It will keep the planet habitable and buy us time to solve the fundamental problems. We don’t have the technology or global political will to reverse or even slow global warming. We’re not even close. We need more time.
Ignoring this reality will just guarantee our collapse. Geoengineering gives us a plausible way out.
The alternative is people continuing to clamor for global cooperation, a comically naive goal that has gained near to zero traction in 40 years.
All the geoengineering we might do is totally unproven and untested. If the alternative is a calamity then yes, of course we'll do it. As things stand, it seems like we should be putting as much effort as we can into the thing we know works (reducing greenhouse gas emissions).
And what if geoengineering doesn’t work? Just waving our hands and saying technology will solve our problems in the future vs doing what we know works now (reducing consumption and cutting emissions) seems insane to me.
Geoengineering is like an emergency tracheotomy. It might keep us alive for a bit and we might end up needing it, but it isn’t a solution - just a desperate patch that buys us a little more time.
I've been saying for a long time that we'll resort to geoengineering to finagle our way out of climate change. Unfortunately I think that prediction is still spot-on.
The reason geoengineering is necessary is because transition to renewables isn't good enough, even if it were implemented more rapidly. We would still stand to see exacerbating climate-change and temperature uptick. You're discounting geoengineering as though it's intended to be a substitute for green transition; it isn't. It's to save our asses.
We're nearly at the point where geoengineering is necessary. People will oppose this like nuclear power, but there's not many alternatives left. Even if we do have a solution to stop climate change, it is simply not going to happen in time.
It's obvious to anyone who's taken 5 minutes to read up on climate change that cutting emissions is how we ultimately fix the problem. Unfortunately we're on track for 3+C of warming. Do you really believe we're going to stand by and watch that happen? I don't. Is geoengineering dangerous and short sighted? Yeah. Is it gonna happen? Also, yes. Should we research it to make it as safe as possible? Heck yeah.
At this point, we should be throwing our money at geoengineering and technology in order to try and deus ex machina our way out of the pending climate crisis. We've wasted so much time that now there really is almost no other option. No one is going to lead on this issue, so it's our only hope left.
That said, I am optimistic that once the economic incentives align scientists/engineers will be able to save us from the worst effects of climate change, and down the road even reverse the effects.
This seems overly dismissive of a solution to a rapidly approaching crises effecting billions of people.
Geoengineering can be studied like anything else. If applied, it will have negative externalities like everything else. The few millions spent is a small bet on something that could have a big impact.
There's no way geoengineering will be consequence free. I think when we start using it as a temporary measure it will become very clear what the downsides are, and that reducing our emissions are still the best path forward.
I just don't buy the apocalyptic doomerism so breathlessly described in most books on global warming. When it gets bad enough, we will act. It won't be ideal, but there's no way we're just going to sit by, accept our fate and let the world burn.
The fact it is a "losing battle" for the next centuries has consequences. But not all of those consequences is despairing. Even if geoengineering is the only possible, yet dangerous and uncertain, way to make a dent in our CO2 "credit card debt" we still need aggressive investment in CO2 reduction. Continuing to bear down on the causes of anthropogenic climate change is the most effective way to reduce risk from geoengineering.
The climate change we have right now has been caused by geoengineering too -- accidental geoengineering.
Intentional, careful geoengineering is the only real chance we have of holding back climate change. Human societies simply will not be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to roll back climate change solely by reducing emissions.
A combination of politically acceptable emission cuts, geoengineering, and acceptance of/adaptation to higher temperatures and their consequences is the only possible outcome in the real world. So hold back on the knee-jerk reactions to geoengineering and take it seriously.
Ignoring this reality will just guarantee our collapse. Geoengineering gives us a plausible way out.
The alternative is people continuing to clamor for global cooperation, a comically naive goal that has gained near to zero traction in 40 years.
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