http://m.smh.com.au/environment/tim-flannerys-message-of-hope-new-third-way-technologies-will-help-combat-climate-change-20150812-gixwuk.html
Extract ... these geoengineering options are untested, and could have dangerous side effects. Flannery says they are tantamount to "using poison to fight a poison". Flannery says the third way alternatives he has identified are very different from radical geoengineering proposals because they "recreate, enhance or restore" the processes that created a balance of greenhouse gasses prior to human interference. "They do not seek to fight one poison [excess carbon] with another [for example sulphur]," he writes. "Instead they look to restore or learn from processes that are as old as life itself. The third way is in large part about creating our future out of thin air." This encompasses proposals and experiments that mostly draw CO₂ out of the air and sea at a faster rate than occurs presently, and to store it safely. "It's what plants and a fair few rocks do." Some third way alternatives are already quite well-known, such as large-scale reafforestation and the addition of biochar to the soil. Biochar is a type of charcoal produced from the slow, oxygen-free burning of organic material. Creating biochar stores carbon for long periods and can be added to soil and improve soil quality. But Flannery sees even greater potential in less familiar methods to draw carbon from the atmosphere including large-scale seaweed farming, the manufacture of carbon-negative cement and new techniques for making plastic that draws CO₂ from the air. He canvasses strategies to absorb CO₂ by the "enhanced weathering" of silicate rocks and even making "CO₂ snow" in the Antarctic that could be stored in ice pits. Scientists are also investigating how the earth's albedo, or reflectiveness, could help cool the planet. By painting infrastructure white, cities might offset some of the warming they are now experiencing. In Flannery's assessment third way strategies could together be pulling about four gigatonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere a year by 2050, about 40 per cent of current emissions. "These are the technologies we need to be focussing on, that will give us a future," he says. But these innovations will only be effective if major investments are made in developing them now. "It's a bit like solar," Flannery says. "For the last 30 years solar PV has been reducing its cost by about 10 per cent per annum but for 25 of those 30 years it was still outrageously expensive and wasn't really competitive … Many of these third way technologies are the same – we need to start investing in them now to make sure we have the tools there in future when we really need them, in 2030 or 2040 as the climate crisis deepens. Then we will be really searching for ways to deal with this and the only way we'll have the tools is if we start investing now." Flannery has become a favourite target of climate change sceptics who accuse him of exaggerating the threat of global warming and of "quasi-religious" activism. He was the chief commissioner of the Climate Commission, a body established by the Gillard government to provide information on climate change before it was disbanded by the Abbott government. He's now a member of the Climate Council, which is independent and funded by the community. -- 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
