Scientists are raising the alarm about a cure that could be worse than the disease.
How far would you go to fix climate change?
We all know (even the politicians who pretend not to) that we’re staring down an oncoming freight train of disaster, with extreme weather events already proliferating and a lot more havoc and global health problems on the way if we sit on our hands.
But should we forget about trying to mitigate emissions and just pump tonnes of particles into the stratosphere to scatter the sunlight?
The Back Page has been having quiet nightmares about this proposed “solar geoengineering” since becoming aware of it a bit over a decade ago.
It plays out in our inexpert mind as an apocalyptic drama from the makers of What could possibly go wrong?, Ok we weren’t to know that would happen and Whose &*^#ing idea was this anyway?, with Sinister Rogue Government figures hiding from the consequences of their actions in luxurious bunkers while gangs rove the torn landscape under permanently blackened skies.
Dimming the sun seems like such an obviously terrible idea – let alone impossible to get consensus on – that it’s unnerving to know there’s been a steady drumbeat of science and calls to make it a serious policy option.
So this month’s call for an International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Engineering published in WIREs: Climate Change comes as a relief, even if it is a little light-on with a mere 60 signatories.
Led by Frank Biermann of the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University, the authors argue “against this increasing normalisation of solar geoengineering as a speculative part of the climate policy portfolio”.
This sort of planetary tinkering would, they say, 1) lead to all sorts of unpredictable effects on weather patterns, agriculture and access to food and water; 2) end any incentive to decarbonise; and 3) be completely ungovernable in the current international political system.
The geopolitics of solar geoengineering in our present setup are “complex and frightening”, they say, with some understatement.
“Given the anticipated low monetary costs of some of these technologies, there is a risk that a few powerful countries would engage in solar geoengineering unilaterally or in small coalitions even when a majority of countries oppose such deployment,” they say.
Previous studies have shown that a layer of global sunblock would disrupt monsoons in Asia and Africa, potentially deranging the lives of some two billion people.
The rich countries most capable of deploying the technology, the authors say, would be unlikely to cede any control to the poor countries most likely to suffer the unintended consequences.
“Solar geoengineering is not necessary. Neither is it desirable, ethical, or politically governable in the current context. With the normalisation of solar geoengineering research moving on with rapid speed, a strong political message to block these technologies is needed. And this message must come soon.”
Nicely put. Now can we go back to letting the real experts write the bonkers science fiction plotlines please?
If you see something that blocks your sunlight, deploy it towards felicity@medicalrepublic.com.au
