"Geoengineers" Think They Can Save the Planet with High-Risk Projects to Manipulate the Climate

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/world/geoengineers-think-they-can-save-planet-high-risk-projects-manipulate-climate

For almost 20 years, I’ve been spending time on a craggy stretch of British Columbia’s shoreline called the Sunshine Coast. This summer, I had an experience that reminded me why I love this place, and why I chose to have a child in this sparsely populated part of the world.

It was 5 a.m. and my husband and I were up with our 3-week-old son. Looking out at the ocean, we spotted two towering, black dorsal fins: orcas, or killer whales. Then two more. We had never seen an orca on the coast, and never heard of their coming so close to shore. In our sleep-deprived state, it felt like a miracle, as if the baby had wakened us to make sure we didn’t miss this rare visit.

The possibility that the sighting may have resulted from something less serendipitous did not occur to me until two weeks ago, when I read reports of a bizarre ocean experiment off the islands of Haida Gwaii, several hundred miles from where we spotted the orcas swimming.

There, an American entrepreneur named Russ George dumped 120 tons of iron dust off the hull of a rented fishing boat; the plan was to create an algae bloom that would sequester carbon and thereby combat climate change .

[Kolesar]

1. despite the real possibility of triggering droughts in Asia and Africa

Says who?

[Speck Tater]

2. Wouldn't it be ironic if...

...it was an unexpected side effect of geoengineering while trying to prevent global warming that wiped out the human race?

I'm reminded of anaphylactic shock where the human body tries to counteract some minor irritation like a bee sting and ends up killing itself by grossly over-reacting. It's not the bee sting that kills the victim, it's the victim's own body trying to soothe the bee sting.

[Junkdrawer]

3. We're already doing poorman's GeoEngineering...

The US is switching from Coal to Fracked Methane. Meanwhile, the Coal is being shipped to China where it will be burned with little or no smokestack cleanup. While this will aggravate an already awful public heath problem in China, the short-lived particulates and sulfur aerosols should mask some of the warming caused by the vast increases in global CO2 levels.

Hansen refers to this in his "Storms of my Grandchildren" as the great Faustian bargain.

[GliderGuider]

4. We've been geoengineering the planet at an increasing rate for the last 10,000 years.

And putting lots of clever thought into it, too. Dams, farms, cities, roads, aquifer pumping, deforestation, desert-building...

What gives us any confidence that simply calling it geoengineering will make it turn out any better?

[Nihil]

5. Fixed it for ya!

> "Geoengineers" Pretend They Can Save the Planet with High-Profit Projects to Manipulate the Climate

There ... a far more accurate headline than they originally provided!