocean iron fertilization will result in a net sequestration of just 10 tonnes of carbon per square kilometer sequestered for a century or more at a cost of almost US$500 per tonne of carbon dioxide.

Now, it is a good question if money should be the deterrent to a good cause. But when you look at all the iron needed to make a significant difference, and all the unknown factors in the equation, it is dicey!

Making a volcano to cool the earth!

The hope never dies, nor the faith in technology. So what if climate change is bad, we will deal with it using technology. That is what the new generation may be expected to say. The implicit faith can be seen if you talk to youngsters whether on population problem or the fuel problem. "We will find a way to send people to other planets. We will find new fuels.' You can be sure to hear that.

And why not? We are talking the same language. When we talk of 'geo-engineering' for example.

How about creating sulphate particles in the thin air and provide a partial shade to the sun's rays, potentially reducing temperatures 1-2C? That is what a recent study focuses on. Dimming the sun by engineering the effects of an artificial volcano is a feasible and potentially cost-effective option to reduce temperatures on Earth, the first major study of the practicality of planetary-scale solar radiation management (SRM) concludes.

This can be done by lifting and releasing 1-5m tonnes a year of sulphur dioxide to altitudes approaching 100,000ft. But how exactly? Try batteries of 16-inch naval guns. But to lift 5m tonnes of particles a year 100,000ft into the stratosphere might need 70m gun shots a year and could cost an astronomical $700bn a year.

How about deploying a fleet of massive helium-filled blimps, costing $8-10bn a year to run, with each blimp costing possibly $500m? However, the technology of airships operating at this altitude is not developed.

It is technically feasible, even if costly or dealing with technology still on the drawing board. However, no attempt is made to quantify the potential benefits or the risks involved in the likely disruption of weather patterns on earth. From climate change to what fire may we be jumping, any guesses?

Tech boomerangs

China with its aspirations may have overtaken the US in emissions but the US continues to be bullish about fossil fuels and emissions. Climate change deniers and a populace unwilling to let go on a carbon rich lifestyle have fuelled a feeling that life simply has to go on, in the same track.

Hence the new interest in geo-engineering. The idea being, let us pollute and then clean up the atmosphere. A panel is recommending that the government begin researching the possibility of directly manipulating the Earth’s climate to lower the temperature. This despite the fact that a few days ago, the UK-based Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering project, or “SPICE,” a project aimed at cooling the earth’s climate, was delayed due to environmental concerns.

Not only is geo-engineering a distraction from climate change mitigation, it also presents ethical and political challenges. But more important, it presents the problem of unintended consequences. For instance, sulphate clouds could alter weather patterns and cause droughts. We have enough instances of technology turning the trigger backwards.

In early last century, Thomas Midgley helped stop engines from “knocking” by adding lead to gasoline. This was good for the engines, though highly toxic to humans and the environment. Advocates called for regulation, but catalytic converters ultimately came to the rescue. The converters couldn’t handle the lead, and so the lead was dropped.

Midgley went on to help solve the refrigeration problem presented by the highly flammable and/or toxic refrigerants of the day – ammonia, sulfur dioxide, methyl chloride and butane. He worked his way through the periodic table to discover that CFCs which were then used till found to affect the ozone layer. They were replaced by HFCs till it was found that HFCs are greenhouse gases!

When using sulphate to cool, we do not know the consequences besides the theoretical and lab based cooling.

Is it wise to continue on a carbon rich energy path or shift? What do you think?

Hubris of technology

The first comprehensive survey of plans to remove CO2 from the atmosphere by seeding the oceans with iron or other nutrients shows that even widespread fertilization would remove only modest amounts of CO2 from the air over the next century.

The summary of existing studies said ocean fertilization also carries a risk of causing unintended long-term harm to marine ecosystems. For instance, not all algae blooms are good, some are toxic and studies have shown some of these to contain dangerous neurotoxins.

Ocean fertilization involves dumping iron and other nutrients into the ocean to trigger the growth of phytoplankton, which consumes CO2 as it grows. But the summary, released at a conference on climate geoengineering schemes in California, said the risks of ocean fertilization probably far outweigh the rewards, as it is extremely difficult to assess the impact of the technique over wide swaths of ocean.

Any new technology must be weighed thoroughly before being adapted. Instead of blindly unleashing new technologies, it may be a good idea to check the damage we do instead of falling back on the promise of new saviour technologies!

Boggling chemistry

Venus has lessons for earthlings, and lessons of an unromantic kind!

It was the detection of a sulphur dioxide layer at 90-110 km by ESA's Venus Express orbiter in 2008 that posed a complete mystery and finally has been solved with some thinking. In the process throwing some darts at geo-engineering.

Venus is blanketed in sulphuric acid clouds that block our view of the surface. The clouds form at altitudes of 50-70 km when sulphur dioxide from volcanoes combines with water vapour to make sulphuric acid droplets. Any remaining sulphur dioxide should be destroyed rapidly by the intense solar radiation above 70 km. So, how did the layer form at 100 kms?

Some sulphuric acid droplets could have evaporated at high altitude, freeing gaseous sulphuric acid that is then broken apart by sunlight, releasing sulphur dioxide gas.

Nobel prize winner Paul Crutzen has recently advocated injecting artificially large quantities of sulphur dioxide into Earth's atmosphere at around 20 km to counteract the global warming resulting from increased greenhouse gases. The proposal stems from observations of powerful volcanic eruptions, in particular the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines that shot sulphur dioxide up into Earth's atmosphere. Reaching 20 km in altitude, the gas formed small droplets of concentrated sulphuric acid, created a haze layer that reflected some of the Sun's rays back into space, cooling the whole planet by about 0.5°C.

But now the Venus story shows that we cannot predict some things yet, like how quickly the initially protective haze will be converted back into gaseous sulphuric acid. The gas unlike the droplets is transparent and so allows all the Sun's rays through.

All the more reason why geo-engineering can only be the very last resort.

Hacking Nature

Is nature to be left alone? Or should it be hacked? Yes, hacked. That is the term used by those advocating geo-engineering as a means to tackle the many problems. This is the culture addicted to technological fixes to all issues. They call themselves rationalists in a subtle way and in a bold language, the ‘gods’ who have to take things into their hands. Geo-engineering is practical, pragmatic, etc etc they say. We can’t sit and do nothing but wait for calamity. No doubt it was a calamity of our making, but that’s not important now, is it?

On a hot August day in 2008 a team of Russian scientists set up an experiment to block the Sun and cool Earth. The experiment was to be carried out over a 2-square-mile area of farmland near the city of Saratov on the Volga River, roughly 300 miles southeast of Moscow. But it wasn’t cutting Russia’s greenhouse gas emissions that was proposed. Instead, it was to burn hundreds of thousands of tons of sulfur-rich aircraft fuel in the upper atmosphere, which studies suggested would lower the temperature of Earth by as much as 4°F.

Cloudy conditions made it difficult to detect which changes in the brightness of the Sun were a result of the experiment, but close analysis of the data suggested the smoke had scattered up to 10 percent of the Sun’s rays at different points in the experiment. In a paper published in a Russian meteorology journal in May 2009, Izrael and his colleagues concluded that the trial showed “how it is principally possible” to add chemical droplets to the sky “to control solar radiation.” That summer, scientists conducted a more successful follow-up experiment in which they released smoke from a helicopter at an altitude of roughly 8,000 feet.

Alexey Ryaboshapko, an atmospheric chemist in Izrael’s institute, said that they hoped to soon conduct even larger experiments, using airplanes, perhaps over an area roughly 10 kilometers long.

If we opt for these experiments, eventually the sulphur will cause another kind of problem. For which we will need another fix. Isn’t it much simpler to live by the laws of nature and sustainability?

Can we control and ‘tame’ the planet? Can we be the gods? Will it not be an excuse to keep blundering on the assurance that someone can fix the problem anyway?

First game lost

Two essential ways to address a problem, one is look at symptoms and treat them and the other to look at the root cause and address that. So also in climate change. We can either look at ways in which to cut our emissions or seek ways to offset the change by geo-engineering the ecosystem.

The recent Indo-German experiment Lohafex sought to fertilise the ocean with iron oxides which could lead to increased algal growth which could then absorb the carbon dioxide. The verdict so far is one of failure.

In the experiment, researchers fertilized a 300 square kilometer patch of the ocean, which saw a burst of algal growth. For long-term sequestration to work, enough of that algae would have to sink to the bottom of the ocean.

However, within two weeks the algae were being eaten by copepods, which then were eaten by amphipods. The result being that far less carbon dioxide made its way to the sea floor than had been anticipated.

The next step would be to see how to keep the copepods away!! Which could well present yet another problem to which we respond with yet another experiment from the labs.

An unending quest as we struggle to understand the complex eco-biosystem that sustains life on earth.

Would it not be much easier to look at ways we can cut our emissions?

Staying power

Another question on climate change: How long, after we are done with fossil fuels, will the CO2 hang around?

Popular notion has been that the lifetime of CO2 typically say it lasts “a century or more” or “more than a hundred years”. Bad enough. But now, scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California are saying it will last much longer!

In an upcoming paper in Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Sciences they say the gas and hence the warming will linger far into the future. University of Chicago oceanographer David Archer, who led the study, says in his new book The Long Thaw, “The lifetime of fossil fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is a few centuries, plus 25 percent that lasts essentially forever. The next time you fill your tank, reflect upon this”.

Perhaps this calls for another revision for what is the safe level of the gas if the planet is to have another chance, or rather, the race is to survive! We brought down the number from 550ppm to 450ppm to 350ppm to realize recently the way we are going, we just cannot prevent a 2-3 degree rise!

Now there are serious thoughts being given to how we tackle the problem, whose consequences can be seen very soon, within our lifetimes. Do we resort to geo-engineering, where we put in place sunshades and aerosols up there in the atmosphere?? Interfering with nature. Bad as it is, some see it as inevitable. Though no one knows for sure what damage we will add in the process!

Is it that difficult for us to cut down emissions? Yes, at least some think so.

Going by the choice of words used by Todd Stern, Obama’s top climate change negotiator, the US, whom the rest of the world was looking up to, may take its time. ‘We need to be very mindful of what the dictates of science are, and of the art of the possible,” he said. About the Bali targets – a 25% to 40% cut by industrialized nations by 2020 – he said that it is not possible to get that kind of number. ‘It’s not going to happen.’

So?? Are we going to sit around and be cooked up? A nice allegory in a recent article likened what we are doing to the planet, to a man who finds the cold too unbearable and sets his home on fire, for warmth!

Ocean's Twenty

The German government has given the go-ahead for the Indo-German scientific project LOHAFEX that saw environmental concern over geo-engineering. The reviews concluded that there were no ‘scientific or legal objections’ to the spreading of 20 tons of iron sulfate on ocean waters.

The director of the Alfred Wegener Institute said that the experiment was to understand the role of iron in climate system. He said it was not a geo-engineering option of sequestering carbon dioxide into the waters. The team has started discharging the solution into the water.

The question we would like to ask is: are scientific and legal objections alone to be considered? How inclusive of ecological considerations is our scientific view? Science has been largely viewed as a force unto itself with its sole mandate to find the truth. But when the means involves invasive methods, how benign is it?

Do we really know what 20 tons of iron sulfate across a 300 square kilometer patch in the South Atlantic ocean could mean to marine life? Perhaps the Indian team from National Institute of Oceanography can explain. The explosion of plant life, mainly planktons, that would suck in the carbon dioxide is unquestionably ocean-engineering. Could someone explain how it is not?

Meanwhile, a study on geo-engineering says, ocean fertilization options are “only worthwhile if sustained on a millennial timescale and phosphorus addition probably has greater long-term potential” than either iron or nitrogen”. Can the planet take all those experiments of different groups?

The study looks at ideas like sun shades in the sky, aerosol spraying, etc and concludes that if present trends continue, by 2050, only stratospheric aerosol injections or sunshades in space have the potential to cool the climate back toward its pre-industrial state.

Costs will be high and it is best to avoid adding to the problem instead of looking at ways to doctor ecosphere. Unless we mend our ways drsatically, we will need to do some altering our environment.

What are your views? Is that a better idea? Instead of giving up on those 'dreams of a luxurious life, is it better to change the planet?

Experimenting or tampering?

An international experiment to fertilise a swathe of the Southern Ocean has run into trouble.

Tonnes of iron dust were to be dumped into the sea from an Indo-German research ship across a 300 square kilometre area near the Antarctic in an experiment to test its possible use in absorbing a greenhouse gas. Earlier attempts have been made to check if this can increase marine algal blooms which in turn increases the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide. But this expedition, Lohafex, was on a larger scale.

Under pressure from environmentalists, the German science ministry has suspended approval to the expedition. The Ocean Iron Fertilisation is just one of the many examples of geo-engineering our way out of troubles.

Nature online reported that the German science ministry has asked Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), the research body behind the expedition (along with India's National Institute of Oceanography), to commission an independent assessment of the study's environmental safety.

The experiment will flout an agreement signed by 191 countries at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2008. Besides, there is fear of unknown side-effects from the dumping of iron.

The scientists insist all "signatures'' of the iron seeding will be quickly erased by the ocean. (Naturally, the ocean is wide and the seeded material will fast be dispersed, removing it from detection!?) They also point to an international meet permitting scientific research on ocean fertilization that had, in effect, made the CBD declaration irrelevant.

The point to be raised here is: should we be attempting geo-engineering to solve problems we have ourselves caused? Sprinkling aerosols in the atmosphere to ward off warming was one such idea mooted. Tackling an alien plant species by introducing yet another alien seems simple enough, but is not. Or even, geothermal energy tapping when undertaken on a massive scale.

Two years ago, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved 18 geothermal drilling permits. That number more than doubled in 2007 and has nearly quadrupled this year. The government leased a staggering 244,000 acres for geothermal development in the past 18 months. Another 146,339 acres went up for bid Friday in Utah, Oregon and Idaho. All of it was claimed.

Do we have any idea what such extensive deep drilling could unleash? Is it safe? can some geologist let us know?

Isn’t there a danger of continuing with business as usual with the arrogant assurance of an eraser near at hand? Fully knowing the eraser could well cause new problems! Can we afford to take risks without knowing possible outcomes?

Should man learn to abide by Nature’s rules or try to change Nature? Do log in your comments.