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We need to talk about the benefits and risks that surround purposely altering the planet, says James Fahn, author ofA Land on Fire

Twenty years ago, I worked briefly at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for a program that seemed hard to argue with we distributed funds to help countries adapt to climate change.

Yet we faced some resistance, from climate change deniers and some climate activists. They felt that if people and governments came to believe we could comfortably adjust to global warming, we would not work to prevent it.

In 2021, we face a similar situation regarding proposals around geo-engineering. There is reluctance toeven testthese ideas, lest they be taken up asan alternative to reducing carbon emissions.

But we do need aglobal debateon geo-engineering, both because it couldhelp amelioratesome of the effects of climate change, and because it is so risky.

The climate situation has become more dire. Even if countries meet their current commitments under the Paris Agreement, that would stilllikely lead to warming of well over two degrees Celsius, a level predicted to be catastrophic for human civilisation. That is why experts are calling on world leaders to set more ambitious targets for cutting carbon emissions, either at thevirtual summit being hosted this monthby President Biden or at the global climate summit scheduled for November.

Purposeful attempts at geo-engineering may therefore seem tempting to lessen some of the impacts of climate change we are already seeing in the decline of vital ecosystems, climate-induced conflict and migration, and more extreme weather events.

One approach is to try to draw more carbon out of the atmosphere. Buttechnological effortsto do this are so far too expensive. Planting a lot more trees could also help, but althoughglobal forest cover is increasing, it is not happening at a scale that is needed. And we are losingrainforestsand otherecosystemsthat are most effective at storing carbon.

The other main geo-engineering approach is to block a small percentage of the solar radiation hitting the Earth, most feasibly by pumping lots of aerosols or other small particles into the atmosphere. The idea is to essentially mimic the effects of volcanic eruptions like that of Mount Pinatubo in June of 1991, which effectivelyreduced the average global temperatureby about 0.6 degrees Celsius over the following 15 months or so.

While acompellingidea, it is an approach that treats one of the main symptoms of the climate crisis rather than the proverbial disease. The effects would be short-lived the atmospheric aerosols would have to be continually replenished and it would not do anything to reduce the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, or to treat some major impacts such asocean acidification.

Are geoengineering opponents short sighted?

It is alsorisky. Dampening solar radiation would probably reduce agricultural output in some regions and could disrupt rainfall patterns. Most scary are the potential unknown impacts. The history of human intervention in the biospherehas not gone well.

Furthermore,how do we decidewho can or should take such actions? It is conceivable that governments acting alone, private companies, or even individuals may decide the impacts of climate change are so severe they have to take a geo-engineering approach to counteract them, or to carry it out as ade factoalternative to cutting fossil fuel consumption.

Given the risk of rogue, unilateral action, we need to have anopen, global discussionabout geo-engineering in the media andother public channels.

For the past decade, myorganisationhas helpedbring hundreds of journalistsfrom countries that are highly affected by climate change such as Bangladesh or Samoa but because of their size or economic power, are largely left out of high-level negotiations on climate.

Ultimately, to get to a global agreement on when and if geo-engineering tactics are warranted, we need to involve those most affected not only those with the power to take action.

If geo-engineering sounds like something out of science fiction, well, the one institution that seems to have no compunction publicly speculating about it is Hollywood. Geo-engineers seem to be the villain du jour, whether they try to achieve their goals byreducingthehumanpopulationorreducing global temperatures, with disastrous results.

However, some forms of carbon capture would seemingly have few opponents if they could become affordable and feasible. But most geo-engineering effortscome with considerable risk.

As we have found with efforts to inform people about adapting to climate change, there is another benefit to raising public awareness about geo-engineering: it can help make people realise that, whether talking about disease or climate change, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

James Fahn, author ofA Land on Fireand executive director ofInternews Earth Journalism Network

Read more:

Earth Day 2021: We need to talk about geo-engineering - The Engineer