First, in the 6th paragraph you say troposphere instead of stratosphere.
More seriously, the complacency argument against intervention is becoming weaker and weaker. The cost of solar and wind is becoming the least expensive source of electricity and becoming the leading investment. The idea that the world will go back to coal seems illogical as it, in the US costs about three times as much as wind and solar and that factor is growing as the cost of solar and wind drop below eve natural gas. What we need to do is to help encourage this transition. California is doing it, for example, by building transmission lines from locations where sunlight harvesting with solar can be very cost effective to the main transmission lines and this is attracting all sorts of private sector investment in solar (in Google Earth, check just to the west of Antelope Valley, California to see where a few billion for a transmission line has led to of order 20 times as much investment in building solar). As Sandy MacDonald made clear in his oped in The Hill (see https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/5114155-us-energy-revolution-supergrid/), what would really help our energy conversion is a high-voltage direct current national network (and a book he is writing urges that for every continent). The profit motive can convincingly overcome regression to fossil fuels if we help it in the right way, and if this is done, then the real moral hazard of geoengineering is not doing it to save all the lives and damage from extreme events (drenching rains and intolerable heat waves) and the commitments to a much higher sea level and thawing of permafrost and all the carbon dioxide and or methane that will be reduced. I would really urge your reconsideration of climate intervention--sure it is not a solution in itself and I am all for more aggressive mitigation and helping that along, but I think the metaphor of a tourniquet is better than a bandaid (even a slightly flawed tourniquet would be better than bleeding to death).
Good catch on paragraph six; fixed that. I agree that clean energy is becoming cheaper, but we are also picking the low hanging fruits of decarbonization today. Long distance transport, industrial heat, buildings, etc. will all be harder and more expensive than grids.
With abundant cheap solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable energy, this will make a lot possible, like making hydrogen or similar liquid fuel for long distance transport, industrial heat, heating buildings where heat pumps aren't viable, etc. The grid will also enable access to storage of all types, batteries, caverns, pumped storage, wherever it exists and is least expensive--and the grid and storage can allow whatever nuclear there is to run at steady state, which is most efficient. And making hydrogen, desalinating seawater, and other uses can be done at times when there is overabundance of energy and/or power is least expensive. Biden's plan was to green the existing grid--building a high-voltage direct current national network starting with some key links is what is needed to green the whole US economy and we need to get going on it. And fixing the grid, as China and Europe are already starting to do, is essential if the US is to be competitive in the 21st century world--there are many non-climate change related reasons to do it now (it would be more secure, more reliable as well as supply lower cost electricity for the country)--national decarbonization would be a side benefit were there a comprehensive analysis of how to best ensure the international role of the US in the 21st century.
"Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) ... does not stop other impacts of atmospheric CO2 accumulation like ocean acidification."
----
Oceans are, like, really really big (totally!), and it's estimated that the pre-industrial (1700) oceans measured a pH* of ~8.2, while today they are at ~8.1. The Great Dying extinction** (Permian→Triassic) saw the ocean pH lowered around 0.7 over 10,000 years.
"Acidic oceans linked to greatest extinction ever"
I think the most compelling arguments for it are 1) just how long elevated temperatures will be with us. If we wind up at 2.5 degrees above pre industrial levels, it will be hundreds of years until it cools back down. If we all agree that would be a bad outcome, geoengineering will be able to keep the planet cooler (until we can remove the CO2 as you say). 2) tipping points. If we can cool the planet and stop the ice caps melting, that would also be very beneficial.
Both of these outweigh any moral hazard arguments IMO, which I just don't find that convincing given the trends in solar + storage. By the time we deploy geoengineering, the tools we have to cut emissions will be well on their way to doing so (if not quite as fast as we would e).
I am intrigued by the proposal to conduct limited geoengineering for a few reasons. One that I haven't heard yet is the opportunity to see whether the tests would encourage continued high rates of CO2 uptake by the ocean. Currently, the ocean absorbs CO2 at rates that are directly proportional to atmospheric levels -- with a high r-squared term -- so one should expect to see this continue even as we reach "peak anthropogenic CO2 emissions", which could be any year now.
(By the way, the IEA has pointed out that the reason that we have been "bending the CO2 emissions curve" over the past 10+ years is that we are learning to reduce the cost of modular, low-carbon technologies, like heat pumps, fuel cells and photovoltaics... so that when built in sufficiently large numbers, they become economically-preferable to older, fossil energy technologies that were dependent on economies of scale.)
Another thought concerns the extent to which geolocation and timing matter. For example, would stratospheric sulfur injection in the northern hemisphere polar region, during spring and summer, help preserve polar ice (including Greenland's glaciers, which also suffer from seasonal feedback loops)?
A few years of solar geoengineering seems like an opportunity to briefly limit warming, develop a greater understanding of ocean uptake (including limitations of the biological carbon pump) and perhaps see whether we can influence the loss of polar ice.
The analysis presented makes sense in the abstract, but in the real world the risks are enormous and probably uncontrollable. The implicit assumption here is that rational, ethical government actors -- who understand and respect science and the rule of law, and who prioritize global well-being over narrowly perceived self-interest -- will collectively control decision-making about deployment of, and limits on, SAI. Unfortunately, based on history and the daily news, we have every reason to think that will not be the case. Small-scale rogue actors are one legitimate worry; but powerful countries with rogue leaders are a larger, more dangerous, and more intractable concern.
Limiting cooling from geoengineering to avoid weather event effects is a necessity; that means it cannot have a major impact on warming, but only a smaller one. I believe that having ships (and planes?) spray saltwater or other chemicals to raise small, local cloud reflectivity can be helpful and not too expensive while avoiding climatilogical horrors. Do you agree?
This is an important question - thanks for addressing it in public forums. If we go ahead with it, who’s “we?” Should the US do it alone? China? Russia? The UN (imagine the howls against “world government”)? How do we keep track of how much sulfur is injected? The same questions probably apply more or less to any other mitigation strategy.
Thanks for this post! I think this is an important discussion to have. In the last post on my own blog I also highlighted stratospheric aerosol injections and how they might interact with something like nuclear winter, might be worth also checking out if the topic is of interest: https://existentialcrunch.substack.com/p/manipulating-the-global-thermostat
First, in the 6th paragraph you say troposphere instead of stratosphere.
More seriously, the complacency argument against intervention is becoming weaker and weaker. The cost of solar and wind is becoming the least expensive source of electricity and becoming the leading investment. The idea that the world will go back to coal seems illogical as it, in the US costs about three times as much as wind and solar and that factor is growing as the cost of solar and wind drop below eve natural gas. What we need to do is to help encourage this transition. California is doing it, for example, by building transmission lines from locations where sunlight harvesting with solar can be very cost effective to the main transmission lines and this is attracting all sorts of private sector investment in solar (in Google Earth, check just to the west of Antelope Valley, California to see where a few billion for a transmission line has led to of order 20 times as much investment in building solar). As Sandy MacDonald made clear in his oped in The Hill (see https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/5114155-us-energy-revolution-supergrid/), what would really help our energy conversion is a high-voltage direct current national network (and a book he is writing urges that for every continent). The profit motive can convincingly overcome regression to fossil fuels if we help it in the right way, and if this is done, then the real moral hazard of geoengineering is not doing it to save all the lives and damage from extreme events (drenching rains and intolerable heat waves) and the commitments to a much higher sea level and thawing of permafrost and all the carbon dioxide and or methane that will be reduced. I would really urge your reconsideration of climate intervention--sure it is not a solution in itself and I am all for more aggressive mitigation and helping that along, but I think the metaphor of a tourniquet is better than a bandaid (even a slightly flawed tourniquet would be better than bleeding to death).
Good catch on paragraph six; fixed that. I agree that clean energy is becoming cheaper, but we are also picking the low hanging fruits of decarbonization today. Long distance transport, industrial heat, buildings, etc. will all be harder and more expensive than grids.
With abundant cheap solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable energy, this will make a lot possible, like making hydrogen or similar liquid fuel for long distance transport, industrial heat, heating buildings where heat pumps aren't viable, etc. The grid will also enable access to storage of all types, batteries, caverns, pumped storage, wherever it exists and is least expensive--and the grid and storage can allow whatever nuclear there is to run at steady state, which is most efficient. And making hydrogen, desalinating seawater, and other uses can be done at times when there is overabundance of energy and/or power is least expensive. Biden's plan was to green the existing grid--building a high-voltage direct current national network starting with some key links is what is needed to green the whole US economy and we need to get going on it. And fixing the grid, as China and Europe are already starting to do, is essential if the US is to be competitive in the 21st century world--there are many non-climate change related reasons to do it now (it would be more secure, more reliable as well as supply lower cost electricity for the country)--national decarbonization would be a side benefit were there a comprehensive analysis of how to best ensure the international role of the US in the 21st century.
Zeke, I like your novel approach of proposal stage after implementation.
"Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) ... does not stop other impacts of atmospheric CO2 accumulation like ocean acidification."
----
Oceans are, like, really really big (totally!), and it's estimated that the pre-industrial (1700) oceans measured a pH* of ~8.2, while today they are at ~8.1. The Great Dying extinction** (Permian→Triassic) saw the ocean pH lowered around 0.7 over 10,000 years.
"Acidic oceans linked to greatest extinction ever"
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.17276
________________
*Unlike scientists, normal people have trouble wrapping their heads around logarithmic scales, but give it a try in this case.
**That was about 50 million years before the early mammals got a noticeable foothold.
I think the most compelling arguments for it are 1) just how long elevated temperatures will be with us. If we wind up at 2.5 degrees above pre industrial levels, it will be hundreds of years until it cools back down. If we all agree that would be a bad outcome, geoengineering will be able to keep the planet cooler (until we can remove the CO2 as you say). 2) tipping points. If we can cool the planet and stop the ice caps melting, that would also be very beneficial.
Both of these outweigh any moral hazard arguments IMO, which I just don't find that convincing given the trends in solar + storage. By the time we deploy geoengineering, the tools we have to cut emissions will be well on their way to doing so (if not quite as fast as we would e).
I am intrigued by the proposal to conduct limited geoengineering for a few reasons. One that I haven't heard yet is the opportunity to see whether the tests would encourage continued high rates of CO2 uptake by the ocean. Currently, the ocean absorbs CO2 at rates that are directly proportional to atmospheric levels -- with a high r-squared term -- so one should expect to see this continue even as we reach "peak anthropogenic CO2 emissions", which could be any year now.
(By the way, the IEA has pointed out that the reason that we have been "bending the CO2 emissions curve" over the past 10+ years is that we are learning to reduce the cost of modular, low-carbon technologies, like heat pumps, fuel cells and photovoltaics... so that when built in sufficiently large numbers, they become economically-preferable to older, fossil energy technologies that were dependent on economies of scale.)
Another thought concerns the extent to which geolocation and timing matter. For example, would stratospheric sulfur injection in the northern hemisphere polar region, during spring and summer, help preserve polar ice (including Greenland's glaciers, which also suffer from seasonal feedback loops)?
A few years of solar geoengineering seems like an opportunity to briefly limit warming, develop a greater understanding of ocean uptake (including limitations of the biological carbon pump) and perhaps see whether we can influence the loss of polar ice.
The analysis presented makes sense in the abstract, but in the real world the risks are enormous and probably uncontrollable. The implicit assumption here is that rational, ethical government actors -- who understand and respect science and the rule of law, and who prioritize global well-being over narrowly perceived self-interest -- will collectively control decision-making about deployment of, and limits on, SAI. Unfortunately, based on history and the daily news, we have every reason to think that will not be the case. Small-scale rogue actors are one legitimate worry; but powerful countries with rogue leaders are a larger, more dangerous, and more intractable concern.
Limiting cooling from geoengineering to avoid weather event effects is a necessity; that means it cannot have a major impact on warming, but only a smaller one. I believe that having ships (and planes?) spray saltwater or other chemicals to raise small, local cloud reflectivity can be helpful and not too expensive while avoiding climatilogical horrors. Do you agree?
This is an important question - thanks for addressing it in public forums. If we go ahead with it, who’s “we?” Should the US do it alone? China? Russia? The UN (imagine the howls against “world government”)? How do we keep track of how much sulfur is injected? The same questions probably apply more or less to any other mitigation strategy.
Thanks for this post! I think this is an important discussion to have. In the last post on my own blog I also highlighted stratospheric aerosol injections and how they might interact with something like nuclear winter, might be worth also checking out if the topic is of interest: https://existentialcrunch.substack.com/p/manipulating-the-global-thermostat
I believe Kim Stanley Robinson used this as part of the plot of Ministry of the Future.
He did, after a heat wave in India killed millions. Though the scenario he envisioned was not quite as narrowly bounded.