Green Options » geoengineering

SuperFreakonomics Redux: Even Congress is Riled Up

Dave Levitan — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:15:26 +0000

Last week I wrote in this space that when faced with a problem (global warming, carbon dioxide emissions) that so clearly requires huge top-down action from governments the world over, what two contrarians write in a book doesn’t exactly bother me that much. It bothers Joe Romm at Climate Progress, clearly, and now, well, I’ve got even less company, because members of Congress are pissed off too.

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Is Tropical Weather Moving North? - Interview with Oceanographer Julian Sachs

Michael Ricciardi — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:21:30 +0000

The thunderstorms of the Intertropical Convergence Zone form a line across the eastern Pacific Ocean.

It’s called the Pacific Intertropical Convergence Zone (PICZ) and its activity brings roughly 4 meters of rainfall per year to the Pacific equatorial region. Tropical rainfall patterns greatly impact the livelihoods of more than a billion people. Historically, this zone appears to shift in tandem with cooling and warming trends in more northern latitudes. And, it may be on the move again.

This possibility is born out in the results from a recent, oceanographic research project detailing the southward movement of this zone in the past (Southward movement of the Pacific intertropical convergence zone AD 1400–1850, Sachs et al, Dept. of Oceanography/Atmospheric Sciences, Univ. of Wash., June 2009, Nature GeoScience), but which also suggest that, in the present era, a potential, northward movement of this important, climate-impacting zone may be underway.

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The Super Freakonomics Dust-Up: Who Cares?

Dave Levitan — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:28:13 +0000

When Joe Romm over at the Indispensable Climate Progress (I capitalize indispensable because the blog should just always be called that) gets going, he really gets going.

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Emergency Climate Control: Geoengineering Risks

Michael Ricciardi — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:01:25 +0000

With the news that climate change is occurring at a faster rate than climate models have predicted, geoengineering solutions have been brought to the fore and are being taken more seriously. The main focus of these emergency geoengineering strategies is a reduction in “shortwave” radiation entering the Earth’s atmosphere via the solar wind.

The short-term goal here is an overall reduction in global atmospheric temperatures to slow, or even reverse, warming trends. These solutions include increasing the amount of reflective particles surrounding the Earth by placing reflective particles (”mirrors”) outside the atmosphere. Such a solution may be justified to quickly curtail an emergent crisis–such as the rapid disintegration of the polar icecaps. Another strategy is to blanket the upper atmosphere with sulfur particles to block shortwave energy from reaching the Earth’s surface, thus producing a pronounced cooling effect (of variable duration).

However, in a recently published paper, Climate Engineering Responses to Climate Emergencies by Blackstock et al, this and other controversial strategies are analyzed in terms of feasibility, short-term impact, and also, the potential risks and dangers. The authors are also calling for a study phase. The major criticism in the paper is that current geoengineering strategies focus on a reduction of temperature without due consideration of the impact on precipitation, which also drives climate change. The cooler the surface temperature, in general, the less overall precipitation ( due to the fact that there is less energy for evaporation). Focusing only on temperature reduction, via incoming solar radiation, could backfire, leading to a shift in global hydrology cycles and, possibly, drought. Also, sulfur in the atmosphere combines with water to form sulfuric acid–the primary source of “acid rain”–a problem dramatically reduced since the passage of the Clean Air act.

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DARPA Invented the Internet, Now It Will Stop Global Warming

Tina Casey — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:06:52 +0000

If you don’t know what DARPA is, you will soon. The Defense Advanced Research Group invented the internet back in 1969, and now it has set its sights on geoengineering a cure for global warming. What does that mean? For one thing, it means that a communications network originally designed for national defense somehow morphed into Perez Hilton, D-Listed, and TMZ. For another — well, now that DARPA has put algae-fuel and bioplastic plastic fuel on its A-list, let’s hope that so-called clean coal project gets the D-listed treatment.

h/t to sciencemag via talking points memo.

Image: ugenro on flickr.

Biofuels: Energy, Food and People

Keith Rockmael — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:19:19 +0000

Is it going to come down to a choice between eating or driving? Is that what are future holds? If it does, it looks like the driving contingent may win (or in other words many others will lose…or starve). That’s a distorted overview of last night’s EcoNow presentation that highlighted the current and future state of biofuel. Actually I like the term that one of the speakers Eric Holt-Giménez used - “agrofuels” rather than “biofuels” because “bio” means “life” which certainly doesn’t represent these alt fuels.

The event held in Berkeley (where else?) gave Tad Patzek, Professor of Geoengineering at UC Berkeley, Miguel Altieri, Professor of Agroecology at UC Berkeley, Eric Holt-Giménez, Executive Director of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, and Judith Mayer, Project Coordinator of the Borneo Project a chance to educate or frighten the audience into what’s happening with agrofuels, whether it’s ethanol, B20, or something else that makes our cars go.

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