HOW TO COOL THE PLANET: Geo-engineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth's Climate
by JEFF GOODELL
Scribe, 2010, 262 pages, $35 (pb)
Review by Phil Shannon
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46023
Grandiose schemes to launch sulphate particles into the stratosphere, to dump iron into the oceans and to brighten clouds in order to moderate global warming are, says Jeff Goodell in How To Cool The Planet, maturing from the dodgy geo-engineering dreams of mad scientists to mainstream policy options.
Goodell is, in some measure, worried by this trend, agreeing with the critics of geo-engineering that little is known about the effectiveness of geo-engineering or the unintended ecological consequences of large-scale interventions in atmosphere and ocean.Geo-engineering costs are also high, state and international regulation non-existent, the scientific and engineering challenges immense and the time-scale long.The quick global warming techno-fix may be a chimera at best, a poisoned chalice at worst. Goodell also agrees that "Big Oil and Big Coal could use the prospect of geo-engineering to divert our attention away from the need for deep cuts in greenhouse gas pollution" and that geo-engineering provides "an easy way for both industry and politicians to look serious about the climate crisis" whilst continuing their planet-cooking ways.
Geo-engineering might, says Goodell, have some logic if it were to buy us a few decades to move to a zero carbon energy future but if geo-engineering is just a lazy way of continuing with business as usual ('we could carry on flying our planes and driving our cars' - Richard Branson), it could be the cure that is as bad as the disease.
Goodell, however, doesn't dismiss the idea of geo-engineering entirely, arguing that it may have a role as an emergency response in the face of political failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions.Goodell's 'responsible' view of geo-engineering as a possible "tool that might help reduce the risk of catastrophe" sets Goodell apart from the scientifically reckless, profit-greedy boosters of geo-engineering.
Goodell, however, believes that geo-engineering may have a role to play as an emergency climate response and that research funding and field experiments are therefore necessary to test its risks and benefits. There is, however, a slippery and hazardous slope between Goodell's "more intelligent interference" with the planet and full-steam-ahead monkeying with all sorts of planetary thermostat levers which leave greenhouse gas emissions unconstrained, storing up future warming problems and creating a new suite of environmental problems.
When Goodell argues that the "moral and ethical taboos" against geo-engineering are "fading fast", one suspects that his fingers are crossed in hope as he says it, unable to hide his not-so-sneaking admiration for geo-engineers and his excitement with the science and engineering aspects of geo-engineering.
Goodell's position is little more than a 'green' flank of a high-risk technological response to global warming which feeds off political pessimism about greenhouse gas reductions.Every dollar of funding, and every word, however reluctant, spoken in support of geo-engineering only feeds into that pessimism.Goodell characterises absolute opposition to geo-engineering as "hysterical" but, given all the economic, technical, environmental and ethical hurdles dogging geo-engineering, taking on the carbon capitalists by funding renewable energy and public transport is a whole lot saner.