Geoengineering: The Day After Tomorrow Has Come

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Jul 22, 2010, 8:20:48 PM7/22/10

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Geoengineering: The Day After Tomorrow Has Come
Imagine that it is 2050 — or even 2020 — and you are the president. Your science adviser has brought you alarming news: Greenland’s inland ice sheets are melting so fast that sea levels are about to rise dramatically. Moreover, thawing Arctic permafrost is about to pour huge quantities of heat-trapping methane gas into the atmosphere, which will make the already roasting planet even hotter. The crisis, your adviser tells you, is now. What can you do? Quite a bit, to hear some researchers tell it. They say it should be possible to “geoengineer” the planet to cool its increasingly raging greenhouse fever. But they say these possibilities must be tested now, so that when the world needs to act, the scientific community can offer responsible advice. Their ideas are the subject of a new book, “Hack the Planet,” by Eli Kintisch, a reporter for the journal Science. Mr. Kintisch begins by describing a two-day meeting organized to discuss the ideas, held in 2007 in Cambridge, Mass. The meeting, under the auspices of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Harvard University, brought together researchers who have been thinking about these ideas for years — some with enthusiasm, some with alarm. Geoengineering is generally defined as the application of engineering techniques to alter the planet as a whole. As far as climate is concerned proposals fall into two groups.