Geoengineering Megaprojects are Bad Planetary Management  

Alex Steffen at WorldChanging has a post on geoengineering, declaring large scale geoengineering projects "bad planetary management" given that there are better and less dangerous ways of avoiding global warming - Geoengineering Megaprojects are Bad Planetary Management.

There is some interesting discussion betwen Alex and long-time observer of geoengineering proposals Jamais Cascio in the comments which is worth a read.

Mega-project geoengineering proponents love to set up the following argument:

1) Climate change is real and worse than we thought.
2) Humanity will not or cannot reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, or will not or cannot reduce them enough in time to stave off catastrophe.
3) Therefore, we need to find other approaches to lowering the planet's temperature and/or pulling greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere and the best way to do this is through mega-scale geoengineering.
4) Anyone who opposes this argument is unrealistic and afraid of the adult responsibilities of planetary management and will lead us over the cliff into runaway climate change.

It's a brilliant political argument, raising a threat and then making those who oppose your response to that threat part of the threat itself.

The biggest problem with it as a policy argument is that it's riddled with inconsistencies, false assumptions and half-truths. Let's go through the argument and the bright green response:

1) Climate change is real and worse than we thought.

No disagreement here, though it's worth noting that many of those now calling for a "broader debate" about geoengineering are the same people who spent much of the last two decades denying that climate change was happening and who still seek to benefit from inaction: the sudden interest of coal and oil companies and the American right wing in geoengineering ought to, in and of itself, make us suspicious of the role it's playing in the climate change debate.

2) Humanity will not or cannot reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, or will not or cannot reduce them enough in time to stave off catastrophe.

This, of course, is a classic politics of impossibility argument.

The reality is that we know that zero greenhouse gas emissions ought to be our goal, and that goal is largely achievable already, with technologies and designs that are within our grasp, and that, indeed, many of the kinds of land-use and design changes a climate-neutral society would demand would in fact increase real prosperity and quality of life. We shouldn't discount the massive amount of work involved, but nothing in that work itself is itself impossible, and all of us will benefit greatly (especially compared to the alternatives).

Tackling climate change is a political problem. The question is not can we tackle climate change, but will we, and problems of political will are entirely subject to human intervention.

Indeed, one of the biggest problems with advocating for mega-scale geoengineering is that it is already being used in the debate as an alternative to greenhouse gas reduction targets -- so much so that the U.K. government felt compelled to explicitly declare that geoengineering was not such an alternative.

What is more, the proper deployment of geoengineering megaprojects would have to be executed through precisely such the kind of international political process of which the megaproject crowd despair, and be subject to just as many delays and constraints as any other international negotiation. Unilateral mega-scale geoengineering on the part of any one nation (much less any one corporation) is pretty much as close to an obvious cause for war as I can imagine, and, given the possible consequences, quite likely could legally qualify as a crime against humanity. There's no short-cut through the politics here.

3) Therefore, we need to find other approaches to lowering the planet's temperature and/or pulling greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere and the best way to do this is through mega-scale geoengineering.

Here's where the problems start multiplying.

First, in order for this point to have any validity, geoengineering mega-projects would have to work. So far, we have no proof that any of them actually would work, and numerous reasons to believe that many of them could go disastrously awry.

For instance, various schemes have been proposed to lower the temperature of the planet, by shooting massive clouds of small particulates into the upper atmosphere, or launching orbiting mirrors, or what have you. All of these schemes fail on two basic criteria, which is that they wouldn't reduce the actual amount of greenhouse gasses being pumped into the atmosphere, so not only would they have to be long-term plans (lest we risk a rebound effect) but they would do nothing to prevent other catastrophic consequences of greenhouse gas accumulation, especially ocean acidification.

Second, in order for us to find this point valid, geoengineering megaprojects would have to, in fact, be the best way to lower the planet's temperature and/or pull greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere. But we already know that the best way to cool the planet, even in the fairly short term, is to reduce emissions, and we have solid reasons to believe that megaprojects are a lousy way to do that.

The best way to lower the concentration of greenhouse gasses is, of course, not to emit them in the first place. This is a point that can't be made often enough. But once they're already in the atmosphere, the best way to remove them is almost certainly through the pursuit of a vast number of small-scale carbon fixing efforts: replanting forests, using adaptive restoration to get ecosystems stable and working again, using biomass to create biochar energy and then plowing the remaining carbon into the soil, and so on. We can become carbon-negative without biohacking kudzu or seeding ocean algae with millions of tons of iron.

Our goal should be to cool the planet in ways that reinforce and restore the resilience of its natural systems.

4) Anyone who opposes this argument is unrealistic and afraid of the adult responsibilities of planetary management and will lead us over the cliff into runaway climate change.

This is where geoengineering advocates seek to tar others with the brush of Luddism.

But the fact is that many of us have been advocating for planetary management for years -- indeed, the very first widely popular book about climate change was called The End of Nature and argued that we were now responsible for managing the planet.

Many of us oppose geoengineering megaprojects, not because we are afraid of science or technology (indeed, most bright green environmentalists believe you can't win this fight without much more science and technology), but because these kinds of megaprojects are bad planetary management.

It's bad planetary management to take big chances with a high probability of "epic fail" outcomes (like emptying the sea of life through ocean acidification). It's bad planetary management to build large, singular and brittle projects when small, multiple and resilient answers exist and will suffice if employed. It's bad planetary management to assume that this time -- unlike essentially every other large-scale intervention in natural systems in recorded history -- we'll get it right and pull it off without unintended consequences.

Geoengineering is bad planetary management. It doesn't make proponents bold, or visionary, or more committed to scientific progress. It just makes them proponents of a set of bad ideas. They are of course welcome to continue to advocate any ideas they choose, but they need to get over the idea that only they are visionary and bold enough to manage the planet.

The real planet managers are already hard at work on the real solutions, from clean energy and urban redesigns to climate adaptive restoration and binding international greenhouse gas agreements. We'd all better get behind the effort to make their success the new realism.