Carl Sagan used "planetary engineering" in 1973. http://media.cigionline.org/geoeng/1973%20-%20Sagan%20-%20Planetary%20Engineering%20on%20Mars.pdf
"terraforming" was in common use in science fiction from the 1960s to describe the process of making uninhabitable worlds Terra-like or habitable http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=geoengineering,planetary+engineering,terraforming&year_start=1800&year_end=1977&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share "Terraforming" may deserve some renewed attention as we are going to be engaged in making the uninhabitable habitable ... Thanks, Andrew. A couple of comments: > As far as I know, Marchetti (1977), not David Keith, was the "father of > the term 'geoengineering'" > > I thought Klaus Lackner, not David Keith, is known as the father of the > "artificial tree". > > > -Greg > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Andrew Lockley <[email protected]> > *To:* geoengineering <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Thu, May 23, 2013 11:12:52 PM > *Subject:* [geo] Opinion: Dreams we cannot afford, by Russ George — The > Daily Climate > > > http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2013/05/opinion-ocean-geoengineering > > Dreams we cannot afford > By Russ George > The Daily Climate > VANCOUVER, British Columbia – > > The billions of dollars required by geoengineers to scrub the atmosphere > of carbon will bankrupt us. I have a cheaper solution. > > I met David Keith, often described as the father of geoengineering, a few > years back in the backstage "green room" in New York City as we were > preparing to go on stage for a TED event. TED talks charge high ticket > prices for lavishly produced events on worldly topics that the > intelligentsia and cognoscenti of technology and science like to attend. > David, Martin Hoffert and I were speaking that night on a common theme: > What to do about anthropogenic carbon dioxide.Geoengineers are presenting > ideas that require hundreds of billions, even trillions, of dollars to > solve the crisis of human-driven climate change.Marty, retired now from New > York University, is a voluble advocate for getting off fossil fuels to > avoid climate change impacts. David is a physics professor at Harvard > University and is backed by Bill Gates. He's proud to be the father of the > term "geoengineering," where we alter the climate to suit our needs instead > of Nature's. Me? I am displeased to have the term hung around my neck. But > I am an old hippy tree-planter who has spent life living outside of the > box, with some bit of help from folks inside said box. I compromise and > call myself an "ecoengineer."What transpired in the "green room" started > out as a friendly exchange of views that became a heated discussion and > rapidly devolved into an argument with sparks flying. My premise: The cost > of dealing with anthropogenic CO2 must be and can be a tiny fraction of the > cost demanded by those working in the field inside the box. > > David and other geoengineers are presenting ideas and inventions to the > world that require hundreds of billions, even trillions, of dollars to > solve the crisis of human-driven climate change. David's "artificial trees" > – named after plants' abilities to pull carbon dioxide from the air – > consist of vast arrays of fans blowing our carbon-rich air over a pool of > sodium hydroxide. Other plans would have us send a fleet of planes or > blimps aloft to seed the clouds with light-reflecting particles, much as a > large volcanic explosion do. More farfetched are plans to lob trillions of > mirrors into orbit to deflect the sun's energy.My work over the past two > decades shows that we can solve a large part of the crisis for a small > fraction of the cost. And because it's ecoengineering, we're restoring > ecosystems at the same time we're solving climate change.Last summer, in > the largest geoengineering project to date, I oversaw an ocean experiment > that sowed 120 tons of iron sulphate and iron ore rock dust into the > Pacific Ocean more than 200 miles west of British Columbia's Haida Gwaii > islands. The premise was simple: Iron, acting as a fertilizer, would > trigger a phytoplankton bloom that would pull carbon from the ocean. We'd > simply be replenishing the sea with a natural mineral micronutrient. The > whole ocean food chain would benefit, as well as the Haida, who have > suffered from diminished salmon runs. > > Our carbon emissions are an immediate, cataclysmic problem for the oceans > that make up more than 70 percent of our blue planet. We are delivering a > lethal overdose of carbon dioxide to the ocean environment.This is the > crisis of CO2, and we might as well forget about any long term problems > associated with global warming – and the trillions of dollars needed by > geoengineers like David Keith – if we do not first deal with ocean > health.Some in the international community and in Canada claim that our > project was unlawful are presently before the Supreme Court of British > Columbia. A thorough review of law in Canada has yet to discover anything > identifying the work as being unlawful. Other scientists have said this > approach won't work – that other studies have found little ability for iron > fertilization efforts to permanently sequester carbon on any scale relevant > to counter human emissionsWe have found otherwise. Six years of preparation > and months of sea studies aboard our research ships – along with two state > of the art Slocum Ocean gliders and hourly data from buoys at the site – > have produced nearly 200 million discrete measurements of the ocean > environment and the bloom. The experiment is working.For mere pennies per > ton of captured carbon dioxide, the native village I've been working with > has replenished and restored its traditional ocean pasture. In doing so we > captured tens of millions of ton of CO2 last year. The carbon has been > converted into an even more valuable form: Life itself – plankton – that my > friends on British Columbia's Haida Gwaii islands know best as fish food. > Here's a link to a narrative on how well it worked. > > So five years have passed since that New York City TED evening, and David > Keith's prototype artificial trees are being readied for a test. If the > test works perhaps the world will pour more money into a larger test. If > that works, he needs a price on carbon dioxide – $200 per ton – to scale up > his effort to chemically engineer a solution out of the air.Saving the > world one village at a time is practical and immediately possible. At a > fraction of the cost of David's artificial trees, our native grown > ecoengineering project is in fully operational condition, turning CO2 from > its deadly form into life.And let's look at the economics: A $200 price tag > on carbon emissions would have considerable ripple effects on the world > economy. Take a flight from New York to Paris as one example. Each > passenger disembarks with a two- to three-ton carbon footprint.Factoring in > how fees and surcharges tend to multiply as they get passed to consumers, > that sends the airfare soaring from about $1,150 today to about $2,350 with > Keith's carbon offset price.Our village-based ocean plan, in contrast, adds > less than $30 to the ticket price for the same amount of carbon > sequestration. And you get delicious wild salmon with your inflight meal.We > may still need David's artificial trees. I'm pretty sure we cannot afford > them. > > Russ George (Twitter: @russgeorge2) is founder of the Vancouver based > firm Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. which seeks to use ecoengineering > projects to restore ecosystems, help salmon runs and slow climate change. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
