Geoengineering to the Rescue

This is why I've never been too worried about global warming. Andrew C. Revkin, a blogger for New York Time's Dot Earth (a science-related, environmental blog), recently posted the rough draft of the A.M.S. Policy Statement on Geoengineering the Climate System. It is almost common knowlege now that many scientists believe global warming has the potential to cause catastrophic damage to the earth. This damage could come in the forms of rising sea levels, more intense rainfall, longer and more severe droughts, or ocean acidification. This statement lays out the possibilities of action that the American Meteorological Society could pursue if some of these projections ever begin to occur.
The A.M.S. gives three potential strategies for reducing the risks of climate change. The first two are somewhat obvious: reduce carbon emissions and simply, adapt. The third potential avenue for combating the effects of global warming is the one that caught my eye.

3) deliberately manipulate large-scale physical, chemical or biological aspects of the climate system to counteract the climate effects of increasing greenhouse gas emissions (geoengineering the climate system)

Geoengineering may a be saviour. It may be the only viable option for preventing large-scale, natural disasters. And although scientists have yet to come up with a consensual plan where the benefit will outweigh the risk, geoengineering will certainly have a bright future. The ideas that come with geoengineering generally fall into three strategies:

1) managing atmospheric greenhouse gases (e.g., ocean fertilization and atmospheric carbon capture and sequestration)
2) cooling the Earth by reflecting sunlight (e.g., putting reflective particles into the atmosphere, putting mirrors in space to reflect the sun’s energy, increasing surface reflectivity and altering the amount or characteristics of clouds)
3) moderating specific impacts of global warming (e.g., efforts to limit sea level rise by increasing land storage of water, protecting ice sheets or artificially enhancing mountain glaciers).

The interesting thing about these strategies is that they are all brand new, untested, and very risky. However, ideas such as shooting mirrors into space to reflect sunlight and artificially enhancing mountain glaciers fascinate me and make me wish they tried it today, regardless of the risks. President Obama, while campaigning, frequently said, "If we figured out how to put a man on the moon in 10 years, we can certainly figure out how to produce fuel efficient cars." I think the same logic works with geoengineering.