Let's Talk about Geoengineering

Today a peer asked me what my blog was about. I replied casually with "geoengineering" (like everyone's heard about it), instead, I was met with the fantastic question "what's that?"

Today, the term climate change has never been so prevalent; we are immersed in the media with the implications that will inevitably arise. We are often so caught up with all the doom and gloom that we forget to actively find ways to mitigate and/or adapt to our changing climate.  The recent Paris Agreement is a great example of this, aiming to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C - 2°C above post-industrial temperature, but achieving this requires greater levels of mitigation planning than we currently have.

This problem has provoked greater thought on climate geoengineering methods: a global-scale, deliberate, alteration of the Earth's climatic systems designed to counteract or offset climate change. These approaches can be divided: 1) carbon dioxide removal technologies: extracting excess CO2 from the atmosphere and storing or 2) solar radiation management: reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the planet, thereby reducing the greenhouse effect. Despite increasing interest, limited attempts have been made to inform the public of these potential methods being devised by scientists and engineers to 'fix' our climate. Its ethics are often critiqued, and it must be made clear to the public, as global stewards we are responsible. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzche (1882) stated: 

"The time is coming when the struggle for dominion over the earth will be carried on. It will be carried on in the name of fundamental philosophical doctrines"

A philosophical thought to be considered throughout the blog as we tackle the array of methods designed to fix our planet.

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Stay tuned for my future posts to learn more, but if you can't wait check out the newspaper headlines to understand why geoengineering is so important today!