What is geo-engineering? I was confronted with this question when reading two webpages: 1. a recent NASA recent news release; and 2. a submission to the Royal Society.
1. The NASA news release includes the following paragraph: "The authors discredit the notion of "geo-engineering" solutions, noting that with present cost estimates the price of artificially removing 50 ppm of CO2 from the air would be about $20 trillion. They suggest instead that improved agricultural and forestry practices offer a more natural way to draw down CO2, noting that reforestation of degraded land and improved agricultural practices that retain soil carbon could draw down atmospheric CO2 by as much as 50 ppm. Additional significant CO2 reduction could be achieved by using carbon-negative biofuels to replace liquid fossil fuels and phasing out emissions from natural gas-fired power plants, according to the authors. They find that a combination of these approaches could bring CO2 back to 350 ppm well before the end of the century." Source: Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim? http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20081208/ 2. An organization called biofuelwatch argues in a submission to the Royal Society that: "geo-engineering should not be pursued as a policy option", because of the "impact which those proposals would have on biodiversity". The submission focuses on "Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECS) and biochar". Source: Submission to Royal Society study on Climate Geo-engineering http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/RS_Geoengineering_Biofuelwatch.pdf While we can have many comments on each of the above, shouldn't we first clarifty what is geo-engineering? What appears to be called geo-engineering by one organization, is referred to by NASA as natural (as opposed to geo-engineering). What is your view? What is geo-engineering? Cheers! Sam Carana --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
