Geo-Engineering - Science for the End of Days

When you bring up drastic measures to address global warming you often get blasted for playing with fire. The problem is that we have been playing with fire since we discovered fire and the build-up of carbon dioxide is the result. One unintended impact of so many human activities is carbon dioxide buildup. It’s too bad that we can get so exorcised with ideas that intend to reduce atmospheric CO2 buildup when we are in such denial about all the activities that create buildup.

Nonetheless, I do understand the warnings inherent in so many “scientific” endeavors that have become famous for their unintended consequences.  You do not want to be the scientist remembered for introducing  Killer bees  to the Americas.

And you probably would not want to remembered for suggesting bringing Cane toads to Australia was the solution to a bug infestation.

So, when scientific thinkers start suggesting large scale geo-engineering projects to keep the small blue planet a congenial place for the kind of life that has evolved here, the discussion that follows has to include some concern that we may be fooling with some systems that operate in ways that we don’t understand and that the long term consequences could be disastrous.  If the cure is worse than the disease you might want to try living with the disease, right?

Despite those reservations and concerns, some folks are starting to suggest that when large scale extinctions are underway,  it may be time to start thinking more about geo-engineering.

I am not keen on this idea of liming the oceans to fix both the increasing acidity of the oceans  and to give the oceans a boost in their capacity as carbon sinks for a number of reasons.  One is that the creating of the lime takes a significant amount of energy, so this approach does not appear to be an elegant solution where some component or facet of the problem itself becomes a solution, this one is simply a means of hitting two problems with one energy-consumptive solution.  It’s a twofer.  I will give it credit for that.  It works on ocean acidification and carbon sequestration at the same time.

Maybe we can figure out how to unring the killer bee and cane toad bell once we come up with the geo-engineering solution to global warming?

clipped from www.cquestrate.com The Idea First, you heat limestone to a very high temperature, until it breaks down into lime and carbon dioxide. Then you put the lime into the sea, where it reacts with carbon dioxide dissolved in the seawater. The important point is that when you put lime into seawater it absorbs almost twice as much carbon dioxide as is produced by the breaking down of the limestone in the first place. This is a brief description of the idea. If you prefer we also have a detailed description and a slideshow presentation on the process for you to see. The idea works like this:

This entry was posted on November 30, 2008 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Connect the Dots, Small Foot Print, Global Warming, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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