Is Geoengineering a Triumph of Human Ingenuity, if Human Ignorance Has Failed in Managing Global Warming - Term Paper Example

1.0 Introduction Climate change is undeniably a contemporary issue of the 21st century. The costs and implications of global warming will be unevenly distributed, serious and large unless moderated mitigation and adaptation techniques are employed, particularly towards curtailing the emission of greenhouse gases. Even with the present counter-measures of global warming, such efforts have yet to provide the necessary reductions to guarantee a shift from the current trend towards hazardous climatic change (Akashi and Hanaoka 2012). Whereas geoengineering showcases humans’ dedication to fighting climate change, its implementation showcases human failure in preventing furthered weathering and changes. As such, this retrospect paper disagrees with the notion that geoengineering represents a human triumph of ingenuity. Clive (2015) presupposes that whereas climate change threatens to change the climate balance, geoengineering promises to protect the earth’s ecosystem. He further suggests that global warming has showcased human failure to protect the environment, where humans seek to re-engineer the climate – which is far from reality. As global warming poses a grave threat, it is therefore imperative to establish countermeasures. In order to maintain the earth’s ecological equilibrium, effective measures to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases will be meaningful. Such measures may include geoengineering, defined by the current literature review as the attempt to check global warming through a large-scale and divergent intervention with the earth’s climatic system (Keith 2013).. Although geoengineering may not be an ultimate solution to global warming, it is likely that its methods have a great potential to reduce such emissions. Evidently, geoengineering has been promoted by divergent researchers active in climate denialism. The Hoover Institution, Marshall Institute and Heartland Institute support the process initiated under geoengineering – begging the question why such activists would deny the occurrence of global warming and not support all strategies and technologies aimed at countering global warming. An insight into industrial society is prevalent in their beliefs regarding human geoengineering of the natural world. The pursuit of such an aspect suggests the need to adhere of the industrial society that subsequently harms nature at the same time engineering the earth’s climate would support such mysteries. 2.0 Rationale Why Geoengineering Is Not a Consistent Solution Geoengineering is an intentional alteration of the climate to obtain the precise effects of reduced global warming. Paul Crutzen Nobel headed a particular editorial about the introduction of sulphate aerosols into the earth’s atmosphere that subsequently block sunlight, hence cooling the earth. As such, geoengineering schemes targeted towards the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, through mechanical or natural means are shown in Figure 1. Source: University of Leeds, 2014 Whereas such approaches are deemed helpful, the following are some of the justifications as to why promoting geoengineering may be bad reasoning. 2.1 Impacts on Regional Climate Change Evidence presented by the National Center for Atmospheric Research suggests that the eruption caused by Pinatubo resulted in pronounced hydrological responses that reduced precipitation, soil moisture and river flow in many regions (Crown and Boykoff 2014). Volcanic eruptions simulations of climate response have depicted significant outcomes on climate. Also, scientists have seen eruptions of volcanos in the tropical regions that have produced changes in atmospheric circulations, resulting in winter warming in the continents of the north hemisphere and high latitude eruptions in the African and Asian monsoons, resulting in decreased precipitation. 2.2 Continued Ocean Acidification Threatening the Entire Biological Chain The ocean would proceed to become increasingly acidic if humans were to adapt geoengineering as a remedying to a global rise in temperature with no limit on ongoing carbon emissions. This is because more than half of the surplus carbon dioxide in the atmospheric space is absorbed by the ocean. This results to the endangerment of aquatic life. 2.3 Ozone Depletion The saturation of aerosol in the earth’s atmosphere creates chemical reactions resulting in the destruction of the ozone similar to the way that nitric acid and water generate seasonal Antarctic ozone holes in polar stratospheric clouds (Dryzek et al. 2011). In years to come, it is anticipated that the increased concentration of anthropogenic ozone degrading molecules will be sufficient in the atmosphere to cause a similar effect. Furthermore, aerosols resulting from geoengineering would negatively affect the ultraviolet flux of earth’s surface, which could potentially destroy the ozone layer (Dryzek et al. 2011). 2.4 Effects on Plants As sunlight passes through stratospheric aerosols, it scatters through it hence increases its diffusion rate that subsequently reduces direct solar radiation; which are typified by significant biological outcomes. Thus, engineers need to assess the effects of these phenomena on natural vegetation and crop plants. 2.5 Impacts of Cirrus Clouds As the aerosols injected into the stratosphere fall onto earth, they can result in the formation of cirrus clouds in the troposphere. This affects the earth’s radioactive equilibrium of outgoing and incoming on the earth’s surface heat . The global effect has not been quantified, while evidence exists that some volcano aerosols generate clouds. 2.6 Sky Whitening Atmospheric aerosols with a similar light wavelengths result in a cloudy and white appearance in the sky. Additionally, they contribute to colourful sunsets, like the ones that occur after the volcanic eruptions. 2.7 Reduced Solar Power Scientists approximate that as little as 1.7 percent of the incoming solar radiation is equalised to double the atmospheric carbon dioxide. The small amount of radiation decrease greatly influences the sun’s radiation on solar power generating systems, which is one of the major sources of electrical energy (McEwan 2010). Since the 1982 eruption of El Chiuchon in Mexico and the Mount Pinatubo eruption, scientists have observed a decrease of between 15 to 25 percent reduction in direct solar radiation (Keith 2013). 2.8 Environmental Effects of Implementation Any system injecting aerosols into the stratosphere – such as commercial jetliners emitting sulphur mixed into their fuels and16-inch Naval firing rifles \to name a few, – will cause enormous environmental destruction (Machin 2013; Ray 2012) 2.9 Increased Warming if Deployment Stops A political, technological or societal crisis could hamper the atmospheric aerosol injections resulting from mid-deployment projects. Tentatively, the increased and sudden shift would results to the increased climate warming that can ultimately result to increasing stress levels on the ecosystem(Ray 2010). 2.10 Human Error Some systems with complex mechanisms fail to work as intended. Humans can make errors in the planning, manufacturing and operation of such assembled systems. Perfect examples include Exxon Valdez, Chernobyl and friendly fire and airplane crashes in the battlefield (Larson 2010). 2.11 Underestimating Emissions Mitigation Humans should integrates simplified technological approach in reducing global warming. ; However, gathering the international and states’ good will to alter the energy infrastructure and consumption patterns will be more problematic. This is the oldest and most persistent argument against the idea of geoengineering (Moreno-Cruz 2015; Pearce 2010; Sterm 2007). 2.12 Cost Arguably, proponents of increased technological usage suggest that it would be relatively inexpensive to put geoengineering into practice. However, we lack accurate estimates of the cost, and in fact studies have shown that geoengineering may prove to be a very costly proposition with limited benefits (Pearce 2010; Stern 2007). In essence, geoengineering may be a poor choice in terms of attempting to fix the planet’s climate. 3.0 Commercial Control of Technology There is a question regarding who would be in control of geoengineering. Would it be the government? Would it be a private organisation holding a patent on proprietary technology? Questionably, what would be the sole benefit of using such an approach? These uncertainties impose issues analogous to those raised by energy conglomerates and pharmaceutical companies whose products ostensibly offer services to the public, but these institutions often value the shareholders’ profits over the public well-being (Hulme 2009; Hulme 2013). The lack of a designated governing body questions the integrity of geoengineering’s introduction, where its limits may not be well defined. 4.0 Technology Use by the Military Countries such as the United States are well known for modifying the weather for military purposes, such as in the induction of rain in the Vietnam War to negatively impact anti-war protests by Buddhist monks and swamp North Vietnamese supply lines. At least 85 countries have signed the United Nations convention on the exclusion of subsequent alterations to or variations in the climate for military purposes. Besides the United Nations convention, a number of countries have signed different treaties in an attempt to create a peaceful coexistence among different regions (Hulme 2014). Most of these treaties strictly prohibit the modification of the environment or hostile use of the environment for military purposes (Rudiak 2013). 5.0 Moral Authority The current issue of global rise in temperature is an effect of inadvertent climate modification. Such modification results from human daily activities causing global warming including the use of fossil fuels in homes, transportation and the operations of heavy machineries and also stems from industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and methane (EPSRC 2010). Humans must thus take precautions in regards to the emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere as they are aware of the consequences of such actions. 6.0 Unexpected Consequences Engineers and scientists cannot account for all of the climatic interactions or predict the effects of geoengineering. Scientists have warned that climate is changing faster than they anticipated; therefore, they are not sure whether their geoengineering mechanisms might be able to handle such changes (Rickles et al. 2011). 7.0 Dangers of Geoengineering Geoengineering covers a great range of proposals conventionally put into two major categories: solar radiation management (SRM) and carbon dioxide management (CDR). Carbon dioxide management and solar radiation management are different technically; therefore, discussing these two under one umbrella notion of geoengineering gives the impression that the technologies in the two responses may give rise to similar issues, which may not be the case (DECC 2010; Kagan 2009). As such, solar radiation management and carbon dioxide management should not be subsumed into the previous categories of adaptation and mitigation, but instead, they should be regarded as a fraction of the five continuums of response to climate change (Kagan 2009). One way of distinguishing the concepts is by looking at the paradigmatic cases. Considering ocean fertilization which applies carbon dioxide technique and solar radiation technique by injection of sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, a process where limiting growth nutrient; is added to the ocean to increase marine photosynthesis. Just like other aerosols, sulfate particles disperse and reflect more solar radiations back to space hence causing warming and prohibiting solar energy being absorbed by the atmosphere (MacEwan, 2010). Whereas adaptation deals with the impacts, mitigation deal with the causes of climate variation. As such, the goal of adaptation is to reduce the destructive effects of a changed climate on peoples’ lives. Therefore, adaptation modifies the climate changes, but it does not control or eliminate them (Callison 2014). A new carbon dioxide removal technique may constitute potential forms of mitigation (McEwan 2010). The aim of the carbon dioxide removal technique is to improve general carbon sinking capacity. This technique affects the amount of the carbon dioxide that exists in the atmosphere but does not affect the amount of the entry of the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Some of the techniques do so by familiar means like the afforestation (Hastrup and Skrydstrup 2013). More of the techniques involve the various forms of the enhanced weathering of the carbon cycle (IPCC 2005; Skrimshire 2010). Some, like the air capture technique, use chemical processes to create new forms of sinks. As such, the differences between carbon dioxide removal and mitigation is that mitigation refers to the activities that either reduce the flow of carbon dioxide amongst other atmosphere greenhouse gases into the atmosphere or increase sinks, while carbon dioxide removal refers to the activities that increase sinks (Skrimshire 2010). Often, mitigation is discussed solely in terms of decreasing greenhouse gases (Callison 2014). Additionally, we might ensure that outputs are increased to exceed the initial inputs or to create a balance (Skrimshire 2010). Solar radiation management techniques are protective. As such, they attempt to prevent climate variation by ensuring that global temperatures remain relatively constant despite divergent alterations in the atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gases. The approach is different from those that attempt to keep temperatures down by decreasing the greenhouse gases concentrations in the atmosphere (House of Commons 2010; Schneider and Nocke 2014). Therefore, solar radiation management is an important response to climate variation. (Hastrup and Skrydstrup 2013; Schneider and Nocke 2014). 8.0 Weaknesses of Geoengineering The most predictable and safest approach to addressing the negative effects of globalisation is to consider the implementation of effective and well-informed actions that are aimed at minimising greenhouse gas emissions. It is evident, however, that we lack a succinct geoengineering approach offering a readily available and easy alternative in combating global warming. Geoengineering is not an alternative to emissions decrease nor is it a magic bullet in regard to the reduction of emissions (Crown and Boykoff 2014). The highest priority must remain cutting global greenhouse gas emissions. Shareholders in the UN convention’s strategies for combatting climate change have to initiate improved efforts aimed at adapting and mitigating climate variations and participating in global reductions of emissions of at least 50 percent and more into the future. Geoengineering does not provide any viable reasons for reducing these efforts and is hence not reliable, since there are major risks and uncertainties related to its effectiveness, social impact, cost and environmental effects. More development and research should be undertaken to understand whether low-risk methods can be integrated it is important to reduce global warming levels. 9.0 Recommendation First, the current efforts toward the mitigation of and adaptation to climatic change should not be abolished. Particularly, the agreement to reduce global emissions by 50 percent with respect to 1990 levels by 2050 should be pursued with greater intensity. This is because currently, there is not a clearly defined reason, in regard to geoengineering or any other technique, to abandon the current developments. Secondly, geoengineering techniques like ocean fertilisation and biochar, being emergent and untested, should not be implemented until they are proven to be safe for the entire ecosystem. It is also meaningful for the global society to be actively involved in any developments in geoengineering; research and development should be coordinated internationally, and the global society should be involved in the exploration and evaluation of the risks, benefits, opportunities and feasibility of geoengineering. An acceptance of geoengineering should be attuned to the following three pillars of human life: the legal, social and political issues guided by technical and scientific aspects (Smith and Howe 2015). Therefore, much research on this is needed as well the development of a strategy of regulation and public engagement for both possible large-scale field tests and potential deployment (Climate Response Fund 2010). Geoengineering-posed risks to governance should be explored in detail by a proffered international body, and processes should be developed as a policy mechanism to resolve them. 10.0 Conclusion Whether or not geoengineering represents a triumph of human ingenuity, it is evident that human’s ignorance has failed in managing and preventing global warming. This study has contributed in clarifying the current scenario regarding global warming, climate change, geoengineering and the techniques employed therein as well as its possible negative implications. In essence, the earth has not yet reached the most critical point of global warming so as to necessitate the application of uncertain measures to counter global warming. The collaboration of the global society to achieve the current quest for reducing and adapting to climate change should be a guiding mantra as more research and development is done concerning geoengineering. Human errors and failure have significantly contributed to the global warming effects realised in divergent areas. This study has proven meaningful in bringing out the current scenario on global warming, climate change, geoengineering, techniques employed in geoengineering and possible negative implications. In essence, the earth has not yet reached the most critical point of global warming as to necessitate the application of uncertain measures to counter global warming. The collaboration of the global society to achieve the current quest for reducing and adapting to climate change should be a guiding mantra as more research and development is done concerning geoengineering. It is evident that geoengineering does not warrant for the triumph of human ingenuity, simply because of their subsequent ignorance of their causes and consequences. Human errors and failure has significantly contributed to the global warming effects realized in divergent areas. The public perception that geoengineering involves “messing with nature” was recognised following four public workshops held in Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow and Norwich and two stakeholder workshops in London. The belief is that climate change mitigation strategies, such as improving energy efficiency measures and scaling up renewable technologies, are preferred to geo-engineering proposals. Read More

Source: University of Leeds, 2014 Whereas such approaches are deemed helpful, the following are some of the justifications as to why promoting geoengineering may be bad reasoning. 2.1 Impacts on Regional Climate Change Evidence presented by the National Center for Atmospheric Research suggests that the eruption caused by Pinatubo resulted in pronounced hydrological responses that reduced precipitation, soil moisture and river flow in many regions (Crown and Boykoff 2014). Volcanic eruptions simulations of climate response have depicted significant outcomes on climate.

Also, scientists have seen eruptions of volcanos in the tropical regions that have produced changes in atmospheric circulations, resulting in winter warming in the continents of the north hemisphere and high latitude eruptions in the African and Asian monsoons, resulting in decreased precipitation. 2.2 Continued Ocean Acidification Threatening the Entire Biological Chain The ocean would proceed to become increasingly acidic if humans were to adapt geoengineering as a remedying to a global rise in temperature with no limit on ongoing carbon emissions.

This is because more than half of the surplus carbon dioxide in the atmospheric space is absorbed by the ocean. This results to the endangerment of aquatic life. 2.3 Ozone Depletion The saturation of aerosol in the earth’s atmosphere creates chemical reactions resulting in the destruction of the ozone similar to the way that nitric acid and water generate seasonal Antarctic ozone holes in polar stratospheric clouds (Dryzek et al. 2011). In years to come, it is anticipated that the increased concentration of anthropogenic ozone degrading molecules will be sufficient in the atmosphere to cause a similar effect.

Furthermore, aerosols resulting from geoengineering would negatively affect the ultraviolet flux of earth’s surface, which could potentially destroy the ozone layer (Dryzek et al. 2011). 2.4 Effects on Plants As sunlight passes through stratospheric aerosols, it scatters through it hence increases its diffusion rate that subsequently reduces direct solar radiation; which are typified by significant biological outcomes. Thus, engineers need to assess the effects of these phenomena on natural vegetation and crop plants. 2.5 Impacts of Cirrus Clouds As the aerosols injected into the stratosphere fall onto earth, they can result in the formation of cirrus clouds in the troposphere.

This affects the earth’s radioactive equilibrium of outgoing and incoming on the earth’s surface heat . The global effect has not been quantified, while evidence exists that some volcano aerosols generate clouds. 2.6 Sky Whitening Atmospheric aerosols with a similar light wavelengths result in a cloudy and white appearance in the sky. Additionally, they contribute to colourful sunsets, like the ones that occur after the volcanic eruptions. 2.7 Reduced Solar Power Scientists approximate that as little as 1.

7 percent of the incoming solar radiation is equalised to double the atmospheric carbon dioxide. The small amount of radiation decrease greatly influences the sun’s radiation on solar power generating systems, which is one of the major sources of electrical energy (McEwan 2010). Since the 1982 eruption of El Chiuchon in Mexico and the Mount Pinatubo eruption, scientists have observed a decrease of between 15 to 25 percent reduction in direct solar radiation (Keith 2013). 2.8 Environmental Effects of Implementation Any system injecting aerosols into the stratosphere – such as commercial jetliners emitting sulphur mixed into their fuels and16-inch Naval firing rifles \to name a few, – will cause enormous environmental destruction (Machin 2013; Ray 2012) 2.

9 Increased Warming if Deployment Stops A political, technological or societal crisis could hamper the atmospheric aerosol injections resulting from mid-deployment projects. Tentatively, the increased and sudden shift would results to the increased climate warming that can ultimately result to increasing stress levels on the ecosystem(Ray 2010). 2.

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