What is Geoengineering?
Many scientists and policymakers have become increasingly pessimistic about the prospects in the near future of sharply reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, so scholars have begun to consider whether there might be other ways to counteract global warming, particularly if it proves to be severe. “Geoengineering” is the most common term for efforts to intentionally change the Earth’s environment in ways that would compensate for the effects of elevated greenhouse gas concentrations. “Climate engineering” might be a better term for this concept. The basic idea is quite simple. The Earth is warmed by two forces: solar radiation, which enters the atmosphere, and the greenhouse gases that trap it there. There are two possible ways to cool the planet, therefore: reduce greenhouse gases or reduce the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth’s surface. If we can’t cut greenhouse gas emissions quickly enough, it makes sense to think about the other source of warming, solar radiation
Geoengineering is a branch of science which is focused on using technology to change the Earth’s environment. Most geoengineering ideas are purely hypothetical, and many focus on mitigating the effects of global warming, which is becoming a major issue of concern for many nations around the world. Some of the schemes which have been proposed by geoengineers are quite radical, and they would require global discussion and cooperation before they could be implemented. The idea of altering the environment of a planet to make it more habitable is actually fairly old, although no one has actually embarked on the modification of an entire planet’s environment as yet. Early authors of science fiction proposed that settlers in new environments could shape them to make them more like Earth, which is widely considered to be a rather ideal planet to support humans. One of the fundamental parts of planetary engineering is terraforming, actually physically altering the surface of a planet to give it
Most of the world’s scientists now agree: climate change is real and happening fast. Over the last century, Earth’s surface air temperature has risen by close to 1°C (1.4°F) and the current best-guess prediction is that, by 2100, temperatures will rise by another 1.4–5.8°C (2.5–10.4°F). Earth itself is under no threat from global warming: the planet will continue to exist whatever we do to it. What is in danger is life on Earth—human life and that of millions of other species—which is finely tuned to the climate. The risk is that Earth’s climate will be knocked out of balance to such an extent that life, as we know it, becomes impossible to sustain. Geoengineering (literally “Earth-engineering”) is the currently fashionable term for making large-scale interventions in how the planet works to slow down or reverse the effects of climate change. In theory, the word “geoengineering” could be used to describe almost any large-scale scheme for tackling climate change. For example, if million
Geoengineering is defined as ‘intentional large scale manipulation of the global environment’, e.g. by altering climate with the primary intention of reducing undesired climate change caused by human influences. ‘Geoengineering schemes seek to mitigate the effect of fossil-fuel combustion on the climate without abating fossil fuel use; for example by placing shields in space to reduce the sunlight incident on the Earth.’ (Keith D.W. 1999. Geoengineering, Encyclopedia of Global Change, New York). In relation to ‘geoengineering’, the ‘Climate Change 2001’ report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms that it ‘includes the possibility of engineering the earth’s climate system by large-scale manipulation of the global energy balance. It has been estimated, for example, that the mean effect on the earth surface energy balance from a doubling of CO2 could be offset by an increase of 1.5% to 2% in the earth’s albedo, i.e. by reflecting additional incoming solar radiation ba
