YOUR PAGE, YOUR STAGE! There’s probably a photographer hidden in each of us, looking out for a platform. Community invites you to grab your chance and send your contributions with contact details and complete description of the images to [email protected] — PHOTO ESSAY, Page 10 Friday, April 26, 2019 Sha’baan 21, 1440 AH Doha today 210 - 320 MUSHROOM CLOUD: This picture taken on 12 June 1991 shows a giant mushroom cloud of steam and ash exploding out of Mount Pinatubo volcano during its eruption as seen from inside the-then US military Clark Air Base in Angeles, located in Pampanga province. COVER STORY Geoengineering The real climate change controversy: Whether to engineer the planet in order to fix it. P2-3 SHOWBIZ BACK PAGE The Curse of La Llorona Motivational speaker inspires tops Easter box offi ce. professionals ‘to walk on fi re’. Page 15 Page 16 2 GULF TIMES Friday, April 26, 2019 COMMUNITY COVER STORY A world divided Scientists and policymakers are deeply divided over which forms of geoengineering deserve serious PRAYER TIME consideration — and when the world might want Fajr 3.40am Shorooq (sunrise) 5.03am Zuhr (noon) 11.33am to use them, writes Julia Rosen Asr (afternoon) 3.02pm Maghreb (sunset) 6.03pm Isha (night) 7.33pm n 1965, leading scientists of the day produced a report for USEFUL NUMBERS President Lyndon B Johnson on the rampant pollution of the environment. It included Ia section that summed up their understanding of climate change. “Through his worldwide industrial civilisation, Man is unwittingly Emergency 999 conducting a vast geophysical Worldwide Emergency Number 112 experiment,” wrote longtime Kahramaa – Electricity and Water 991 University of California, San Diego Local Directory 180 oceanographer Roger Revelle. International Calls Enquires 150 “The climatic changes that may be Hamad International Airport 40106666 produced,” he warned, “could be Labor Department 44508111, 44406537 deleterious from the point of view of Mowasalat Taxi 44588888 human beings.” Qatar Airways 44496000 What Revelle suggested next Hamad Medical Corporation 44392222, 44393333 kicked off a debate that continues to Qatar General Electricity and this day: Can humans avert the worst Water Corporation 44845555, 44845464 eff ects of climate change with a vast Primary Health Care Corporation 44593333 geoengineering experiment? 44593363 Revelle thought so. One solution, Qatar Assistive Technology he proposed, would be to refl ect Centre 44594050 more of the sun’s energy away from Qatar News Agency 44450205 the Earth “by spreading very small 44450333 refl ecting particles” over large swaths Q-Post – General Postal of the ocean. Corporation 44464444 Over the intervening decades, the idea of geoengineering Earth’s Humanitarian Services Offi ce climate has only grown more (Single window facility for the repatriation of bodies) controversial. Ministry of Interior 40253371, 40253372, Most climate experts agree 40253369 that the best way to keep global Ministry of Health 40253370, 40253364 temperatures in check is to rapidly Hamad Medical Corporation 40253368, 40253365 reduce emissions of carbon dioxide Qatar Airways 40253374 and other greenhouse gases by transitioning to clean energy sources. But scientists and policymakers are deeply divided over which forms of geoengineering also deserve serious ote Unquo Qu te “Keep your eyes on the stars, and Imagine a nation that’s your feet on the ground.” hit by drought or famine — Theodore Roos as a result of global warming and sees Solar Radiation Management as a possible solution. I think a politician from such a Community Editor country would be hard- Kamran Rehmat pressed to explain why e-mail: [email protected] they’re not doing it Telephone: 44466405 Fax: 44350474 — Ken Caldeira, climate ‘ scientist ’ Friday, April 26, 2019 GULF TIMES 3 COVER STORY COMMUNITY sunlight before it hits the ground. Scientists know from studying volcanic eruptions — which do the same thing — that this can cool the planet, though new injections would be required every few years. Engineers have also started designing special vessels for spraying sea salt into the air to make marine clouds brighter and more refl ective. Others have suggested whitening the oceans, as Revelle proposed, or stationing mirrors in orbit. Though carbon removal addresses the source of the climate problem — the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — these strategies for solar radiation management only mask some of the symptoms. Solar Radiation Management (SRM) would off set warming, which could help stabilise glaciers and keep species from going extinct. But it doesn’t prevent CO2 from acidifying the oceans or curtail the pollution from burning fossil fuels, Shindell said. “The idea (that “This can’t replace emissions cuts,” said Peter Irvine, a climate we should scientist at Harvard University. “But dare meddle it might help to reduce risks.” There are still many scientifi c with Earth’s uncertainties around SRM. Computer models indicate that climate in such refl ecting too much sunlight has the potential to disrupt global rainfall a fundamental patterns, especially in countries and that have not contributed much to climate change and are already most unprecedented vulnerable to its eff ects. (Irvine’s latest research suggests a more way) is restrained approach would benefi t most people.) incredibly More answers may come soon. scary” The US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is launching a study to guide future research into SRM. And the — Sikina Jinnah, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will consider the subject Associate in its next assessment report, to be Professor of released in 2021. consideration — and when the world modifi cation, according to historian drawing air through great fans and But the public remains squeamish Politics at UC might want to use them. James Fleming at Colby College. absorbing the carbon on fi lters, or about real-world tests. A 2011 The United Nations Environment But interest in geoengineering has through chemical reactions with experiment by British researchers, Santa Cruz Assembly recently shelved a reemerged as the world continues to hydroxide solutions. A company in which would have used a weather resolution to commission a report on emit more greenhouse gases. Canada has started testing “direct air balloon to release a bathtub’s worth environmental philosopher at the the subject, because even studying it Research suggests that it may capture” at a pilot plant, and another of water into the lower atmosphere, University of Montana. is contentious. (The US helped block already be too late to meet the in Switzerland opened for business was cancelled in part because the Future generations will have to the proposal.) goals of the Paris climate accord in 2017. project faced a strong backlash. live with the decision, too. Once Many questions revolve around — limiting warming to less than 2 However, the cost and scalability Researchers at Harvard now hope humans start injecting aerosols into scientifi c uncertainties and economic degrees Celsius above pre-industrial of carbon-removal technologies is to try a similar experiment over the atmosphere, they can’t stop until arguments. But the debate also taps temperatures — solely by cutting still unclear, and many researchers New Mexico. The launch, which greenhouse gases have stabilised at into thorny philosophical questions: emissions. say we’d be gambling with the future researchers hoped could take place target levels. If they quit while CO2 Is intentionally altering the climate There are various approaches that if we bank on them too much. as soon as early 2019, is on hold as concentrations are still too high, a defensible last-ditch eff ort to stave could help, each with its own risks If, for whatever reason, they don’t they try devise a responsible way they’ll be hit all at once with the off climate damages — or a dangerous and benefi ts, and they fall into two deliver, “we can’t go back and say, to proceed into controversial but warming SRM was covering up. act of hubris? distinct categories: removing carbon ‘Oh, I guess we should have cut virtually unregulated territory. Whether it seems wise to consider And do we betray future dioxide from the atmosphere and more,’” said Duke University climate Climate aff ects everyone, and such technologies depends in part generations by contemplating such reducing how much energy the Earth scientist Drew Shindell. “It’s too that makes geoengineering a tricky on whether you believe the world drastic measures, or by failing to absorbs from the sun. late.” prospect. Who gets to decide when will act fast to cut emissions — pursue them? Of the two, removing CO2 is If carbon removal has inched into and how it’s done? and if you don’t, whether you see The origins of geoengineering lie far less controversial, and most the mainstream, the idea of tinkering One country — even one company geoengineering and its possible in 19th-century eff orts to combat scientists have accepted that it will be with sunlight remains a pariah. — could unilaterally alter the planet consequences as a lesser evil than drought by conjuring rain, and later necessary to zero out greenhouse gas Some fear the mere prospect of a with a single round of aerosol unabated climate suff ering. attempts by the US military to engage emissions. techno-fi x would sap the world of the injections. All they’d need is a fl eet of It also depends on whether you in “climatological warfare.” Few people object to strategies motivation to act. planes and a few billion dollars. think we should dare meddle with These mostly consisted of Cold such as planting forests and But the longer the world waits Imagine a nation that’s hit by Earth’s climate in such a fundamental War thought experiments. But during managing land to maximise the to cut emissions, the more future drought or famine as a result of global and unprecedented way.