November 07, 2012

Naomi Klein on geoengineering and climate change

".. an American entrepreneur named Russ George dumped 120 tons of iron dust off the hull of a rented fishing boat; the plan was to create an algae bloom that would sequester carbon and thereby combat climate change."

Excerpt cont'd:

"Mr. George is one of a growing number of would-be geoengineers who advocate high-risk, large-scale technical interventions that would fundamentally change the oceans and skies in order to reduce the effects of global warming. In addition to Mr. George’s scheme to fertilize the ocean with iron, other geoengineering strategies under consideration include pumping sulfate aerosols into the upper atmosphere to imitate the cooling effects of a major volcanic eruption and “brightening” clouds so they reflect more of the sun’s rays back to space.

The risks are huge. Ocean fertilization could trigger dead zones and toxic tides. And multiple simulations have predicted that mimicking the effects of a volcano would interfere with monsoons in Asia and Africa, potentially threatening water and food security for billions of people."... more

From Geoengineering: Testing the Waters, New York Times Sunday Review opinion page, Oct. 27, 2012

Author Naomi Klein is working on a book on climate change. She challenges "deliberately interfering with the earth’s climate system" and concludes: "Mr. George and his ocean-altering experiment provides an opportunity for public debate about an issue essentially absent during the election cycle: What are the real solutions to climate change? Wouldn’t it be better to change our behavior — to reduce our use of fossil fuels — before we begin fiddling with the planet’s basic life-support systems?"

For more information on geoengineering, this 'experiment' and its potential dangers from the ETC group and their report: World’s Largest Geoengineering Deployment Off Coast of Canada’s British Columbia.