Geo-engineering III

It's baaaack! And guess who the villain is this time.

I've stated my opposition to various geo-engineering schemes before. It's a terrible idea, a band aid solution to avoid making the changes to the world that are needed. It potentially has extremely negative unintended consequences and it may not actually work at effectively reducing CO2 in the atmosphere, touted as its main benefit.

This article reports on 'ocean fertilization' issues being discussed at a UN biodiversity conference (my emphasis):

Practically all developing countries want the UN conference to approve a global moratorium on 'ocean fertilisation' until scientific evidence can prove that the practice does not bring new pollution risks. But some industrialised countries, led by Australia, want to avoid a strong ban.

Is this another part of K-Rudd's long-term climate plan? Australia isn't alone on this, though. Brazil is also involved, acting as a provocateur. Perhaps this is their intended 'offset' plan in return for however much they decide to exploit the Amazon. From the article:

..."what Australia wants on 'ocean fertilisation' is obvious. It wants that the UN convention on biological diversity does not touch the subject, and transfer it instead to the London convention" on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter...[which] is being updated through the London Protocol, which will eventually replace the former. Under the new protocol, all dumping is prohibited except for acceptable waste on the "reserve list".

The leading global company in the business is the Australia-based Ocean Nourishment Corporation (ONC). The Australian government's support for the company and for 'ocean fertilisation' has won it the Greenpeace nomination for the Golden Chain Saw Award for the worst polluters.

Here is the link to Ocean Nourishment Corporation. It sounds so benign, doesn't it? How could anyone possibly be against nourishment? I always worry when the top of the web page proclaims that it “is an ethical organisation”. It seems a bit defensive to me. They don't want to dump iron in the ocean, rather urea. Their advertised benefits are twofold: 1.) The removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, and; 2.) Stimulating the base of the food chain, thereby increasing ocean production.

The logic on the second item to be that because “oceans represent 70% of the earth's surface but currently provide only 6% of human protein every year”, the oceans must be underutilized. (That slacker ocean is not pulling its weight!). Given the level of overfishing humanity has been applying to the planet, that idea seems a bit of a stretch.

From a casual reading of their website, much of what they are proposing to do is unproven. To be fair (and provided they follow their stated protocols), they would seem to be trying to do the experiment in some kind of sane way. But I question the need for the experiment at all.

Unfortunately, short of the international moratorium on fertilization noted in the original article, it would seem that the general populace has little choice in whether this experiment is performed or not.

Besides ONC, a handful of private companies, all registered in the U.S., are planning to launch 'ocean fertilisation' projects in unregulated high seas after specific projects in the Philippines, Ecuador, Oman, and Morocco provoked a storm of complaints from civil society groups.

The unmitigated pursuit of profit never stops. Many are threatened so that a few can enrich themselves. We really don't understand the ocean ecosystem well enough to start performing such radical experimentation on it. There is lots that can go wrong and there are many potential unintended consequences. The Precautionary Principle dictates that we avoid this line of inquiry at this time. We have other solutions we can try; there is no need for desperation yet. And this is a desperate solution.

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Image: Diatoms through the microscope, Wikipedia.

Australian stories

A few items of planet doom?-type interest from Down Under. Noted here are the extraordinary heat plaguing the southeast, new measurements documenting a slowdown in growth of the Great Barrier Reef and a follow-up on an ethically questionable appropriation in weather modification research.

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Late summer and early autumn have brought scorching heat to SE Australia. Adelaide has been particularly hard hit, with (as of Friday) 12 days in a row with maximum temperatures above 35 C. The trend is forecast to continue through Tuesday, four days hence. If this verifies, that would make 16 days. The previous record for Adelaide, set in 1934, is 8 days. Tasmania recorded its hottest march day in 68 years. Northwest VIC also recorded an extended run of hot weather during this period as well. Tasmania also beat or tied record highs for March, with 37+ C seen in Hobart. Interestingly, February 2008 was one of Tassie's coolest on record.

As noted previously, several other occurrences of extended heat have been observed this summer. Perth and WA have sweltered. Tennant Creek had an extended heatwave, with 19 consecutive days with a maximum temperature above 40 C.

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That coral reefs are in danger from climate change has been noted previously. According to IPCC, a “significant loss of biodiversity” is projected to occur by 2020 on the Great Barrier Reef. Unfortunately, the degradation of the reef is becoming quantifiable; warming of the Coral Sea has slowed reef growth over the past 16 years.

Worrying signs that warmer seawater combined with a possible change in the ocean’s acid balance may be curtailing the growth of an important reef-building coral species have been documented by a research team from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) in Townsville.

The paper, published in the journal Global Change Biology, points to a 21 per cent decline in the rate at which Porites corals in two regions of the northern Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have added to their calcium carbonate skeletons over the past 16 years.

The relative contributions of ocean acidification and global warming to the observed decline cannot be fully determined at this time. Not enough is known about the chemistry of the reef and more needs to be done to understand all the implications of the increase in carbon dioxide entering the oceans and to put these preliminary coral growth data into context.

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In an earlier post, I discussed the “bamboozle-ment” of the Australian people through a dodgy ionisation rain enhancement scheme orchestrated by Malcolm Turnbill. The project seems (to me) to be more of a payoff to campaign donors than a serious scientific program and I hoped for further investigation by the new government. Such an investigation has occurred. The timing is still a bit questionable and the amount is five times larger than recommended by his department. But it's okay because “...those conducting the trial, the University of Queensland, wanted $50 million.” Mr. Turnbill says,

"The National Water Commission was more sceptical and they didn't want to have a trial at all - some tests of the scientific theory which would have cost about $2 million,"

"I decided that what we should do is have a thorough trial in one location in south-east Queensland at $10 million, which was one-fifth of what the University of Queensland was recommending."

I think he should have listened to the National Water Commission...I suppose nothing will really come of this in the end. Business as usual...

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And so it goes. We're beginning to experience our future climates now – earlier springs, extended summers, lengthy runs of hot weather. Such events will only grow more frequent in the future; the Whirligig spins faster and faster. The final decline of the Reef is beginning. Go see it while there is still time. Governments play economic shell games while the environmental crises looms larger. The crises we face are largely the result of market failure – a failure of the dominant economic system to value environmental concerns. You want to have hope, but despair can easily come. Lovelock's 'enjoy life while you can'...for tomorrow you die attitude is a tempting lure. Doing nothing is easy; instead we must say 'Zero, Now' and take account of ourselves and our actions. It is the only way forward.

Hope or despair?

There are reasons for hope. Society-at-large is increasingly tuning out the climate change deniers and doubters. Global warming is now widely recognized as a very real and very serious threat to civilization as we know it. Many are proposing a wide-ranging set of solutions. Some are promising, but many questions remain. Careless or rash actions could easily lead to despair.

One feasible solution involves capturing CO2 and storing it in sausage shaped bags which are subsequently dumped in the ocean. While this is apparently technically feasible with contemporary technology, the whole idea is really unpalatable to me. Haven't we done enough damage to the ocean? We've already wiped out a lot of the fish and created an enormous pool of plastic rubbish in the Pacific, all while slowly acidifying the ocean. Human impacts on the ocean are visible from space. This “solution” just adds insult to injury, even if it is “safe”.

Some new materials (chemicals) have been produced which are able to selectively capture CO2. Quoting from the link:

The carbon dioxide is captured using a new class of materials designed by Yaghi and his group called zeolitic imidazolate frameworks, or ZIFs. These are porous and chemically robust structures, with large surface areas, that can be heated to high temperatures without decomposition and boiled in water or organic solvents for a week and still remain stable.

Rabett Run points out that the energy cost may be too high for this to be feasible on an industrial scale. My concern is different than that. History suggests we have a poor track record when it comes to using new chemicals. Metaphorically speaking, It always blows up in our face. CFCs were considered stable. DDT was supposed to save the world. Look how well those turned out. This trend continues as the world discovers that the environmental contamination from our “harmless” chemicals is looking like more of a problem than originally believed. Chemicals in our waters are affecting humans and aquatic life in unanticipated ways. Dilution is NOT the solution. Terrestrial life is also affected by endocrine disrupting chemicals, although the net effect isn't clear at this time. Before we unleash some new chemical on the world, can we thoroughly test it and understand its interactions with the natural world?

Geo-engineering solutions remain a possibility, but fortunately these seem to be falling out of favor. The company that hoped to make money through ocean geo-engineering, Planktos, has stopped its field tests thanks to a “highly effective disinformation campaign waged by anti-offset crusaders.” I'm proud to have contributed. Further studies are continuing to suggest that geo-engineering through aerosol enhancement is likely to be very problematic. I think we shouldn't waste research time or money on these efforts. They could only possibly be used as a last resort, and if the situation gets that dire we are unlikely to be able to mount such an effort. Better to use to the money to better understand the increasingly dissonant 'music of the spheres' as a whole.

In the 'Are you serious?'-category comes 'To save the world we may have to waste it'. This is pretty cynical, and it is not clear to me what the author's intent truly is. It's funny in a black humor sort of way, or if you are feeling incredibly nihilistic, both of which I have been known to appreciate. But such a 'solution' cannot be genuinely considered. Maybe this is a manifestation of despair.

The above solutions (mostly) rely on some sort of techno-optimism. With just the right fix, everything will be alright. Such solutions allow humans to continue to live outside the bounds of the eco-system. Unfortunately, people are part of the natural world, and we must live within it. Solutions that offer real hope will take this into account. There can't be one quick fix, but rather many small steps which add up to a greater whole. The sole focus can't just be on the climate, either. Instead, the whole gamut of environmental problems we face must be addressed simultaneously. Any one of them alone could do us in.

Some steps (among many) could include: Organic fertilizers in agriculture can take up more CO2 in the soil, cutting waste and inefficiency, stopping deforestation, development of alternate energy sources, economic and social reforms. Population control is essential. In short, a societal change towards a more sustainable, less resource-intensive society. Maybe it is true that there is not enough time for a “reinvention of the world's cultures”, but that is the direction we must head to solve this problem in the long term. Perhaps we have to adopt some of the band-aid solutions noted above, but that entails enormous risk and they should only be used as stopgap measures. Recent studies suggest that human cultures are subject to natural selection, just like genes. To survive the challenge,the world and the Global North needs to rein itself in and live within the limits imposed by Nature. The cultures that do this the best will be the writers of history in the future. Nature wins in the end every time. If it finds us lacking, we lose.

There is reason to hope, though, as solutions are on the horizon. A path for long-term, permanent solutions exists with contemporary technology. But the problems we face are large, and most still do not understand the magnitude of the task at hand. Societal collapse requires adjustment, too. This can easily lead to despair. Prompt, but thoughtful action is needed to avoid this state.

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Image: www.utahlifecoach.com (via Google Image Search, not an endorsement!)

More on geo-engineering

Following my recent post on the perils of geo-engineering via iron fertilization of the ocean, several more related items have hit the news. Below is a synopsis of these items.

A new paper reported in National Geographic News provides further evidence for a significant (if not dominant) role of hydrogen sulfide in producing the mass extinction at the end of the Permian 250 million years ago. I was following a Scientific American article which hypothesized the same thing, along with the mechanism. This new article supports that mechanism, but any possible link with geo-engineering remains speculation on my part.

From ScienceDaily (and elsewhere)...”Research performed at Stanford and Oregon State Universities suggests that ocean fertilization may not be an effective method of reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere...”

Basically, this method of sequestering carbon only works in the plankton sinks to the deep ocean. However, the authors found that “...less carbon was transported to deep water during a summertime bloom than during the rest of the year”.

In short, it doesn't appear that carbon is effectively sequestered using this methodology. Still, these findings apparently don't dissuade some:”Some scientists have suggested that verification may require more massive and more permanent experiments. Together with commercial operators they plan to go ahead with large-scale and more permanent ocean fertilization experiments” (emphasis added).

There are already efforts underway to begin a commercial venture based on this idea, regardless of any potential consequences. Actually, the experiment has been performed numerous times since the mid-1990s, as noted here. Here is the chief of the Planktos Corp says, responding to criticism

The iron ore to be used in the test is the same as dust blown naturally by the wind into the ocean...

"Hundreds of millions of tons of dust are landing in the ocean every year. How can anyone suggest that our 50 tonnes of rock dust will provoke some cataclysmic result?"

He is, of course, correct in this assertion. One experiment isn't going to make a big difference in the grand scheme of things...I see several problems with this, nonetheless, and remain opposed to the idea in general.

Consider the simple arithmetic of the company's proposal. If the vast amounts of dust are already landing on the ocean and we still face ever-rising CO2 levels (2006 highest on record), how much more are dust/whatever is going to have to put in for this to be effective? It would seem to be an unfeasible amount given the numbers above. To truly sequester enough CO2 by this method would likely entail severe damage to the marine ecosystem. I don't think that this company is truly interested “sav[ing] the planet from the ravages of fossil fuels”, but rather profiteering on genuine societal problems. IMO, this behaviour is unethical.

This attitude is symptomatic of the larger problem at hand here. The “profit motive” is part of the attitude that got us into the current environmental mess we face in the first place. It seems unlikely to present a particularly useful solution to the problem. This just signals that we can keep doing what we want to the planet heedless of the consequences. Replacing this attitude is the key to the problem. There are lots of easier steps to take before we consider grandiose schemes -- Energy conservation, alternate energy research, emissions cuts,agricultural reform, better land management,a reduction in consumerism – let's try those before we resort to the extremely risky steps involved in schemes like geo-engineering.

Fortunately, wiser heads are beginning to prevail on this issue. There are more general calls, from the World Conservation Union for example, going out to at least do more farsighted research into the issues before simply charging in and hope it works out for the best. Personally, I think we should focus on other, more mundane alternatives first, rather than shilling out our limited research funding into crazy schemes designed to fix environmental problems with little or no cost.

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James Hrynyshyn at The Island of Doubt has a good take on the issue, commenting on the debate started at The Intersection.

Bamboozled!

A few days ago, I heaped some scorn on a scheme that the (now outgoing!) Australian government has adopted to the tune of $A10 million; an unproven technology to make rain, even when there are no clouds. As presented, the details on the whole endeavor were sketchy, from how the technology was supposed to work to the funding and decision making process. Well, another news item has appeared with a few clues about how the device is supposed to work which confirms my earlier suspicion that this is complete and utter nonsense. In addition, a cloud physics expert and member of the WMO Weather Modification panel is quoted. He basically says (albeit much more diplomatically) that we, the Australian people, have been hornswoggled! Sold up the river by a deceitful MP (who unfortunately was re-elected), apparently in an effoty to line his campaign donor's pockets.

Here is a quote from this new article, focusing on how it (allegedly) is supposed to work. I will give a few of my own scientific criticisms afterward (My graduate research was on cumulus and storm dynamics, so I do have some insight into this...)

Scientists involved in testing the Australian Rain Corporation technology, including Professor Jürg Keller of the University of Queensland, say the ionisation system uses a ground-based device to attract water molecules.

These condense, generating heat that, in turn, triggers an up-draft of the kind that occurs when clouds form naturally.

The basic idea here just seems fanciful, not reality-based. Excuse me for being technical (for background, here is Wiki's cloud physics article, though it is not particularly insightful...), but some problems that I see with this are:

• Where is this moisture coming from? From the moisture in the air above the device, or is it attracting it from10s to 100s of km away, an alluring siren's song that the water vapor molecules just can't resist?

• With the most hydrophilic of cloud condensation nuclei, you might get an extremely small drop at say 90% RH (relative humidity). This is very rare. Generally, a small supersaturation (i.e. 100+%) is required to get a small drop to form and grow. If, as claimed, it can produce rain “under a blue sky” (i.e. presumably not 100% RH), how do the drops grow to precipitation size in this?

• Generally in a cumulus cloud (which would appear to be the model they are working off of...), the updraft comes before the water condenses and droplets form, not after as suggested here. In fact, the water is often detrimental to the kinetic energy of the updraft. It doesn't follow that because water condenses, an updraft and rain will form. Think of fog. Think of cumulus clouds that don't rain.

• An unstable environment is required for cumulus clouds. The influence of the broader environment doesn't even seem to be considered here.

These are just a few of the more obvious problems with this. The whole idea seems vaguely reminiscent of the whole cosmic ray/climate connection which has been posited but is in fact generally unsupported by either careful theoretical considerations or the data. There is very little correlation between the temperature trends and cosmic ray activity.

The scandal here is not with proposing new ideas and hypotheses. Rather the issue is way it has been done. It all seems very underhanded and 'hush-hush'. Apparently, no one with any genuine expertise was consulted on this. If they were consulted , their advice was ignored. By all means, let's apply science and innovation to help mitigate our climate problems . But not large handouts to campaign donors with half-baked ideas (and please, let's not dump stuff into the ocean). The appearance of impropriety is too strong (please, let's have an inquiry into this). It is very difficult to get research funding in Australia and there are numerous innovative and unfunded researchers whose projects offer a genuine chance at making a contribution. Let's fund those, rather than chasing mirages in the desert.

Just say no to geo-engineering

Geo-engineering, defined here as “artificial modification of earth systems to counteract anthropogenic effects”, is gaining momentum. A commonly proposed method of doing this is to dump stuff into the ocean in the hopes that it will spur the growth of phytoplankton, which in turn will result in an uptake in CO2 from the atmosphere to the ocean. Once the plankton die they sink to the ocean floor, sequestering the CO2. As has been noted on planet doom? previously, this is a well intentioned but (likely) short-sighted attempt at a 'quick-fix' to the problems confronting humanity; a shortcut so that we can avoid making any hard choices about the world we have created.

So what is wrong with it? It is, after all, part of the natural order of things; phytoplankton blooms occur regularly now. A recent event was just observed off the coast of Namibia, in southern Africa, as shown in the MODIS imagery to the right. Phytoplankton undeniably act to sequester CO2. But, as the article notes, they have other effects as well.

After the plankton sink, they are decomposed by bacteria. If the amount of plant material is too large, the water becomes anoxic -- depleted of oxygen –- and a 'dead zone', where fish and other marine fauna are unable to survive, is created in the ocean . Needless to say, this is bad for the marine ecosystem. If material remains to be decomposed, anaerobic bacteria -- which don't need oxygen -- take over. These bacteria initiate a reaction which produces hydrogen sulfide (H2S) --a poison -- which seeps to the surface and kills the fish and other fauna.

In the local region and at the times where this occurs, it becomes a serious issue, but remains generally unimportant on larger scales. But creating more phytoplankton through geo-engineering could become a broader issue. Dead zones are already becoming a problem worldwide, particularly near the mouths of large river systems, due to agricultural runoff. Other regions with restricted water flow, like the Black Sea, are natural anoxic zones. The fact that we have these major environmental problems already being seen suggests that the amount of phytoplankton which would need to be produced to offset the 35% increase in CO2 we have put into the atmosphere to date would be very large. We probably couldn't do it without destroying a large part of the marine ecosystem.

In a paper from last year (Oct 2006) in Scientific American entitled “Impact from the Deep”, an intriguing hypothesis was put forth that a similar mechanism involving anoxic oceans and the production of H2S, rather than the more commonly assumed bolide impacts, may have driven several of the five mass extinctions which have been noted in the fossil record. In this hypothesis, anoxic zones producing H2S rise to the ocean surface and releases the gas to the atmosphere, killing nearby land flora and fauna. Further, the gas may rise to the stratosphere, where there is some indication that it may reduce the protective ozone layer, finishing off the organisms which avoid the initial impact of the gas. In that paper, the chain of events starts with rapid global warming. With geo-engineering we could possibly skip a few steps, and proceed right to the extinction.

This is only a supposition. The fact is that we simply don't know what effect such geo-engineering schemes may have. We don't have a good history at avoiding the so-called Law of Unintended Consequences and so we probably shouldn't tempt fate. Although we can and have altered the environment, it is pure hubris to think that we have any sort of control over it. As a result, we should really put aside these grandiose schemes to save the world and instead focus on the more mundane chores of adapting to the unavoidable changes already in the system and reducing our carbon emissions to mitigate any future effects. Societal collapse and the sixth extinction are distinct futures we face with our current way of life. We need to act with wisdom and forethought to avoid these fates.

Down south

Antarctica. The bottom of the world. On average, the coldest, driest and most elevated region the planet. Antarctica contains approximately 90% of the ice found on Earth. As a consequence, the goings-on in this extremely remote locale impact the rest of the globe. Understanding what happens here is critical to understanding the changing climate. Unfortunately, our current picture of the events on the continent is far from clear.

Most of the controversy lies in discerning what exactly is going on with the ice. Observations from the Arctic show that ice there is getting thinner and summer melting is proceeding more rapidly and to a greater extent than previously observed. Some claim that this was being offset by increasing ice in the Antarctic (e.g. here and here). Other studies suggest that the Antarctic as a whole is losing mass. The question is important because of the implications of melting ice sheets on global sea level rise.

Part of the controversy arises because the results depend on where the measurements are taken. The East Antarctic ice sheet, the world's largest, is apparently stable. However, West Antarctic and the Antarctic Peninsula have been less so. In 2002 a large portion of the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed in dramatic fashion. Recent satellite images also show that portions of West Antarctica approximately the size of California melted in January 2005 (image). Studies also show that glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula are moving more quickly into the ocean over the last 10-15 years. These trends are alarming, and suggest that sea level could rise more quickly than anticipated in IPCC AR4.

The Southern Ocean which surrounds Antarctica also plays an important role in regulating the climate. This region is also undergoing modification as well. This ocean plays a role as a carbon sink, removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Recent reports have suggested that this sink is not as efficient as it once was, potentially leading to an extra enhancement of CO2 in the future. The suspected causes of this are human activities: the ozone hole and climate change. As an offset of sorts, though, the shedding of icebergs off Antarctica could help to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The icebergs act as floating estuaries, impacting the ecology and chemistry of the surrounding ocean. Phytoplankton around the icebergs capture CO2, removing it from the ocean and allowing the ocean to absorb more CO2.

An experiment is planned near the Antarctic Peninsula in early-2009 to attempt to exploit this characteristic of plankton. The idea is to fertilize the ocean with iron to encourage plankton growth. As has been noted before, this geo-engineering project reeks of humanity's hubris, and is more likely than not to end badly through some unforeseen consequence.

The various interactions and relationships between ice, ocean and atmosphere are complicated. Antarctica also provides the opportunity for us to better understand these processes. Ice cores from the continent has pushed the paleo-climate record back to 800 000 years, the longest available. A series of underground lakes has also been discovered in the last decade or so. Careful study of these lakes, which have been undisturbed and isolated from the atmosphere, may lead to new insights into many of the biological and physical processes occurring in the region.

Antarctica is unique in the world, critical to the global climate and (relatively) unspoilt by humanity. It presents an opportunity for humans to learn more of the world around us -- a way to plan for adaptation to and/or mitigation of our accelerating climate crisis. It unique status arises in part from the outstanding Antarctic Treaty, which prohibits territorial claims and militarization of the continent. As the climate warms and the region becomes more accessible, we must avoid a repeat of the debacle we are witnessing in the Arctic, with the rush by several nations to claim the regions of the Arctic for nationalistic resource exploitation, particularly oil. We must move away from our addiction to oil. In order for mankind to have a future,this sort of selfish short-term thinking must be avoided, while embracing a sustainable, one-planet paradigm. It is the only way forward.

Hubris

Humans, as a species, are control freaks; we seek to establish complete dominion over our environment. In our selfish arrogance, we often fail to anticipate the consequences of our actions. Denial that there even are problems is common; assumptions of human mastery over all is a given. This attitude is apparent in our approach to dealing with both weather issues and climate change.

For instance, we see this whenever a drought occurs. The cries arise for cloud seeding, a vain attempt at producing or enhancing precipitation. Despite being pursued for well over half a century, whether it actually produces the desired results in still unclear. It does leave measurable, physical effects on the cloud, but it is not clear that it enhances precipitation. If so, it is on an inconsistent basis.

Even knowing this, we persist in the belief that we can coerce nature to our bidding when and where we please through cloud seeding. The Chinese want to force rain to clear the air before the Olympics. The government of the Philippines, currently in an extended dry spell, are attempting cloud seeding to break the drought. At the request of farmers in Queensland and New South Wales, Australia, cloud seeding is again being pursued. I wish them luck, but whatever success they may have will likely be down to random chance.

While cloud seeding is not especially effective, at least it is relatively harmless, wasting only time and resources. More risky are larger-scale, geo-engineering projects offered up as solutions to anthropogenic warming or as ways to sequester carbon dioxide.

Dumping iron in the ocean to promote plankton growth is bound to have some sort of unexpected outcome. For example, in certain water conditions a plankton bloom can lead to a chain reaction resulting in further oxygen depletion of the water. This places further stress on the already overstressed ocean biosphere, creating a 'dead zone' in the ocean such as those observed off the Oregon coast the last several years. The consequences are potentially large, in theory impacting the food supply.

Proposals to create a 'sunshade' for the planet are potentially even worse. The idea that we can mimic a volcanic eruption and actually control the consequences is madness. Maybe, as an absolute last resort we could think about it, as Climate Progress noted. New Scientist reports that such a screen, incorrectly applied, 'could result in sudden warming – which would be worse than the long-term warming that had been avoided because of its swiftness'. They also report a later study which claimed that 'even if correctly deployed – a sulphur sunshade could have deleterious effects on the environment by reducing rainfall'.

None of this is meant to say that we humans cannot alter our environment. We just cannot control the outcomes or minimize the blowback, especially on regional and planetary scales. And it is the height of hubris to think we can. I would like to believe that we could learn something from the experiment we already have running – the 35% (and rising!) increase of CO2 in the last 100 years. Just look at how well that's turning out!

Here's an idea. Instead of trying to bend Nature to our will, let's cooperate with her. Instead, let's fix our behaviour -- something we can more reliably control-- and reduce our emissions of CO2 to slow the forcing and minimize the damage. It's only human.