Climate
change has become a household issue nowadays. With the raising global
temperature, causing virulent variation in weather patterns compared from the
past and increasing sea level, climate change has become evident, most
especially in communities and countries situated along coastal areas. Climate
change has been blamed for the intensification of typhoons, longer drought, and
desertification of some areas. It affects billions of people around the globe,
causing inestimable damages to properties and loss of lives. It is so
harmfulthat its issue has been brought to various global forums
for discussions. Though some quarters of scientists and skeptics denies it
existence and relevance to the changes in weather patterns, Climate change has
been blamed by the majority of scientists and observers analyzing these various
calamities that visited numbers of communities and countries. Considering these
situations and their connections to climate change, scientists today propose
mitigating measures on how man can deal with climate change. One of these
measures is geoengineering.
Climate
change is the modification of the typical climate of the Earth. Each region and
countries in the world has a distinctive climate, that is the averaged weather
in a particular region. Philippines, for example, has a typical dry and wet
climate. Climate change happens when this typical climates in various regions
deviate from their ‘normal’ weather systems. Change may take place through an
increase or decrease of usual rainfall, or change in warmness or coldness in a
place in a given season. In a global scale, the Earth too suffers from climate
change as the overall temperature of the Earth changes, or the change in the
precipitation patterns.[1]
Change in the Earth’s climate occurs naturally. In the past, the Earth’s
climate had gone from cold to warm. These changes took place slowly, happening
in span of millennia. But in recent times, scientists observed that the Earth’s
climate changes in a drastic way, increasing by one degree Fahrenheit in the
past 100 years. What could be the cause of this change? NASA states that:
Some causes of climate change are natural.
These include changes in Earth's orbit and in the amount of energy coming from
the sun. Ocean changes and volcanic eruptions are also natural causes of
climate change. Most scientists think that recent warming can't be explained by
nature alone. Most scientists say it's very likely that most of the warming
since the mid-1900s is due to the burning of coal, oil and gas. Burning these
fuels is how we produce most of the energy that we use every day. This burning
adds heat-trapping gases, such as carbon dioxide, into the air. These gases are
called greenhouse gases.[2]
In
a more vivid and picturesque way, one can say that through climate change, the
Earth is heat-up by the Sun due to the heat trapped on the Earth surface; heat
blocked by greenhouse gases from bouncing back to the outer space. The
greenhouse gases serve as blankets of the Earth, heating it up through the
Sun’s heats. The trapped heat on the surface of the causes the melting of snow
and ice caps in the North, rise in the sea level, causing floods through
stronger typhoons and hurricanes, droughts and heat waves.
Though
some scientists and observers would opine otherwise, the fact of climate change
is evidently manifested through numerous signs one can see in climatic
phenomena in recent times. The global temperature has risen by 1.4 degree
Fahrenheit and is expected to increase by two (2) to eleven degrees over the next
century. Though the change seems to be little, this can proved to be lethal as
it can trigger dangerous shift in climate patterns. The United States
Environmental Protection Agency has this to say:
The evidence is clear. Rising global
temperatures have been accompanied by changes in weather and climate. Many
places have seen changes in rainfall, resulting in more floods, droughts, or
intense rain, as well as more frequent and severe heat waves. The planet's
oceans and glaciers have also experienced some big changes - oceans are warming
and becoming more acidic, ice caps are melting, and sea levels are rising. As
these and other changes become more pronounced in the coming decades, they will
likely present challenges to our society and our environment.[3]
The
change that is taking place on the Earth’s climate is primarily rooted in man’s
various activities in the past centuries, starting from the era of
Industrialization. Human activities release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere. This is through the burning of fossil fuel by energy
plants, factories, automobiles and other machines. Deforestations, industrial
processes and agricultural activities contribute too to the release of
greenhouse gases. These gases placed in the Earth’s atmosphere prevents the sun
light from springing back to the space
outside the earth. Though this phenomenon maybe natural, the excessive
building-up of greenhouse gases deposits on the Earth’s atmosphere and the
trapping of excessive heat causes the extreme change in the earth’s climate.
The
ascertained fact of climate change caused by man pushed scientist and
researchers to look for viable solution to prevent the continuing increase in
global temperature, and avoid its catastrophic effects. Geoengineering is one
of the solutions tendered. It contests that through this technology the change
in earth’s climate may be hauled down.
Geoengineering
primarily deals with the man’s enhancement of nature to mitigate the progress
of climate change. It is the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s
natural systems to counteract climate change.[4] As
mentioned above, the primary cause of change in climate is due to the heat
trapped by the excessive greenhouse gases on Earth’s atmosphere. Geoengineering
attempts to address the problem of excessive greenhouse gases deposit on the
Earth’s atmosphere. This technology
proposes two ways through which this goal can be realized, namely Solar Radiation Management (SRM) or Solar
Geoengineering and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) or Carbon Geoengineering.
Solar
Radiation Management (SRM) or Solar Geoengineering is the pumping of sulfates
into the atmosphere. The pumped sulfates can then serve as the earth’s shield
from the heat of the Sun. The layers of sulfates on Earth’s atmosphere can
prevent the entry of excessive heat coming from the Sun. Solar Geoengineering
is based on the investigations on the effects of the 1991 eruption of Mt.
Pinatubo. The eruption released 20 million tons of sulfur that were dispersed around the globe’s atmosphere. This phenomenon
shield the Earth from the heat of the Sun. It caused the drop of global
temperature to less than one(1) Fahrenheit for one whole year. This phenomenon
is seen as antidote to the climate change, to the warming of earth’s surface.
Scientists, led by David Keith, propose the simulation of the same event in a
global scale, aimed to shield the earth from the harmful rays of the Sun.
Nicola Jones describes the processes as follows:
A fleet of ten Gulf stream jets could be used
to annually inject 25,000 tons of sulfur — as finely dispersed sulfuric acid,
for example — into the lower stratosphere. That would be ramped up to a million
tons of sulfur per year by 2070, in order to counter about half of the world’s
warming from greenhouse gases. The idea is to combine such a scheme with
emissions cuts, and keep it running for about twice as long as it takes for CO2
concentrations in the atmosphere to level out. [5]
Through the solar engineering, the entry
of the Sun’s rays would be mitigated. Keith projects that the Earth would
warm-up to one degree Celsius, instead of two degrees at the end of the
century.
Carbon
Dioxide Removal (CDR) or Carbon Geoengineering, as the archetypal definition of
geoengineering, is designed to interfere to Earth’s climatic system at present,
particularly dealing with the reduction of greenhouse gases. It would realize
such end by removing, capturing and storing carbon dioxide from the Earth’s
atmosphere to underground and underwater repositories. The CDR technology can
be fulfilled either through land-based method, or ocean-based method. The
land-based method involves carbon filtration systems directed to the ground
storage. The ocean-based method employs
the use of substances such as iron, nitrogen and phosphorus to fertilize the
ocean surface. The fertilization of ocean surface will encourage the growth of
algae that would feed on carbon dioxide in the ocean and eventually in the
atmosphere.[6]
Through the reduction and eventual removal of Carbon Dioxide and other
dangerous greenhouse gases, the heat coming from the Sun can freely bounce back
to the outer space. Thus, such process can drastically alleviate the warming of
the globe, albeit it would take a lot of time and resources before the process’
effects can be felt.
Geoengineering
promises a fix to the worsening climate change, through Solar Radiation
Management (SRM) or Solar Geoengineering and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) or
Carbon Geoengineering. Both aims to reduce the amount global temperature either
by limiting the entry of searing heat of the sun, or by removing the
suffocating carbon dioxide deposit on Earth’s atmosphere. However, both
mitigating measures face ethical questions as they are on the verge of full-blown
development.
These
Geoengineering technologies may be good in their known intent and motives; that
is the mitigation of climate change. However, the means they intend to use to
reach such end istainted with ethical questions that stand against the
advancement of these technologies and their subsequent application.
The
extent of research done in SRM and CDR is questioned. The extent of research
would indicate the extent of knowledge about them, particularly their
consequences, should they be applied. Plenty of questions are raised on the
SRM. How small would the sulfuric particles be? Would they be so small that
they might be inhaled human? Would these particles not add-up to the air pollutants
that at present pester various mega-cities around the globe? Who would determine the world’s ‘thermostat’?
Would such issue on the world’s ‘thermostat’ not ignite conflicts between
powerful nations? Does geoengineering would real address the root causes of the
problem of climate change, or would it simply cure the symptoms of a greater
problem?
Through
these barrage of questions, one would realize that it is not only the means
that geoengineering would employ that is questionable. Even the end and the
very problem it would like to address prove to be problematic and irrelevant to
the real situation of man. Why should one focus on alleviating the symptoms
instead of curing directly a curable disease? Why should one focus on
mitigating the effects of climate change when one should pay attention on its
primary cause? Why is there excessive carbon deposit in the atmosphere and
other greenhouse gases? Why is there too much and too rapid industrialization?
Why is there so much greed and consumerism in world politics andeconomy? How
does man view and understand the earth where he lived in, in relation with him?
Why is there rampant disregard on man’s integral connection with the entire
cosmos?Geoengineeringis manifestations of man’s avoidance of the real problem
that is at hand; rapid ethically-unscrutinized technological progress.
Research
and knowledge about geoengineering is limited at present. As discussed above
the extent of information know about this technology is limited, particular on the
consequences of the release of sulfate aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Though research and studies continue, they have to be done in a pre-cautionary
manner, guided by the ethical approach paripassu. Geoengineering may be the
solution to the changing global climate, but let it not be a technological fix
that would only beget another problem in the near future.
Geoengineering,
should it be implemented, would only encourage the continuation and progress of
ill practices that contribute to the increase of greenhouse gases deposit on
Earth’s atmosphere; the generation of energy through burning of fossil fuels
and operations of coal plants, unlimited mining and drilling of resources.
After all, why should man trim-down his carbon emission if he can be shielded
from the heat of the Sun? Trimming-down one’s carbon emission has a great
detrimental repercussion in the economic order, as major industries are
dependent on fossil fuels and coals. Geoengineering can possibly tolerate the
ill practices of man in relation to climate change as it guarantees man with a
protection from the harmful heat of the Sun. This technology can only serve as
a fertile ground to further grow consumerism and economic greed.
Though
man is the center of every development and technology, he must not be viewed
separately from the entire cosmos. Man is a part of the cosmos. However, he is
not the be all and end all of the created reality. Thus, development in this
world must not only geared towards man’s well being but should also include
that of the environment and of the future generations. Man’s anthropocentric worldview
had brought this world to its present dismal state, with climate change as one
of its consequences. In dealing with climate change, plans should consider the
environmental impacts that man’s technology would be introducing, and the
consequences it stores for the generations that are to come. Plans have to be
environmental and intergenerational.
The
climate change is a real problem that man faces today. Geoengineering poses as
a prospective solution to this pressing problem. But a closer look to the
present state of research in this technology, it can only prove itself, for
now, as a technological fix that can beget another problem. Tracing the root
cause of climate change and addressing such can be a more viable solution in
dealing with it; rapid unethical technological progress propelled by man’s
greed and consumerist mindset. Climate change has to be addressed holistically,
involving the environmental component in an intergenerational plan. This can be
a long and slow process, compared to the instant fix that geonengineering
offers. But this plan can prove to be more effective and viable at it address
the very root cause of the problem; man’s anthropocentric attitude towards this
world.
[1]What
Are Climate and Climate Change? Accessed from https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/what-is-climate-change-58.html#.VYZWqWSqqko
on June 21, 2015.
[2]What
Are Climate and Climate Change? Accessed from https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/what-is-climate-change-58.html#.VYZWqWSqqko
on June 21, 2015.
[3]Climate
Change: Basic Information Accessed from http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/basics/
on June 21, 2015.
[4]What
Is Geoengineering? Accessed from http://www.geoengineering.ox.ac.uk/what-is-geoengineering/what-is-geoengineering/
on June 21, 2015.
[5]Nicola
Jones, Solar Geoengineering: Weighing Costs of Blocking the Sun’s Rays,
accessed from http://e360.yale.edu/feature/solar_geoengineering_weighing_costs_of_blocking_the_suns_rays/2727/
on June 21, 2015.
[6]
Phil Anderson, CarbonDioxideRemoval, accessed from http://www.thecarbontree.com/geoengineering-part-4-carbon-dioxide-removal/
on June 21, 2015.
