https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/11/11/geo-engineering_the_climate_change_solution_cop26_ignores.html
*Geo-Engineering: The Climate Change Solution COP26 Ignores* By Greg Orman November 11, 2021 They’ve come from far and wide to Glasgow for yet another climate summit — the scientists, the politicians, and the protesters — all vowing to save the planet. Although most of the dignitaries, presenters, and attendees at COP26 are sincere about wanting to lessen the threat of global warming, the conference agenda does not include discussion of, let alone action on, the already-available technology that could slow Earth’s inexorable warming. It’s getting to be an old, if depressing, story. In August, the physical science working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its most recent report. The IPCC was founded in 1988 and released its first comprehensive report on climate change in 1990. The August report is part of the sixth such assessment. As with prior findings, the news is grim. Our planet is heating up faster than we expected. The window for addressing the most cataclysmic effects of climate change is closing rapidly. We didn’t need another IPCC report to tell us what news reports from every corner of the globe are telling us daily. Just as we didn’t need another United Nations summit—Glasgow is the 26th. Our climate is changing before our very eyes—in dramatic and destructive ways. Not long before the pandemic and the 2020 election pushed them off Page One, fires in Australia and the Amazon were spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, highlighting one of the most insidious aspects of climate change – a vicious cycle whereby weather-driven events like fires end up reinforcing our cycle of warming by adding to emissions. The 2021 hurricane season continued the recent trend of starting earlier, generating more storms, and causing more damage. This was the fourth-costliest hurricane season on record. The other top three have all occurred in the last decade. This summer, extreme weather in Germany created mudslides that wiped away towns that had existed for centuries. In the Middle East, temperatures soared in excess of 125 degrees. And last month, almost 30 inches of rain fell just south of Milan, Italy over a 12-hour span – the highest rainfall amount *ever* recorded in Europe over that period of time. As difficult as these last couple of years have been, they pale in comparison to where we are headed. Extreme weather events will threaten food supplies leading to mass migrations of people and wars over food and water. Rising sea levels will threaten the homes of some 300 million people by 2050. The damage to property, loss of tax base, and the costs of relocation will measure in the trillions of dollars. Increases in respiratory disease, premature deaths, and infectious disease migration will take a toll on public health. All of this will be accelerated if we cross the point of no-return – the thawing of the permafrost. The permafrost is land mass that remains permanently frozen and stores over 1,400 gigatons of greenhouse gases – the vast majority of which will be released into the atmosphere if the permafrost thaws. It covers roughly 11% of the earth’s landmass, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere – in countries like Greenland, Canada, and Russia. *Progressive Opposition to Saving the Earth* None of this is inevitable. But avoiding the most damaging effects of climate change will require us to embrace a strategy that goes beyond eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. Geo-engineering, an approach that has been around for decades, must be part of the plan. Geo-engineering is the process of proactively altering the earth’s climate to achieve an outcome – in this case lowering the earth’s temperature for the immediate future. It could potentially achieve that goal for a fraction of the cost of our current approach. As promising as geo-engineering is, it has received a small percentage of the research investment of many significantly less impactful approaches. Its principal opponents are the environmental community itself. Unpacking this opposition and rapidly embracing the technology may be the key to delivering our grandchildren an inhabitable planet. Some forms of geo-engineering are already in use. Making it rain in Dubai last summer to help squelch the 125-degree heat is one recent example of the technology. There are two principal types of large-scale approaches to geo-engineering that have the potential to save the planet. The first is CO2 capture. Carbon dioxide is pulled out of the atmosphere and stored underground or converted into usable products, such as synthetic fuel. Environmental groups and progressive leaders don’t have any quarrel with this approach. It effectively pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere that our pollution created in the first place. It’s the moral equivalent of picking up trash on the side of the highway. Who could quibble with that? The problem with CO2 capture is the cost and our ability to scale the technology quickly. At well over $100 per ton, it’s significantly more expensive than we can afford. Assuming carbon capture were quickly scalable, it would cost more than $5 trillion annually to achieve net-zero emissions. The other primary geo-engineering strategy is solar radiation management (SRM). This is technology that must receive greater attention from elected leaders and research efforts from our scientists. Recognizing that greenhouse gases have differing impacts depending on where they end up in the atmosphere is critical to understanding how SRM works. The greenhouse gases that we emit generally end up in the troposphere, a lower level of the atmosphere. In the troposphere, these gases help to trap heat. Think of them like adding filling to a comforter. The more filling material, the warmer the comforter. However, if greenhouse gases are emitted into the stratosphere, the next layer up in our atmosphere, they can have the opposite effect – they can help cool the planet by reflecting the sun’s energy back into outer space. This is solar radiation management. We haven’t done enough research into SRM to truly understand it in large part because of opposition from environmental groups, but we know it works. We see the impact of SRM every time a powerful volcano erupts and spews its ash into the stratosphere. Such was the case with the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991. The result of the volcanic eruption was a 0.6-degree Celsius drop in average global temperature for the following 15 months. To be effective, SRM strategies would have to reduce roughly 1% of the solar radiation that reaches the earth. David Keith, one of the leading experts on geo-engineering, suggests that this could be accomplished by having aircraft fly high-altitude missions to release roughly 4% of the sulfur dioxide currently being released by fossil fuel-powered electricity plants. The cost of this approach is estimated at $10 billion-$20 billion annually, a fraction of what we spend globally today to fight climate change. The impact of reflecting just 1% of the solar radiation that hits the earth would be a game changer in the fight against global warming. It would mitigate the warming effect of the 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases that are emitted today. It would lengthen our runway to a zero-carbon future by decades. Importantly, it would forestall the thawing of the permafrost and avert the most cataclysmic impacts of climate change. We could deliver to our grandchildren an inhabitable planet and not a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Solar radiation management could be the equivalent of a vaccine against global warming. Nonetheless, for the past two decades, environmental groups and leaders have lobbied strenuously against SRM. Where possible, they’ve even prevented the study of the process. They’re so fundamentally opposed to using SRM as a strategy for slowing climate change that they don’t even want to know the facts about its efficacy. It wasn’t until 2018 that the IPCC finally conceded that it might need to study geo-engineering. Their first session on it displayed all the urgency of someone scheduling a routine colonoscopy. This, of course, begs the question of why environmental groups would oppose a vaccine for our planet. Publicly, the answers that SRM opponents’ give range from the glib (“You can’t solve the problem of pollution with more pollution”) to the hypocritical (“It would require a global consensus that would be impossible to achieve”). The latter is said with a straight face, as if the global consensus and attendant actions required to achieve a zero-carbon future have been easy to achieve. If that were so, we wouldn’t have needed 26 summits to get us to the starting line. There are, of course, climate actors who are realistic about the state of the problem and the wide range of tools needed to avert apocalyptic scenarios. But they are fearful of the unknown. These individuals worry that SRM might add tons of a particular pollutant to the atmosphere and do nothing to halt the advance of global warming. Or, even worse, it might add to our environmental problems. These fears are understandable because there’s a chance that sulfur dioxide could very well make its way into the troposphere and accelerate global warming. But when talking about such concerns, it’s important to remember that SRM would be adding only 4% more of the sulfur dioxide emissions that we currently disperse into the atmosphere from power production. A continued migration to renewable energy could easily offset this effect. There’s also a legitimate concern about moral hazard. If we take away the consequence of a bad behavior — say, polluting the troposphere with 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases a year — we eliminate the incentive to change the behavior. This may be the most credible of the opposition’s arguments. Given the lack of progress on achieving a zero-carbon future, however, it’s clear that changing the status quo is extremely challenging even with the threat of an imminent environmental catastrophe. In short, that battle is not being won. Why not try something different? These types of arguments against SRM could be used to foster a debate that enhances our approach to geo-engineering. Unfortunately, it’s being used to kill the approach altogether. That’s because the opposition to geo-engineering runs much deeper than the easily refuted arguments above. It’s political and cultural. *Putting Politics Before the Planet* If one were to put a face on the opposition to aggressive climate change policy, it would be the oil and gas industry. Witness the ritual abuse that the industry endured recently at the hands of House Democrats. While Exxon Mobil acknowledges studying the impact of fossil fuels on the environment going all the way back to the 1970s, it wasn’t until the late 1990s that energy companies started funding full-scale efforts to oppose climate change policies. The industry’s opposition to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol was the galvanizing event. The Kyoto Protocol also animated conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh, who referred to it as “just another element of advancing the agenda against capitalism.” Opposition from conservative commentators in the 1990s built upon natural Republican skepticism for regulations, which Ronald Reagan had reignited a decade earlier. So, despite early Republican support for action against climate change, such as George H.W. Bush’s efforts to launch the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, protecting the environment gradually became a partisan issue. Recognizing their natural allies in the Republican Party, the oil and gas industry has spent heavily on political activity, disproportionately giving to GOP candidates. For the past 20 years, they’ve given on average four times as much money to the candidate committees of Republicans as Democrats. In terms of outside spending, the contrast is even more stark. In 2020, outside spending groups funded with oil and gas industry money spent almost 17 times as much supporting conservatives as they did supporting liberals. Environmental organizations were even more lopsided with their donations. $98 out of every $100 spent by environmental groups benefited liberals – an explicit acknowledgement that Republicans were their enemies. To embrace geo-engineering today, the environmental community reasons it would be effectively letting its political enemies off the ropes. A future with carbon taxes, 100% renewable energy requirements, an electrified vehicle fleet, and green steel, however, would KO the oil and gas giants. As Bill Gates recently pointed out, “30 years from now, some of these oil companies will be worth very little.” Geo-engineering, despite its ability to save our planet from the most damaging immediate effects of global warming, would, in the minds of the environmental lobby, delay that knockout. Because the rules of our political system have been substantially manipulated by both major parties and their special interest allies over the last several decades, the days of finding a win-win negotiated solution are gone. Instead, American politics revolves around one central theme: ensuring the “other side” fails even if that means delaying or even eliminating progress on issues one professes to care about. If the environmental community were to now embrace geo-engineering, it would be tantamount to political malpractice. *Missed Opportunities and Insurmountable Hurdles* Progressive politicians in the United States have been sounding the alarm on climate change since Al Gore published “Earth in the Balance” nearly 30 years ago. It’s been 15 years since “An Inconvenient Truth,” the film adaption of Gore’s book that won an Academy Award. Despite this, America has never demonstrated real leadership on climate action. Gore’s election as vice president five months after his book was published could have been a catalyst for sustained American leadership. Instead, despite Democratic control of Congress and the White House, energy-state Democrats in the Senate stripped the gas tax out of the budget reconciliation bill of 1993. That was the first of many missed opportunities to address climate change in a meaningful way. In 1993, a majority of Republican voters still believed climate change was real and driven by human activity, making action on climate change politically possible even in divided government. With George W. Bush’s victory in 2000 over Al Gore, the former vice president’s ability to affect policy on climate change diminished to that of a glorified activist. The early years of the Bush administration brought an opportunity to take decisive bipartisan action on curbing future emissions of this now partisan issue. The 9/11 terrorist attacks unified the American people – and the West – like no other time since the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Reducing our dependence on foreign oil could have been positioned as a patriotic act. In 2009, when Democrats held 60 votes in the Senate, a 76-vote majority in the House and Obama-Biden occupied the White House, the administration offered no significant climate change legislation. We only got half measures – cash for clunkers, modest increases in fuel economy standards, tax credit extensions for renewable energy, and an energy plan with goals that the industry was already on the path to achieve. President Trump made the abdication of American leadership complete. After declaring that climate change was a “hoax,” he pulled America out of the Paris accord. Trump’s dismissal of the agreement not only held America back from taking action but diminished its prestige and clout to persuade future global actors of the need to take action. And now, as Congress debates a new “human infrastructure” bill, including various climate measures, one thing is abundantly clear – none of it will solve the problem. Even with the full support of Joe Manchin, which the administration lacks, the bill is too little too late. America’s window of opportunity to provide real leadership on this issue has closed. In part, that’s because climate change is a global issue and developing countries — most notably China, the world’s largest polluter — plan on increasing their emissions well into the next decade. Given their economic and military ascendancy, there’s little we can do to pressure them to change course. India, another prodigious polluter, is building roughly the same amount of new coal-fired electric capacity as the U.S. is planning to retire through 2030. Russia and the OPEC nations are economically dependent on the sale and consumption of fossil fuels. The global challenge was manifested in real time this September at the United Nations where pledges from the Paris accord signatory nations fell far short of what is needed to meet the goal of limiting global temperatures to a rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius. A U.N. analysis reported that, based on pledges, global emissions would rise by 16% by 2030, far short of the 45% reduction that scientists say is needed. The challenge is also driven by a lag in applicable technology. The cost of manufacturing “green” cement and steel is still incredibly high relative to current methods. The intermittency of most renewable energy resources will also necessitate either a huge investment in industrial scale batteries or the continued operation of nuclear and fossil fuel-powered plants. Potential shortages of critical materials may likely hamper the transition to a fully electric transportation system and the development of solar panels. Scaling up new technologies that work in a lab is also considerably more difficult in the real world. All of this presumes the impediments to progress on climate change are merely geopolitical, technological, or resource based. As the recent debates over the climate features in Biden’s Build Back Better agenda have indicated, building consensus on the necessary changes is nearly impossible, even in a nation less economically dependent on fossil fuels. Regional political realities within our country and interest groups with significant assets at stake add real complexity to the problem. This resistance has served to water down our efforts for the better part of three decades and will continue to do so. Even if we lived in a perfect world, meeting the milestones that scientists have laid out to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change would be extremely difficult. Recognizing the constraints we face, however, makes meeting these goals next to impossible. It also makes the environmental community’s hostility towards geo-engineering even more unforgiveable. In opposing the study of solar radiation management, members of the environmental community are embodying some of the traits of the political opponents they hate the most – turning a blind eye to science and pointing to potential minor consequences as an excuse for inaction. I come to this as someone who has worked for almost 30 years to combat climate change using the tools that Democrats want to expand. In 1992 (around the time Al Gore was discovering the environment), I started a company called Environmental Lighting Concepts (ELC) to help companies upgrade their lighting to newly energy-efficient models. Eventually, we rolled that business into a larger firm that engineered and installed a wide range of energy efficient building technologies. I ran the combined company. Often, we would reduce a school, hospital, or office building’s carbon footprint by 40% or more. Those were huge improvements at the time. I’ve also started businesses that provided financing for energy efficient upgrades, engaged in the development of biomass energy, and more recently have been developing renewable natural gas resources that generate energy while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These carbon-negative energy resources will be essential to achieving a zero-carbon future. I’m also heavily involved in reducing waste and the associated carbon emissions through two businesses. One has developed a reusable industrial insulation system twice as efficient as fiberglass and has a nearly infinite lifespan. The second company has developed a passive collection system for recycling glass. That business has given over a billion bottles a second act. My involvement in these companies is active and consumes most of my time in any given week. I believe strongly in trying to bring private sector solutions to these problems and am passionate about doing my part. Many of these businesses rely on some of level of government-mandated incentives – whether that’s utility company rebates that are mandated by state legislatures or investment tax credits for renewable electricity or low-carbon fuel credits. I say all this to make one thing clear – I agree wholeheartedly with the goals of the environmental community as it relates to addressing climate change in a full-throated way. I have spent the better part of my adult life trying to reduce energy consumption and mitigate the related environmental consequences. But at this point, my actions and those of like-minded people won’t be enough regardless of the fate of Biden’s human infrastructure bill. The environmental community needs to stop playing political games, embrace the study of geo-engineering, and get behind the application of SRM if the science suggests it works. Anything short of that is immoral and hypocritical. *Greg Orman is a Kansas entrepreneur, author of “*A Declaration of Independents,”* and a former independent candidate for governor and senator of his state. His website is www.greg-orman.com <https://www.greg-orman.com/>.* -- 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 geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/CAKSzgpZSYG_rBhA0PzVWMzCSSHD9nGVyRkk6ott8Niehj75Yng%40mail.gmail.com.
