Make way, Climate Engineering is here to stay!

The advent of Climate Engineering

Today marks my first contribution to the renowned blogosphere and world of science. My blog aims to explore Global Environmental Change through the controversial topic of Climate Engineering.

Climate change is an indisputable problem. Our awareness has soared globally yet the issue remains, persistent, looming, unsolved.

Political efforts have reached international status, with global climate congress attempting to draw any solution to the problems climate change has caused and threatens to present. Global powers have met to discuss our options, climate agreements have been successfully made, yet occasion upon occasion, very little outcome has resulted from these significant events.

Trouble similarly arises from a lack of economical compromise. Alternative methods of renewable energy appeal for their environmental benefits, but are never prioritised due to their lack of ability to produce energy as efficiently as fossil fuel methods. These mitigation and adaption hindrances have caused considerable concern towards our responses to imminent, extreme climate disruptions.

So what is a possible solution?

Climate Engineering (also known as Geoengineering) is defined as ''...the intentional large scale manipulation of the environment...' to counteract anthropogenic climate change' (Keith, 2000). It is a scientific, technological approach to contest climate change, and is a combination of two dominant methods:



Source: Washington University Political Review

The first is Carbon Reduction Methods (CRM). This is the removal of carbon dioxide through extraction from the atmosphere for storage in a sink such as land or the deep ocean, and the second approach is Solar Radiation Methods (SRM) which seek to reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth, thus reducing the amount of greenhouse gases trapped in the Earth's atmosphere (Hamilton, 2013).

The advent of Climate Engineering was finally brought to serious global attention in its first mention in the most recent IPCC Summary for Policy Makers Report in 2013:

"Methods that aim to deliberately alter the climate system to counter climate change, termed geoengineering, have been proposed..."

Ergo, Climate Engineering is becoming an increasingly stronger candidate as the solution towards climate change, but could it really solve the world's thermostat problem?

This blog will progress to determine what climate engineering really is and whether it is necessary, its successes and failures, and ultimately if it can be combined with government and market initiatives as a collaborative force to combat the effects of climate change!


Stay tuned!

S xx