Obama Advisor Says US Must Consider Geoengineering
Posted on: Wednesday, 8 April 2009, 13:40 CDT
President Barack Obama’s science and technology director told the Associated Press on Wednesday that the controversial use of geoengineering needs to be considered an option for combating global climate change.
"It's got to be looked at," said Holdren in his first interview since being confirmed.
"We don't have the luxury of taking any approach off the table."
Geoengineering involves manipulation of the environment on a large scale using methods such as fertilizing the Earth’s oceans with nutrients or using giant mirrors to reflect dangerous rays.
Holdren, a 65-year-old physicist, identified several “tipping points” such as the loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic that could result in "really intolerable consequences," he told the AP.
The National Academy of Science as well as the British parliament have also been discussing the effects of geoengineering to halt climate change.
Additionally, the AP reports that the American Meteorological Society is developing a policy statement that claims "it is prudent to consider geoengineering's potential, to understand its limits and to avoid rash deployment."
But Holdren said the possible side effects of these proposed geoengineering methods must be considered first.
In a January report published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, a team of researchers from Britain’s University of East Anglia conducted the first study to determine the climate cooling potential of various geoengineering schemes.
“The realization that existing efforts to mitigate the effects of human-induced climate change are proving wholly ineffectual has fuelled a resurgence of interest in geo-engineering,” said the study’s lead author Professor Tim Lenton, of UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences.
"We found that some geoengineering options could usefully complement mitigation, and together they could cool the climate, but geoengineering alone cannot solve the climate problem," said Lenton.
Additionally, researchers acknowledged “the beneficial effects of some geo-engineering schemes have been exaggerated in the past and significant errors made in previous calculations.”
In a previous study in April 2008, Simone Tilmes of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and colleagues studied the effects of a widely discussed idea by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and other researchers to regularly inject large amounts of Sun-blocking sulfate particles into the stratosphere.
Sulfur particles from volcanic eruptions have shown a reduction in the surface temperatures of the Earth, however Tilmes said more time is needed to plan before action is taken.
"Our research indicates that trying to artificially cool off the planet could have perilous side effects," said Tilmes. "While climate change is a major threat, more research is required before society attempts global geoengineering solutions."
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On the Net:
- White House
- National Academy of Science
- American Meteorological Society
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions
- University of East Anglia
- National Center for Atmospheric Research
Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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User Comments (6)
| 6. |
Posted by Commander on 04/09/2009, 04:49 This is one among the many insane and improbable eco-nitwit policies of the Obama debacle. The end result of course will be failure as the ability of mankind, even with the leadership of the anointed Messiah, cannot alter global climate but only create insignificant and unpredictable changes in localized areas, if at all. Of course the massive expenditure of money based on this junk science nonsense and horribly misunderstood Earth, space, and atmospheric sciences will only have the result of further depleting US treasury revenues, making the American and global taxpayer even poorer, while vastly enriching the pockets of political elites and phonies based on yet more pseudo-scientific environmental alarmism; a moral crime and a massive scam. In the end, the immeasurable astronomical forces of the Earth, Sun, and solar system that utterly and completely dwarfs any and all hubristic attempts by an insignificant mankind to alter it, remains unmoved. It is we who are at the mercy of these inconceivable forces, not the other way around. |
| 5. |
Posted by Brian Jackson on 04/09/2009, 01:20 It seems that no one addresses the issue which is that the poles are the key and removing the gases is the correct approach not dumping something else. Current technology exists to remove the problem gases above the polar areas and do it at the 60,000 feet level by molecular disruption. Read about it at http://technostrat.blogspot.com |
| 4. |
Posted by Chevy Nova on 04/08/2009, 18:03 You can try all you want, but the Geo was a lead sink from the start, and no amount of engineering is going to make it work. |
| 3. |
Posted by JSE on 04/08/2009, 17:25 It appears that governments are willing to consider any idea, no matter how drastic, rather than acknowledge the real problem. It's not our technologies, it's the sheer number of human beings on the planet that are leading to wholesale destruction of habitat and massive pollution. Unless we deal with this probem directly, honestly and quickly, all other attempts to grapple with global warming will be exercises in futility. |
| 2. |
Posted by Andrew Maynard on 04/08/2009, 16:35 Back in January, I asked the question “Does geoengineering need a dose of geoethics?“ (http://2020science.org/2009/04/08/geoengineering-goes-mainstream/) I cautiously suggested it might be a good idea, before things move along too far. But discussions around geoengineering are now moving so fast that I would say deep and inclusive discussions of what is right and what is appropriate are essential, and needed urgently. The problem here is not so much that geoengineering is a bad idea, but that there is an awful lot that could go horribly wrong. |
| 1. |
Posted by soulofliberty on 04/08/2009, 14:26 there already doing this... google "chemtrails". They spray every week in Albuquerque NM. Want PROOF? EVIDENCE? here ya go: http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulofliberty/ |
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