Geoengineering and Climate Change

Methods, Risks, and Governance

Martin Beech

• Publisher: Wiley-Scrivener
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781394204380
• eBook ISBN: 9781394204830
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This important and timely book assembles expert scientists from both sides of the debate to discuss Earth-based and space-based climate intervention technologies including the scale, deployment, risk management, and moral philosophy behind these technologies.

The role that geoengineering might play, within the context of global warming amelioration, has long been contentious. For all this, geoengineering is about getting down and dirty with respect to the issue of climate intervention. Often dismissed as an option of last resort, geoengineering is now emerging as a key component in humanity's drive to bring the impacts of global warming under some form of mitigation and control. While geoengineering does not solve the fundamental problem of continued anthropomorphic carbon dioxide emissions, the root cause of global warming, it is an option that can effectively buy humanity some much-needed time. Time, that is, to act positively, and time to introduce meaningful emission reductions, and deploy large-scale sequestration technologies. Indeed, the failure to meaningfully corral greenhouse gas emission levels, and the slow development of large-scale carbon capture technologies, will, by the close of the 21st century, likely see global temperatures increase by at least 2 or 3 degrees above pre-industrial levels. What geoengineering can potentially do for us is to offset the more extreme climate change scenarios that are presently projected to come about. An integrated geoengineering program to cool Earth's atmosphere, running in parallel with the development of sequestration technologies, and substantial emission reductions, can work to limit the worst effects of climate change that will, without geoengineering, surely come about. Geoengineering is not a neutral or benign action, however, and if it is to be deployed, then much more research, and field testing of ideas and technologies is urgently needed.

The authors in this book present a cross-section of philosophies, engineering approaches, and reactions to the idea of geoengineering. Through their words, the reader is introduced to the historical and contemporary debate concerning the potential deployment of geoengineering actions. Indeed, there are many ways in which geoengineering, as a grand worldwide initiative, or as a combined set of independent actions, might proceed in both the near, and the deep future, and here the reader is introduced to these topics by experts in their field.

Audience
This book will be of interest to engineers, chemists, geologists, physicists, biologists, environmentalists, meteorologists, philosophers, mathematicians, computer modelers, and policy managers. General readers interested in geoengineering will find the book very readable and scientifically reliable.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1 Prolegomenon: A Geoengineering Primer
• Chapter 2 Two Generations of Ethical Debate on Geoengineering
• Chapter 3 Risky Business: Complex Risks of Solar Geoengineering
• Chapter 4 Climate Justice and the Dangers of Solar Geoengineering
• Chapter 5 Solar Geoengineering: An Insoluble Problem?
• Chapter 6 Potential Mental Health Risks Associated with Stratospheric Aerosol Injection Methods Using Aluminum Oxide
• Chapter 7 What to Consider When Considering Solar Geoengineering
• Chapter 8 Moral Hazard of Geoengineering to Decarbonization
• Chapter 9 The Preeminent Question of Environmental Philosophy: Where Should We Set the Envirostat?
• Chapter 10 Climate Hegemony and Control Over the Global Thermostat
• Chapter 11 Designing A Priori Scenarios for Stratospheric Aerosol Injections to Mitigate Climate Change: An Optimal Control Technique Application
• Chapter 12 Testing the Limits of the World’s Largest Control Task: Solar Geoengineering as a Deep Reinforcement Learning Problem
• Chapter 13 Geochemical Drivers of Enhanced Rock Weathering in Soils
• Chapter 14 Geoengineering Cities with Reflective and Pervious Surfaces
• Chapter 15 Urban Geoengineering
• Chapter 16 Cooling Down the World Oceans and the Earth
• Chapter 17 Ice Preservation: A Research Priority for Climate Resilience and Sustainability – Experience in the Field
• Chapter 18 Cirrus Cloud Thinning
• Chapter 19 Can the COVID-19 Decrease in Aircraft Flights Inform us of Whether the Addition of Efficient INP to Cirrus Altitudes Cools the Climate?
• Chapter 20 Biogenic Iron Oxides as a Source of Iron for Ocean Iron Fertilization
• Chapter 21 Space Bubbles: The Deflection of Solar Radiation Using Thin-Film Inflatable Bubble Rafts
• Chapter 22 Optimal Sunshield Positioning
• Chapter 23 Could the Well of an Orbital Lift Be Used to Deposit Greenhouse Gases into Space?
• Chapter 24 Ionospheric Perturbations from Satellite Dust
• Chapter 25 Geoengineering and Beyond – Planetary Defense, Space Debris, and SETI
• Chapter 26 Future Imperative and the Inevitable Technofix
• Index
• Also of Interest
• EULA