Humans are builders. It sets us apart from the Aardvarks, even if we'll never get in front of them in the encyclopedia. When a problem presents itself, we makes plans to build.
The notion of building as a core human activity is buried so deep in our consciousness, that it's emotionally pleasing to consider. To build is to be doing something constructive.
Constructive. Get it?
And so it may be with the massive challenges presented by global warming and ocean acidification that result from carbon pollution.
Can we build our way out of this one?
And if we try, how will decisions be made about who benefits, and who is harmed, by geoengineering efforts?
First, a definition from the Oxford Martin School, Oxford University:
Geoengineering is the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s natural systems to counteract climate change.
One category of Geoengineering that might be attempted in the future is Solar Radiation Management. Because things ideas having acronyms sound more scientific and official, Solar Radiation Management known as SRM. Methods include:
Albedo enhancement. Increasing the reflectiveness of clouds or the land surface so that more of the Sun’s heat is reflected back into space.
Space reflectors. Blocking a small proportion of sunlight before it reaches the Earth.
Stratospheric aerosols. Introducing small, reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect some sunlight before it reaches the surface of the Earth.
[The other main category of geoengineering, Carbon Dioxide removal, should not be confused with the much more elegant concept of reducing CO2 emissions in the first place.]
SRM is inherently a Big Concrete idea. To make a global difference, such efforts would have to be huge in scale.
"Big Concrete" is a term that describes large construction projects in developing countries. Often portrayed as a kind of aid to these countries, Big Concrete projects usually benefit a few powerful people in the subject countries with a mixed picture of benefit and harm to the population in general.
We may be looking at the biggest concrete of all.
Out of several important issues relating to the idea of SRM, a serious concern is that of justice and power. Because here's the thing: The effects of these efforts won't be uniform around the globe.
As the report Solar radiation management: The Governance of Research describes in connection with the albedo enhancement method:
However, as with all SRM techniques, the likelihood, severity and geographical
range of side effects remains uncertain. For example, cloud brightening
would cause large localised cooling, and so could modify weather patterns
both locally and further afield, including rainfall over adjacent land areas, and
ocean currents and upwelling.
Who decides where to "improve" climate conditions and where not to?
To ask the question is to answer it: The rational economic decision is to protect the assets having the greatest value. That's just doing what's cost-effective. And by an uncanny coincidence, it just happens that the assets of greatest value are possessed by, you guessed it, the wealthy.
So to continue with the example above, if an "adjacent land area" doesn't happen to have economically valuable real estate but merely has peasants, it will make economic sense to proceed with geoengineering efforts regardless of the consequences for that area.
We already know that the real dollars for global warming adaptation, such as massive flood protection projects, are gravitating toward protecting the most valuable economic assets. This is described in detail in the book Windfall, by McKenzie Funk, which I reviewed here.
So when the next technology becomes available to reduce climate effects, we know to whose benefit the work will be directed.
Climate justice currently has two recognized dimensions:
a) Who should reduce emissions most aggressively? AND
b) Who should pay for required adaptation?
With the potential advent of geoengineering, we may be adding a third climate justice question:
c) When we start directly messing with our climate, who will gain and who will lose?
Notes:
1) The issue of justice is not the only reason to be concerned about geoengineering. Three other obvious ones will hopefully be topics for future diaries, and can be summed up as follows:
- What could possibly go wrong?
- Why artificially build what nature would provide if we allowed it?
- Will it become an excuse not to stop polluting? Eh, we can fix it!
2) If you Google "Geoengineering", it's likely that you'll see links to GeoEngineeringWatch.org. I'm not linking on purpose. Just one word: Chemtrails. Don't say you weren't warned.
3) "Invisible Hand" refers to the term coined by Adam Smith in the 1700s, that the market operates as an invisible hand distributing goods and services efficiently. The idea is cited to promote the rightness of businesses or nations making self-interested decisions, even if those decisions may harm others.
James R. Wells is the author of The Great Symmetry, coming in April 2015.
In an asteroid in the Aurora star system, exoarcheologist Evan McElroy has made a discovery about the Versari, a long-departed alien race. But Evan’s sponsor, the Affirmatix family of companies, realizes that they can make huge gains from the new finding, if it is kept completely secret.
As Evan flees for his life, he finds that his trajectory has reawakened the long-buried struggle of the Infoterrorists, who believe that all knowledge screams to be free, against those who maintain the True Story that holds all of civilization together.
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