Soft Geoengineering: a Gentler Approach to Addressing Climate Change Robert L

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Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/venv20 Soft Geoengineering: A Gentler Approach to Addressing Climate Change Robert L. Olson a a Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) in Alexandria, Virginia Version of record first published: 10 Sep 2012.

To cite this article: Robert L. Olson (2012): Soft Geoengineering: A Gentler Approach to Addressing Climate Change, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 54:5, 29-39 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00139157.2012.711672

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A Gentler Approach to Addressing Climate Change iStockPhoto/Nihat Dursun iStockPhoto/Nihat Downloaded by [University of Edinburgh] at 09:03 13 September 2012

by Robert L. Olson

generation ago, the idea of scientific company and was verboten in mayed by government inaction, they engineering the climate to environmental circles.1 have concluded that geoengineering counteract global warm- In the past few years, however, sev- needs to be studied as a possible “in- ing was almost universally eral leading members of the scientific surance policy” or “Plan B” in case we dismissedA as misguided. Climate sci- community have changed their minds fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions entist David Keith recalls that when and decided that climate geoengineer- fast enough to prevent dangerous cli- he became interested in climate geo- ing deserves a second look. Concerned mate change.2 In just the past year, four engineering as a graduate student, the that global warming could reach a tip- organizations—the Royal Society in topic could hardly be discussed in polite ping point of runaway change and dis- the United Kingdom, the U.S. Govern-

SEptEmBEr/octoBEr 2012 www.EnvironmEntmagazinE.org EnvironmEnt 29 ment Accountability Office (GAO), the 5. Has multiple benefits, beyond There are a handful of approaches, Woodrow Wilson International Center impacts on climate however, that may meet all or most of for Scholars, and the Bipartisan Policy 6. Analogous to natural processes the “soft geoengineering” criteria. None Center—have released reports calling 7. Effects are large enough soon of the technologies described next are for research on geoengineering.3 enough to be worthwhile presented as ready for widespread use, This growing willingness to con- 8. Cost-effective with mature tech- but rather as deserving greater attention sider the use of climate geoengineer- nologies deployed at moderate and serious consideration. ing is provoking a strong counterre- scale action from some environmentalists. Most geoengineering technologies Friends of the Earth has dismissed the fair badly when judged by these crite- Bright Water most widely discussed idea—injecting ria, especially the more powerful “solar sulfate aerosol particles into the strato- radiation management” (SRM) methods The “deep blue sea” that covers sphere to reflect away some of the sun’s that cool the global climate by reflecting three-fourths of the earth’s surface radiation—as “mad, bad, and danger- solar radiation back into space. Most of absorbs solar heat like black asphalt. ous.”4 The Canadian environmental today’s controversy and criticism deals Though water is normally dark, adding group ETC Group successfully lobbied with potential impacts on ecosystems a tiny fraction of air can create a hydro- for a resolution by the UN Framework and society of SRM approaches, such as sol—a suspension of air bubbles—that Convention on Biological Diversity injecting aerosols into the stratosphere makes water brighter. Hydrosols are, in calling for a moratorium on most geo- or brightening clouds over the ocean by a sense, clouds turned inside out: Clouds engineering field experiments.5 lofting fine particles of salt in seawater. are aerosols of water drops too small to There are good reasons for cau- fall through the air, while hydrosols are tion. The use of stratospheric aerosols, clouds of air bubbles too small to rise for example, could have substantial The economics rapidly through water. They are almost impacts on regional precipitation and of hydrosol water optically identical. Both reflect solar river flows, including reductions in brightening depends energy by light scattering. some areas rivaling those of past major Russell Seitz, a Fellow of the Depart- droughts.6 Another key concern is that on the cost of ment of Physics at Harvard University, if politicians come to believe that geo- compressed air needed has proposed using “microbubbles” as engineering provides a low-cost “tech to generate and replace an SRM geoengineering method.10 Very fix” for climate change, it could give small (micrometer-sized) bubbles are them a perfect excuse to back off from microbubbles. extremely reflective and slow to dissi- efforts to cut emissions from burning pate. He calculates that one part per mil- fossil fuels.7 Another SRM approach, putting lion by volume of air in the form of mi- Despite these and many other rea- “sun shields” in near-Earth orbit or at crobubbles can double the reflectivity sons for caution, a sweeping rejection of a more distant point where the gravita- of water, and one kilogram (2.2 pounds) climate geoengineering may be unwise. tional pull of the earth and sun are equal, of air can brighten a square kilometer of There are many different kinds of geo- fails on every criterion. Increasing the water. Seitz envisions compressed air engineering technologies with very dif- reflectivity of large desert areas could lines running like submarine cables out ferent levels of risk, and some of them have moderately strong cooling effects, to offshore dispersion arrays and ships

Downloaded by [University of Edinburgh] at 09:03 13 September 2012 appear to have low or no significant but would have massive environmental earning carbon credits by laying hydro- negative impacts. impacts on the covered areas.8 sol wakes, which are dispersed for free A very different geoengineering by currents. He says simply brighten- method, “carbon dioxide removal” ing a large pond can have an equivalent Soft Geoengineering (CDR), cools the climate by removing effect to putting white roofs on 10,000 carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. buildings—for little more than the cost The following is a set of criteria for Most CDR methods pose comparatively of one roof.11 what might be called “soft geoengineer- low risks and have attracted compara- Unlike stratospheric aerosols, which ing” using technologies that touch gen- tively little criticism, with the excep- spread on a global scale, hydrosols can tly on biological and social systems. tion of an approach called ocean fer- be used locally. Seitz imagines water 1. Can be applied locally tilization, which risks disrupting ocean bodies like Galveston Bay or Chesa- 2. Scalable to larger areas ecosystems. But most CDR approaches peake Bay staying 5 degrees K cooler, 3. Low or no anticipated nega- have a fatal flaw: Their effects are not providing “outdoor air conditioning” tive impacts on ecosystems or large enough soon enough. To make a for Houston, Texas, and Baltimore, society significant difference they would have Maryland, and sharply reducing elec- 4. Rapid reversibility if problems to be used over several centuries—time tric power demand; or protecting coral do arise we do not have.9 reefs from the stress caused by rising

30 Environment www.environmentmagazine.org VOLUME 54 NUMBER 5 Leslie Field Dr. Leslie Field setting up tests of instrumentation and Ice911 materials on a lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

ocean temperatures; or focusing large- the water supply during the dry season could continuously brighten a 100 km scale bright water production on the and increasing river flow.12 stretch of river without any external en- Arctic Ocean in summer to minimize The economics of hydrosol water ergy input.13 ice melting. brightening depends on the cost of com- Many questions remain about the Brightening water is also a novel pressed air needed to generate and re- practicality and cost of this approach,

Downloaded by [University of Edinburgh] at 09:03 13 September 2012 way to reduce evaporation. Solar place microbubbles. That will depend in but a first look suggests that “bright evaporation is already a significant is- many locations on the cost of electricity, water” does meet the criteria for be- sue and global warming will make it but in virtually all hydropower reser- ing a promising soft geoengineering even bigger. California loses more than voirs and the rivers that feed them com- technology. 10% of its irrigation supply to evapora- pressed air can be generated at almost tion, Australia loses roughly 40%, and no cost by using inexpensive trompes countries in the Middle East lose more and ram pumps that operate without Ice911 than 50%. Evaporating water also con- electric motors using very low head centrates pollutants and reduces hy- hydropower. These water- powered de- High Northern Hemisphere latitudes dropower production. Seitz argues that vices are extremely simple - some have are undergoing rapid and significant micro-financed devices like a small no moving parts at all – and they have change associated with climate warm- wind turbine or solar-cell array can been used over many decades for other ing.14 This is most evident in the ac- run vortex microbubble generators to purposes. One such, the Ragged Chutes celerating melting of Arctic sea ice. reduce evaporation from village ponds trompe in Cobalt, Ontario, has been Light-colored ice and snow reflect in developing nations. The same thing continuously providing compressed air sunlight back into space, while darker can be done with larger scale technol- for mine ventilation for over 100 years. water absorbs more solar radiation, ogy in reservoirs and lakes, extending A trompe on the scale of Ragged Chutes heats, and emits long-wave radiation

September/October 2012 www.environmentmagazine.org environment 31 that is trapped by greenhouse gases and increases the earth’s temperature. As Figure 1: Topographic map of Greenland bedrock, in effect melting Arctic ice shrinks the size of the showing the topography without the extant ice sheet. polar ice cap, it exposes darker ocean surface, which absorbs more heat, melts more ice, and exposes more dark water in a self-amplifying process. Rapid change is also visible in the retreat of numerous glaciers around the world and the accelerating melting of Greenland’s ice sheets. Warming of the earth’s icy regions is arguably one of the most dangerous climate trends because of melting permafrost. Thawing permafrost releases methane, a greenhouse gas over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, which acts to further warm the climate and melt more permafrost. Vast quantities of methane are trapped within icy lattices of hydrogen bonds, known as hydrates or clathrates, which lie within the pores of sediments under the sea floor. The East Siberian Arctic continental shelf is the largest continental shelf on the planet, covering 2.1 million square kilometers, and the sea above it is just 50 meters deep on average. The seabed is covered by methane-rich permafrost that has remained frozen for thousands of years. If the protective cap of sea ice over the shallow water melts, the permafrost will warm and release the trapped methane.15 The Siberian Shelf is estimated to contain 1,400 billion tons of methane in gas hydrates, which is equivalent to nearly twice as much Commons/Skew-t Wikimedia carbon as is contained in all the trees,

Downloaded by [University of Edinburgh] at 09:03 13 September 2012 grasses, and flowers currently growing on the earth. If just a small percentage of this methane escapes into the atmo- established, but no releases on this scale water or areas in danger of melting. sphere over a few decades, it could trig- have been reported before.17 Ongoing experiments are evaluating ger abrupt and possibly irreversible cli- Because Arctic warming is such different materials with different opti- mate change.16 a critical issue, geoengineering ap- cal characteristics deployed in different It is worrisome, therefore, that in proaches able to target polar regions, sizes and shapes. The goal is to create 2011 a Russian research team survey- permafrost, and glaciers could be es- lightweight materials that are relatively ing the shallow seabed of the East Si- pecially important. Leslie Field, who easy to deploy, effective at protecting berian Arctic Shelf found more than founded and runs two technical con- ice and possibly nucleating new ice, a hundred “fountains”, or plumes, of sulting companies and is a Consulting and engineered to be floatable, wind methane bubbles, some of them a ki- Professor of Electrical Engineering at resistant, and easily removable and/or lometer wide, rising to the sea surface Stanford University, is developing one biodegradable.18 within a relatively small area near the such approach called Ice911. Her con- While the specific material and con- coast. The normal background level of cept involves placing a light-colored figuration are still being developed and methane activity in this area is not well (high albedo) covering material on open tested, the concept could include tens of

32 Environment www.environmentmagazine.org VOLUME 54 NUMBER 5 thousands of high-albedo disks roughly Figure 2: Top: Global average methane mixing ratios from the diameter of a hula hoop being rap- the GMD cooperative air sampling network. idly deployed by a fleet of helicopters Bottom: Global average growth rate for methane. as needed at key locations. They could be used to slow the release of methane on the Siberian Shelf, prevent rapid spring melting in mountain glaciers to ensure more predictable availability of drinking water, or act as floating, artifi- cial icecaps to reduce melting of Arctic sea ice or possibly aid in the formation of new ice. While uncertainty remains about the effectiveness of this approach, field tests over four seasons have gone a long way toward demonstrating its feasibility.19 Hashem Akbari and his colleagues at Concordia University in Canada recently used a global climate model to estimate how much cooling could be achieved over the long term by making roofs and pavements in urban areas more reflective. Using data on the size of urban areas from the Global Rural and Urban Mapping Project and es- timating that white roofs and brighter pavements could increase the albedo of urban areas by about 0.1, the scientists estimated that over a hundred years these efforts could lower global temperatures by up to 0.07 degrees C, equivalent to carbon dioxide emissions of 150 billion tons.20

NOAA Given that global temperatures could increase by several degrees Celsius over the next hundred years, this is not an impressive cooling effect. And it would require a substantial cost to achieve this relatively low impact. Looked at

Downloaded by [University of Edinburgh] at 09:03 13 September 2012 in another way, however, this approach could make economic sense. Akbari and his team estimate that an urban albedo increase of 0.1 would lead to air conditioning savings of about 20%, producing a saving of over $50 billion per year at current energy prices. The small cooling of the global climate could therefore be viewed as an added bonus to a strategy whose primary effect is to produce large savings in energy costs over the next century and beyond.21 Making urban areas more reflective would also make outdoor environments more com- Leslie Field fortable in many locations by reducing A sheet of reflective granular material for small-scale testing in the Ice911 project. the “urban heat island” effect.

September/October 2012 www.environmentmagazine.org environment 33 This approach has been recom- mended by several scientists, including Figure 3: The Arctic as observed by the Advanced Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and a Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) Global Cool Cities Alliance launched aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite on September 16, 2007. in 2010 with five founding city mem- The image shows a record sea ice minimum in the Arctic. bers (Athens, Chicago, New York City, Singapore, and Taipei) is dedicated to drawing 100 major world cities into efforts to increase the reflectance of their buildings and surfaces.22 However, other scientists have raised questions about the effectiveness of this approach. To what extent are the savings in air conditioning costs offset by a need for more heating in the winter? Could cooling cities reduce the amount of moisture and energy traveling up- ward to form clouds—which, in turn, could increase the amount of solar radiation reaching the ground and actually make the climate warmer?23 Cool Cities could qualify as a weak but worthwhile soft geoengineering method if further research on these questions demonstrates its effectiveness.

Direct Air Capture and Use NOAA

of CO2

While carbon dioxide (CO2) is a climate-threatening pollutant, it is also atmosphere might become a big busi- tration of carbon dioxide in ambient a valuable commodity with important ness. Of all the different approaches to air—lower than 400 parts per million—

industrial uses. If we could extract CO2 carbon dioxide removal, air capture by which makes direct air capture far more

from ambient air and use it for industrial mechanical systems could theoretically challenging than capturing CO2 from purposes, removing the gas from the be the fastest acting. A review of geo- a flue stack where the concentration is engineering technologies by the Royal approximately 120,000 parts per mil- Society concluded that there is no “ob- lion. Using existing technologies, the

vious limit” to the amount of CO2 that total energy required to capture a unit

Downloaded by [University of Edinburgh] at 09:03 13 September 2012 could be taken out of the atmosphere by of CO2 from air is such that if coal is 24 this method. used as the energy source, more CO2 There is no doubt that it is possible would be released to the environment Yoo Chung/Wikipedia Yoo to extract carbon dioxide from the at- than removed.25 mosphere by mechanical and chemical Recently, however, a growing num- means. Technology to remove carbon ber of entrepreneurs and investors have dioxide is used right now to keep the started betting that the conventional air breathable in submarines, on orbit- wisdom is wrong, launching startup ing spacecraft, and in the International companies focused on direct air cap- Space Station. Prototypes of direct air ture. Kilimanjaro Energy, a company capture machines have already been founded by Columbia University physi- successfully demonstrated. But most cist Klaus Lackner with initial funding people who have looked at air cap- by Gary Comer, the founder of Lands’ Santorini, Greece illustrates the “Cool ture doubt that it can be done cheaply End, was the first to take on this chal- Cities” concept, with light colored surfaces enough to be practical on a large scale. lenge.26 More recently, climate scientist to keep temperatures cooler. The main difficulty is the low concen- David Keith, with joint appointments at

34 Environment www.environmentmagazine.org VOLUME 54 NUMBER 5 Figure 4: Images of Salt Lake City, Utah, show positive correlation between white reflective roofs and cooler temperatures. Image A depicts an aerial view of Salt Lake City, Utah, site of a 865,000-square-foot (80,400 m2) white reflective roof. Image B is a thermal infrared image of same area, showing hot (red and yellow) and cool (green and blue) spots. The reflective vinyl roof, not absorbing solar radiation, is shown in blue surrounded by other hot spots.

A B NASA

Harvard’s Kennedy School and the Uni- Making more oil available for use is ob- els and petrochemicals. Then any loca- versity of Calgary, started Carbon En- viously not the most climate-friendly tion with access to water, sunlight, and gineering with financial backing from business strategy, but by some estimates air could become, in effect, a renewable Bill Gates and other well-to-do inves- oil produced this way would have a sig- carbon-neutral oil well.30 tors.27 Peter Eisenberger, former head of nificantly smaller carbon footprint than Air capture and the subsequent in-

research for Exxon and founder of Co- conventionally produced oil. dustrial use of CO2 appear to meet most

Downloaded by [University of Edinburgh] at 09:03 13 September 2012 lumbia University’s Earth Institute, has If selling to the oil industry makes it criteria for being a promising soft geo- joined with others in creating another possible to reduce costs as production engineering technology. Cost is the big startup, Global Thermostat.28 scales up, more sustainable market op- question mark. If startups like these can develop portunities could emerge. Companies technology that captures carbon dioxide making so-called “third-generation” at a cost of around $200 per ton, they algae-based biofuels will need large Soil Building

would have an initial market from oil quantities of CO2 to feed the algae.

companies that need CO2 for a process Combining air capture with algal bio- A few years ago the physicist Free- called enhanced oil recovery (EOR).29 fuels would make possible a carbon- man Dyson made the argument that

Conventional oil production actually neutral fuel system in which the CO2 dealing with climate change is primarily leaves a lot of oil in the ground. Inject- released when the fuel is burned is re- a matter of land management to build

ing liquefied CO2 into oil reservoirs can captured to make more biofuel. If solar- soil. He argued that while the amount force out much of this “stranded oil.” based systems for “splitting” water into of carbon that can be stored in living The main impediment right now to ex- hydrogen and oxygen become cheap plants and trees is limited, there is no

panding production from EOR is the enough, hydrogen and CO2 could be limit to the quantity that can be stored

lack of affordable CO2 in large volumes. combined to make various kinds of fu- in topsoil.

September/October 2012 www.environmentmagazine.org environment 35 puter simulations, but one component was an actual field experiment that in- volved spraying water into the air from a kilometer-long hose reaching from the ground to a large balloon. The experiment was environmentally harmless in itself, but critics dismissed it as a “Tro- jan Hose” designed to test a technology for injecting not-so-harmless aerosol particles into the stratosphere. The Canadian environmental group ETC took the lead in organizing concerned groups from around the world to call on people to sign an open letter asking the U.K. government and research councils to scrap the field test. In September 2011, a “stakeholder com-

Carbon Engineering mittee” appointed by the EPSRC told A rendering of the full scale air capture machine being developed by Carbon Engineering. the scientists working on SPICE that The prototypes developed so far are small sections of this larger unit. they needed to give more consideration to how the experiment should be ex- plained and justified to the public. The Dyson did calculations of the rate in soil for extended periods. Putting field test was postponed as a result.34 A of exchange between carbon in the at- biochar into soils sequesters the carbon further complication was a conflict of mosphere and carbon in the soil and and, at the same time, increases soil fer- interest situation over a patent appli- estimated that we could stop the carbon tility and raises agricultural productiv- cation for technology similar to what in the atmosphere from increasing by ity.33 Biochar’s potential contribution to would be used in the field test. In light increasing the biomass in the soil by carbon sequestration is comparatively of the patent controversy as well as the about a hundredth of an inch per year small, and questions remain about how wider issues raised by the stakeholder

averaged over the half of the earth’s long the captured CO2 in biochar will committee, Matt Watson, the director of land area that has soil. He argued that remain sequestered, but over the cen- the SPICE program, canceled the bal- a widespread shift to no-till farming tury ahead its use as a supplement to loon experiment in May 2012. would cause soil biomass to grow at other forms of soil building appears to The SPICE experience suggests that least this fast because reduced plow- be economically feasible and good for “geoengineering governance” is going ing means more of the biomass goes both the climate and the soil. to become an important area of envi- into plant roots, which then stay in the ronmental concern. It also demonstrates soil, building biomass. Breeding plants that critics of geoengineering can exert to have larger root systems could pro- Geoengineering Governance considerable influence. It is possible duce even faster topsoil growth.31 The that determined opposition can impose

Downloaded by [University of Edinburgh] at 09:03 13 September 2012 use of cover crops or “green manures” Geoengineering policy is beginning a de facto moratorium on geoengineer- also increases soil organic matter while to emerge as an important—and contro- ing field tests, at least in some parts of improving soil fertility and water re- versial—topic. During the past year the the world, similar to the way several na- tention and reducing weeds, pests, and highest profile SRM field experiment tions have rejected genetically modified diseases.32 Dyson’s calculation is some- yet proposed was halted by public pro- crops.

what out of date because annual CO2 test and controversy. The experiment Critics of the use of geoengineering emissions have been growing, but his was part of a program in the United technologies make a wide variety of basic argument is worth considering. Kingdom called Stratospheric Particle arguments. They warn that, given our Another soil building technique is to Injection for Climate Geoengineering limited understanding of complex geo- use biochar as a soil amendment. Bio- (SPICE), which is financed mainly by physical and biological systems, there char is a fancy name for charcoal, which Britain’s Engineering and Physical Sci- is a high likelihood that geoengineer- is produced by heating organic material ence Research Council (EPSRC), but ing efforts will have unintended nega- in the absence of oxygen. Biochar con- also involves two other research coun- tive consequences and could make an tains the carbon originally present in cils, four universities, and several gov- already bad situation even worse. They the organic material, but the carbon is ernment departments. Much of SPICE argue that the development of com- in a stable, solid form that can endure deals with laboratory work and comparatively inexpensive geoengineering

36 Environment www.environmentmagazine.org VOLUME 54 NUMBER 5 technologies could undermine emissions-mitigation efforts, and worry that the drive for shareholder profits could override the public interest by influ- encing governments to allow privately developed geoengineering technologies

to qualify for carbon credits or to count Maier Commons/Thomas Wikimedia in meeting emissions-reduction targets. They highlight the serious equity issues that could emerge when geoengineering produces differential effects in different parts of the world, perhaps improving conditions in some areas but producing droughts and famines in others. They also worry that research on geoengineering could give militaries around the world new tools for weather control, such as the ability to induce droughts in enemy nations or to enhance storms to disrupt enemy operations. They further point out that SRM methods that block sunlight from reaching the earth’s Removing trees from snowy landscapes would reflect more sunlight into space but also surface will reduce the efficiency and release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. cost-effectiveness of solar energy systems. But above all, they worry that if geoengineering were used extensively of the technologies reviewed here are TWAS, the academy of sciences for the as a substitute for emissions reduction, likely to tempt politicians to back off developing world.

allowing high concentrations of CO2 from efforts to control emissions, be There are important areas of agree- to build up in the atmosphere, it would used for military purposes, or pose other ment between these studies that are major dangers. But if all geoengineer- relevant to policymaking related to ing technologies are lumped together all climate geoengineering research, They also worry and critics of geoengineering succeed in including work on the technologies that research on their efforts, then localized soft geoen- described here. All the studies are in gineering development will be blocked agreement that reducing greenhouse geoengineering could along with the development of large- gas emissions is, by far, the most im- give militaries around scale global-impacts geoengineering. portant strategy for responding to cli- the world new tools for Geoengineering governance is also mate change and that geoengineering becoming an area of concern in the should never be treated as a substitute weather control. mainstream science and engineering for reducing emissions. They all con-

Downloaded by [University of Edinburgh] at 09:03 13 September 2012 communities, as indicated by the four clude that research on geoengineering create a situation where if the geoengi- studies mentioned earlier published in is justified, and that better governance neering enterprise ever faltered for any the past year alone, studies that all deal arrangements need to be developed to reason, a catastrophic warming would with governance issues: the Bipartisan manage potential risks of that research. occur too quickly for human society Policy Center’s Task Force on Climate They agree that SRM technologies with and vast numbers of plant and animal Remediation Research, the Government global impacts pose more critical gov- species to adapt. These are not frivolous Accountability Office (GAO) report ernance issues than most CDR tech- concerns. Every one of them deserves Climate Engineering: Technical Sta- nologies. They share the view that we serious consideration.35 tus, Future Directions, and Potential are not ready yet for field experiments These concerns apply with particu- Responses, the report Geoengineering on any significant scale and that before lar force to powerful SRM technologies for Decision Makers published by the such tests are done greater agreement like stratospheric aerosols that are capa- Woodrow Wilson International Center needs to be reached on the kinds of tests ble of rapidly affecting the entire global for Scholars, and Solar Radiation Man- that are needed, how they should be ap- climate. They have very little relevance agement: The Governance of Research proved, and how to define the differ- to soft geoengineering technologies that by the Royal Society in partnership with ence between acceptable experiments are inherently local in character. None the Environmental Defense Fund and and experiments requiring a thorough

September/October 2012 www.environmentmagazine.org environment 37 Table 1:

Bright Air Capture and Ice911 Cool Cities Soil Building Water Use of CO2 Can be applied locally Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Scalable Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Low/no negative impacts Yes Maybe2 Yes Yes Yes5 Rapid reversibility if Yes Yes No3 Yes Do not Know6 problems arise Multiple benefits beyond Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes climate impact Analogous to natural Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes processes Worthwhile time/effect Yes Yes No4 Yes Yes scale Cost-effective Maybe1 Maybe Yes Do not Know Yes

1. Microbubble production energy cost is very low, but engineering development and intelligent distribution are needed to fully realize economies of scale. 2. But it will be important to monitor for unanticipated events. 3. Problems are highly unlikely. 4. Not enough cooling effect to be worthwhile for climate change alone. 5. If biochar is not overused. 6. Plowing could quickly resume; it would be difficult to remove biochar from soil.

review and approval process. They all profits could lead to inappropriate It is important, therefore, to recog- stress the importance of transparency testing and deployment.36 nize soft geoengineering technologies and public understanding. as a distinct category so that critics One of these studies, Geoengineer- This statement was clearly written see them as different from the global- ing for Decision Makers, directly ad- with global-impact SRM technologies scale technologies that are their focus dresses the kind of policy issue raised like stratospheric aerosol injection or of concern. Interventions that are local, by the SPICE patent controversy, argu- cloud brightening in mind. None of the are scalable, are reversible, pose few ing that patents should not be allowed in four recent studies, or any other major environmental risks, and have multiple the area of solar radiation management. studies, have even considered local- benefits are likely to encounter less po- scale SRM technologies, like Bright litical opposition than geoengineering Patents may be acceptable in Water or Ice911. These technologies methods that are inherently nonlocal. Downloaded by [University of Edinburgh] at 09:03 13 September 2012 most areas of CDR technology, have been “below the radar” of nearly Unlike geoengineering methods whose but there are compelling reasons everyone working on geoengineering. use can only be justified, if at all, by a why all SRM research should be Should a ban on SRM patents apply climate emergency, the approaches re- in the public domain. The inher- to approaches like Bright Water, Ice911, viewed here could be used in the near ently higher risks in the testing and different ways to make roofs and term alongside efforts to reduce carbon and deployment of SRM com- pavements more reflective, or are these emissions. Recognizing soft geoengi- pared with CDR methods … justi- technologies sufficiently benign that the neering as a distinct category can also fies a more open-source approach reasons for banning patents do not re- prevent it from being unnecessarily con- to [research and development ally apply to them? This example high- strained by regulation appropriate for (R&D)] on SRM technologies. lights a larger issue: Making localized, more powerful global-impacts technol- An open-source approach … can soft geoengineering technologies sub- ogies. Framing a new category of soft speed progress, prevent private ject to the same degree of regulation and geoengineering can help us think more companies with proprietary tech- assessment as much more powerful and dispassionately about all the things we nologies from gaining too much potentially dangerous global-impact can do to meet the climate challenge.

influence over R&D and mini- SRM technologies could severely limit Robert L. Olson is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for mize the risk that the drive for their development. Alternative Futures (IAF) in Alexandria, Virginia. He

38 Environment www.environmentmagazine.org VOLUME 54 NUMBER 5 was a member of the institute’s founding Board of Di- 6. A. Robock, “20 Reasons Why Geoengineering 19. Leslie Field, Director of Ice911, in interview rectors and served as Director of Research from 1990 to May be a Bad Idea,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 64, with the author, Washington, DC, April 20, 2012. 2003. He is the author of Geoengineering for Decision no. 2 (May/June 2008) 14–18. 20. Liz Kalaugher, “Reflective Roofs and Pavements Makers published by the Woodrow Wilson International 7. R. Olson, Geoengineering for Decision Makers Could Fight Climate Change,” Physicsworld.com Center for Scholars and co-editor of the books Mending (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center (April 13, 2012), http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/ The Earth and Environmentalism and the Technologies for Scholars, 2011), p. 15. news/2012/apr/13/reflective-roofs-and-pavements- of Tomorrow. Previously he was a project director and 8. For an assessment of potential impacts and issues could-fight-climate-change consultant to the Director at the Office of Technology As- associated with different geoengineering technologies, sessment of the U.S. Congress, a Fellow in the Center for 21. Kalaugher, note 19 above. see The Royal Society, Geoengineering the Climate: Cooperative Global Development at the American Uni- 22. See the website of the Global Cool Cities Science, Governance and Uncertainty (September 2009), versity, and a Resident Fellow at the University of Illinois Alliance. http://www.globalcoolcities.org http://royalsociety.org/geoengineeringclimate Center for Advanced Study. 23. Stanford’s Mark Jacobson argues that early 9. An important paper by Tim Lenton and his student white-roof studies simply looked at the change in Naomi Vaughn of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change radiative forcing and figured that less absorbed sunlight Research and the University of East Anglia in the United equals lower temperatures and did not take into account Notes Kingdom attempted to assess the potential effectiveness climate feedback impacts such as how clouds would of a broad range of geoengineering strategies and rank be effected. See B. Plumer, “White Roofs and the 1. J. Gatehouse, “Plan B for Global Warming,” them in terms of performance. See T. M. Lenton and N. Dangers of Geoengineering,” The Washington Post Macleans 122, no. 15 (2009): 40–43 at 40. E. Vaughn, “The Radiative Forcing Potential of Different (25 October 2011). http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Climate Geoengineering Options,” Atmospheric 2. In retrospect, the turning point was the publication blogs/ezra-klein/post/white-roofs-and-the-dangers-of- Chemistry and Physics 9 (2009): 2559–2608. of an editorial essay in the journal Climatic Change geoengineering/2011/10/24/gIQALjsWFM_blog.html. 10. R. Seitz, “Bright Water: Hydrosols, Water recommending research on the concept of cooling the 24. Geoengineering the Climate: Science, Conservation and Climate Change,” Climatic Change earth by injecting reflective aerosol particles into the Governance and Uncertainty, note 8 above. stratosphere. What gave this article special weight (published online 17 December, 2010), http://pdf-edu. 25. F. Zeman, “Energy and Material Balance of CO was that its author was Paul Crutzen, whose research com/pdf/bright-water-hydrosols-water-conservation- 2 Capture From Ambient Air,” Environmental Science and unraveling the chemistry of stratospheric ozone depletion and-climate-change.html Technology 41, no. 21 (2007), 7558–7563. had earned the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Crutzen’s 11. Seitz, note 10 above. 26. Website of Kilimanjaro Energy. http://www. call for taking geoengineering seriously was supported 12. PowerPoint presentation on “Bright Water: kilimanjaroenergy.com by an editorial in the same issue of Climatic Change by Microbubbles, Water Conservation & Climate Change,” atmospheric scientist Ralph J. Cicerone, President of the available from Russell Seitz at [email protected]. 27. Website for Carbon Engineering. http://www. U.S. National Academy of Sciences. With scientists of edu carbonengineering.com this stature willing to break the taboo on thinking about 13 . Personal communication from Russell Seitz, 28. Website for Global Thermostat. http:// geoengineering, other scientists felt freer to consider July 2012. globalthermostat.com the idea. See P. Crutzen, “Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulfer Injection: A Contribution to Resolve 14. IPCC, “Climate Change 2007: The Physical 29. M. Gunther, “Rethinking Carbon Dioxide: a Policy Dilemma,” An Editorial Essay, Climatic Change Science Basis,” Contribution of Working Group I to From a Pollutant to an Asset,” Environment 360, Yale (2006): 211–219. the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental University (23 February 2012). http://e360.yale.edu/ Panel on Climate Change, S. Solomon, D. Qin, and M. feature/geoengineering_carbon_dioxide_removal_ 3. The Royal Society, Environmental Defense Fund, Manning, eds. (2007), http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_ technology_from_pollutant_to_asset/2498/ TWAS, Solar Radiation Management: The Governance and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml#. of Research (Solar Radiation Management Governance 30. Gunther, note 28 above. UBwazI5AtBI. Initiative, December 1, 2011); U.S. Government 31. Freeman Dyson, “Heretical Thoughts About Accountability Office, Climate Engineering: Technical 15. P. Aldhous, “Call for Arctic Geoengineering as Science and Society, Part 2, Climate and Land Status, Future Directions, and Potential Responses, Soon as Possible,” New Scientist, 12 (December 2011), Management,” Edge.org (August 8, 2007), http://www. GAO-11-71 (Washington, DC: July 2011); Robert http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21275-call-for- edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html arctic-geoengineering-as-soon-as-possible.html. L. Olson, Geoengineering for Decision Makers 32. Vern Grubinger, “Cover Crops and Green (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center 16. D. Adams, “Arctic Permafrost Leaking Methane Manures,” Fact Sheet, University of Vermont, http:// for Scholars, November 2011); J. Long, S. Rademaker, at Record Levels, Figures Show,” The Guardian www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/factsheets/covercrops. et. al., Task Force on Climate Remediation Research (14 January 2010), http://www.guardian.co.uk/ html (Washington DC: Bipartisan Policy Center, 2011), http:// environment/2010/jan/14/arctic-permafrost-methane. www.srmgi.org/report/. 33. See the International Biochar Initiative website, 17. “Shock as Retreat of Arctic Sea Ice Releases http://www.biochar-international.org/research/education 4. Daniel Mason, “Geoengineering: Quick Fix or Deadly Greenhouse Gas,” Climate Today (2011), http:// Climate Meddling,” Public Service Europe 2 (March climatetoday.org/?p=3171 34. “A Geoengineering Experiment Has Come 2012), www.publicserviceeurope.com/article/1587/ Unstuck,” The Economist (May 19, 2012), http://www. 18. Leslie Field, “Ice 911: Developing an economist.com/node/21555545 geoengineering-quick-climate-fix-or-dangerous- Effective Response to Climate Change in the Earth’s meddling Cryosphere” (November 16, 2011), www.ice911.org/ 35. These and other concerns about geoengineering 5. Fred Pierce, “What the UN Ban on Geoengineering Ice911UpdateNov2011.pdf. For more information, are described in more detail in the Wilson Center report Really Means,” New Scientist (November 2010), http:// see the following two patents on Ice911 technology: Geoengineering for Decision Makers, note 7 above. www.newscientist.com/article/dn19660-what-the-un- patent publication numbers US2010/0282860 A1 and 36. Geoengineering for Decision Makers, note 7

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