The Planet Remade

Oliver Morton, an award winning science writer has written extensively on planetary science. Here he offers us a new way to think about our planet, about the crisis facing it. The book is aimed at the general reader. It is well-referenced, thoughtfully written and shows a depth of understanding of the science and technical issues underlying geoengineering. While this is a very controversial subject, it is one that we cannot avoid discussing. He offers no recommendations other than urging the reader to consider all options. He asks the reader to answer two questions.

Do you believe the risks of climate change merit serious action aimed at lessening them?

Do you think that reducing an industrial economy's carbon dioxide emissions to near zero is very hard?

Skeptics of global warming typically answer the questions, No, Yes. There is no problem, and even if there were, we couldn't do much about it. Those supporting green policies tend to answer, Yes, No. Yes --- there is a serious problem. However, renewables, nuclear power and other low-carbon initiatives can reduce the world's output to near zero. All we have to do it to get serious about it. And leave the oil in the ground.

Morton takes a Yes, Yes position. Regarding the second question, he acknowledges the progress already made in Germany and in the UK in the development of renewables. However, those efforts involved the payout of massive subsidies feasible for wealthy countries, but not in 90% of the world. If carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is to be stabilized we need all the world's carbon emitters to join the party. Just 50% won't do it. In the case of China, despite a vast investment in renewables, current plans are to have carbon dioxide emissions keep rising until 2030, when 80% of Chinese energy will still be from fossil fuels.

These are persuasive arguments for answering Yes to the second question. Our current efforts, while noble will not reduce our carbon emissions to make a significant difference in global warming. If that is the case, we have to include other approaches such as geoengineering.

Geoengineering is not new. We have been geoengineering our planet unintentionally for a long time, and the results have not been good. Changing our atmosphere by burning fossil fuels on a global scale is one example. Widespread use of artificial fertilizer derived from the Haber-Bosch process is another. It has allowed the Earth's population to grow, helped us avoid massive famines, but also created water pollution on a global scale. Our widespread transformation of the planet over the past few hundred years, physical and ecological, is recognized in the term Anthopocene that describes our current era. Except for cloud seeding and other efforts in rain making, we have not intentionally tried geoengineering to change the environment. Certainly not on a planetary scale. To that end, the most plausible options are carbon capture and storage, managing aerosols in the lower atmosphere, spraying sulphates into the stratosphere to dim the sun's energy, re-forestry, carbon-dioxide extraction using the oceans, cloud whitening. Each project poses potential benefits as well as significant risks from unintended consequences.

Intentional geoengineering raises many moral issues. A common position among environmentalists is that geoengineering will give us less incentive to reduce our carbon consumption. Morton argues that this is not the case. He points to Germany where most of the geoengineering research is being done today, and which has also reduced its carbon consumption considerably. Geoengineering alone will never solve global warning anyway. At most it can give us breathing space, more time for us to reduce our carbon consumption. Because time is short, we have to try geoengineering. The alternative is to watch the climate disaster unfold, especially in third world countries that contributed the least to global warming.

What are the most promising avenues? The principles of carbon capture and storage are known. The process involves removing carbon dioxide at the factory stack and storing it somewhere. Unfortunately, this technology is expensive, and has yet to be tried on an industrial scale. Removing carbon dioxide from the air faces serious challenges because carbon dioxide is a minor constituent. One scheme is to add iron to the oceans so that they can remove carbon dioxide from the air more efficiently. However, a pilot programme gave disappointing results. The best publicised scheme involves the injection of sulphates into the stratosphere to diminish the power of the sun. This project was inspired by the eruption of mount Pinatubo in 1990 that ejected large amounts of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere. The following two years were anomalously cool, drier over the continents, with lower carbon dioxide globally. The ozone layer was also depleted. We could mimic Pinotubo, more efficiently, and globally. We could use sulphates or another agent less destructive to the ozone layer.

There are reasons to go ahead with such a scheme, and many reasons not to. But until the research is done, we won't know enough to make an informed decision. Many environmentalists are opposed even to carrying out the research, calling such schemes, "hacking the planet" or "get out of jail free". To such criticism the author replies --- do you have a better idea?

Though the politics of global warming are particularly divisive, this has not always been the case. Morton reminds us of the 1980s, when several hawks in the Reagan administration suggested that a limited nuclear war could be winnable. In 1993 a paper entitled Nuclear Winter – Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions was published by several scientists including James Pollack and Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan was later a frequent guest on Jonny Carson's tonight show. He argued that any nuclear war was suicidal as well as genocidal. So much dust would spread in the lower and upper atmosphere, that sunlight would be cut down to where crops would cease to grow for up to three years. Carl's eloquence certainly got the message across. Curiously, following the paper's publication and popularization, the Reagan administration's policy changed, to promote nuclear disarmament.

Morton understands the delicate balance of ecosystems that must be preserved. He is a supporter of James Lovelock, and the Gaia Theory. His book is a passionate call for us to seek imaginative solutions to global warming. The current approach is not working. We need to consider what technologies to use to forestall global catastrophe.