Image: 2020science.org

With the discovery of Gliese 581g, a new Earthlike planet that could one-day harbor life, lots of discussion has been given lately to the idea of changing planets. If we can just get to the Goldilocks Zone, some 20 light years from here, we might have another shot at a more keeping humanity alive for a few more millennia.

However, not enough has been said about how we can change the planet where we already live. That’s right, I’m talking about geoengineering.

The idea behind geoengineering is that if we wish, we can dramatically and deliberately alter our climate through science.

Whether because of our use of fossil fuels, or due to some other external factor that roughly correlates with the rapid expansion of our use of petroleum and coal for energy, the world has seen a rapid and sustained increase in global temperatures that has unleashed havoc in the form of forest fires, stronger hurricanes and the spread of disease and pestilence to areas formerly too cold for them to make a foothold.

Similar to the way humans have bungled the environment over the past 150 or so years, geoengineering may give us an opportunity to turn back the clock.

If geoengineering works, it may offer hope of centuries more continued life on this planet, or it may buy us enough time to reach, a new planet and eventually mess it up too.

How Does Geoengineering Work?

There are a number of interesting ways that geoengineering could work, though each one has its limitations.

Perhaps the simplest way to start geoengineering a cooler planet would be by getting people to paint the roofs of their houses white. White rooftops would reflect heat away from the surface of the earth and
Already, Cool Roofs, a program of the City of New York has whitewashed its one millionth square foot of dark rooftops, as Fast Company reported today.

Image: Rainforest Action Network

The largest examples of this principle at work are the polar ice caps. These massive white sheets of ice do the lion’s share of solar reflection, but are shrinking due to rising temperatures, which cause more melting, which in turn reflects less sunlight and so forth.

However, people’s willingness to paint rooftops white, and the the small portion of the earth’s total surface area that is covered by roofs, compared the dark, heat absorptive oceans mitigates the impact that whitewashing could have on overall climate change.

Another way to geoengineer the planet involves releasing massive amounts of sulfur into the atmosphere that would interact with the ozone layer and reduce temperatures. Volcanoes already release sulfur particles and this has been shown to lower the temperature in the local area where the eruption occurs, by naturally reflecting sunlight back into space. Replicating this process is one way in which we could cool our planet, but has the potential downside of creating unwanted chemical reactions, and possibly affecting plant life by dimming what sunlight does get through.

Yet another fix involves involves planting tens of millions of trees in arid zones such as the Sahara Desert. If the trees could be properly irrigated, or if a drought resistant strain could be found, these instant forests would suck up and sequester hundreds of millions of tons of CO2.

The most audacious geoengineering schemes, however, do not take place on earth. Instead, dreamers and scientists envision geoengineering efforts in outer space.

Blocking sunlight before it gets to the Earth is another possible solution. All that is needed is to interrupt 1.8 percent of the of the solar flux by launching a constellation of spaceships near the Inner Lagrange Point, according to Roger Angel of the University of Arizona Stewart Observatory.

Angel proposes a three-pronged strategy: The first involves the deployment a “sunshade” weighing around 20 million tons and made from transparent material that would bounce a portion of sunlight back into space. The second stage would dramatically lower the costs of transportation to $50/kg by “using electromagnetic acceleration to escape Earth’s gravity, followed by ion propulsion.” The third and final step involves the suspension and assembly of the sunshade in the earth’s orbit by using prefab components and “flyers,” according to the abstract of the paper ‘Feasibility of cooling the Earth with a cloud of small spacecraft near the inner Lagrange point (L1).’

Angel writes, that the costs are well within”The concept builds on existing technologies. It seems feasible that it could be developed and deployed in ≈25 years at a cost of a few trillion dollars, <0.5% of world gross domestic product (GDP) over that time.

Just a couple trillion. No big deal. Really!

But maybe we shouldn't be thinking about trying to reverse the onslaught of climate change, and do more to mitigate the damage that has already been done.

Should We Try Geoengineering?

It’s a flag of surrender in the face of the carbon onslaught,” said Jason Jungreis, a San Francisco-based attorney with Cleantech Law Partners. “While I approve of forests and feeding algae with carbon dioxide–when/if that gets worked out–I think the real geoengineering proposals — shields in space, reflective dust in the upper atmosphere — are a distraction from the critical carbon reduction work that needs to be accomplished now,” Jungreis said in an email.

Couldn’t geoengineering be a way to put millions of people to work? In the U.S. and throughout the world, a surplus labor force could be mobilized to make a dramatic impact for life on earth as we know it. Isn’t it worth a shot?

“I’m a firm believer in the laws of unintended consequences that predict that no good deed will go unpunished,” said John L. Petersen, an attorney a contributing editor to AltEnergyStocks and a regular firebrand on investor site Seeking Alpha. The relative utility of geoengineering ideas is frankly a bit above my ability to analyze intelligently,” said Petersen.

“More importantly, I’m not entirely convinced that CO2 is in fact the culprit that folks make it out to be. There are many things in this world that we do not understand as a species. One of the biggest is solar variability and the interrelationship between solar radiation, cosmic radiation and terrestrial weather. Everything people are panicing over today is well within historical norms for the planet which has incredibly rich and powerful feedback mechanisms. If the planet cannot support current levels of human impacts, it will ultimately solve the problems in its own way. The solutions may not be pleasant, but they will most certainly be effective.”

So why geongineer our planet at all? We’re rapidly running out of vital resources such as petroleum and fresh water. With population growth expected to reach more than 8 billion by 2030, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, we’re going to need a lot more of everything, and we’re also going to need to share what we already have.

So the question remains, do we change this planet, or change planets?