[tt] [x-risk] Mooney: When Will Geoengineering "Tip"? (It already has for DARPA)

[Hughes, James J.]

http://www.scienceprogress.org/2009/03/when-will-geoengineering-tip/

When Will Geoengineering "Tip"?

Let's Hope Real Public Dialogue, Rather than Scandal, Will Be the
Trigger

By Chris Mooney | Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 

Science Insider had the scoop: It appears the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, or DARPA, is holding a meeting at Stanford University
soon on the controversial topic of geoengineering, or modifying the
planet artificially in order to offset the effects of global warming.
This is newsworthy for at least two reasons: The U.S. government has,
thus far, kept the subject of geoengineering at a relative arm's-length;
and one reason for that shyness is the extremely checkered past history
of U.S. military ventures in weather modification, including the
notorious attempt to use "weather warfare" to our advantage in Vietnam.

I'm not personally scandalized to learn of DARPA holding a conference or
having a discussion. One thing about geoengineering, after all, is that
not only may we want to do it, but we might also have reason to be
concerned about someone else doing it-so the more dialogue, the better.

Indeed, I suspect that at some point soon this topic, currently off the
radar of most Americans, is going to come up in a very big way, whether
through politico-media scandal or, very preferably, otherwise.

Why? Put simply, because at least in some versions, geoengineering is
likely to be cheap, and likely to work. These two attributes are already
proving intellectually irresistible to many climate scientists, who at
minimum call for geoengineering to be "studied," and who are already
doing so themselves in climate models. At some point, as we continue to
struggle to get a handle on the global warming problem, they may also
prove practically irresistible to politicians and governments.

In a story in Wired magazine last year, I explained the most likely
geoengineering scenario to get serious consideration: Infusion of the
stratosphere with sulfate aerosol particles, which will reflect sunlight
and cause global cooling. This we know with something bordering on
certainty: It's precisely what volcanic eruptions do. Our planet has
already run the experiment. What other environmental side effects would
occur is not nearly as certain, of course-this is where the real scandal
and controversy kicks in-but in a situation of climate crisis, we might
not have the luxury of worrying about them.

Indeed, a group of experts-Stanford's David Victor, Carnegie Mellon's M.
Granger Morgan, and others-recently made roughly this case in Foreign
Affairs (subscription required). It's just the latest in a series of
articles by major climate researchers, or policy wonks, essentially
sounding the alarm about geoengineering: This is real, this is very
possible, this is scary, this requires attention.

The question to my mind is when the broader political discourse will
catch on to what these experts are already realizing. We pay vastly too
little attention to global warming in the media; geoengineering is
nowhere on the news agenda at all. Yet it's one of many examples of a
coming scientific controversy that is reasonably forseeable in
advance-at least to those who are paying attention-but nevertheless
seems doomed to catch the broader public unawares at some undetermined
point in the future (think of cloning and the Raelians). Whereupon, a
reasoned dialogue about the pros and cons of climate control, which is
increasingly coming within humanity's grasp, will probably be the last
thing we see.

What would I propose instead? That some important figure in the media or
our government broach a dialogue on this topic now, at the very highest
of levels. That everyone find some way of going to see the documentary
Owning the Weather, which is about this subject and will be premiering
at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival on April 3rd. That Congress
hold serious hearings. And so on. We must try in all conceivable ways to
create a broader dialogue, one that goes far beyond the scientific,
expert community.

I'm perfectly aware of the counterargument to this stance: Some worry
that the more we discuss geoengineering and give people the idea that it
could be a panacea-a faster, cheaper way of averting global warming-then
the more likely we could be as a society to go for the easy
"techno-fix," rather than take the hard steps needed to really cut down
our emissions. It's a serious concern, but I believe it must be weighed
against several others.

First, science and technology could make geoengineering a foregone
conclusion before we've even had a chance to determine what we think
about it. That will hardly lead to the best societal decision-making.
And second, everything I know about global warming suggests that having
a backup plan does make a lot of sense. We don't know how bad it's going
to get, or how fast, or how effective (or ineffective) our eventual
climate policies will be. And we only have one planet.

Sadly, there could come a time when nothing is off the table.

Chris Mooney is contributing editor to Science Progress and author of
several books, including The Republican War on Science and the
forthcoming Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens
Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog
at "The Intersection."
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