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A review by mburnamfink
The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World by Oliver Morton
4.0
Morton begins the book with two questions: 1) Do you think human emissions of carbon dioxide are changing Earth's climate? 2) Do you think it will be difficult to transition away from the centuries-long and multi-trillion dollar reliance on fossil fuels? If your answer is "yes and yes", then it may be necessary to embark on some form of geoengineering, the deliberate introduction of (most likely) sulfur aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect more light into space and counter the greenhouse effect.
Morton is a professional science writer, and he has a keen grasp of good analogies to describe the flows of energy through the upper surface of Earth, and the scientific discoveries that lead to theories of geoengineering. Major volcanic eruptions in the late 90s offered a case to test the assumptions of primitive climate models against the introduction of bulk surfer aerosols, with sudden cooling and associated hemispheric changes in the weather. Of course climate models are relatively crude, and there's still much that we don't know about the effects on weather, which is what people notice and care about, rather than the climate. The ease of geoengineering is stark. Perhaps $10 billion to set up a fleet of stratospheric tankers, and a $2 billion annually to maintain the program. Big science, yes, but costs on the order of a few large nuclear plants.
The problem with geoengineering is it's Promethean potential. It's not that the actual practice is wholly new. Climate change is just one natural cycle now substantially influence-to-completely dominated by human activity, from the Haber-Bosch process and nitrogen fertilizer, to phosphorus fertilizer, to the narrowly averted disaster of CFCs and the ozone layers. To take a major Earth system deliberately in hand and say "this is what we want it to be" is a new level of planetary ambition. Geonegineering induced cooling will have some losers, and the politics of those harms are not well mapped out.
This is where Morton falls short. He imagines a scenarios where a "Concord" of minor states threatened by climate change enact geoengineering, but it seems more likely that a major power or even a billionaire operating under a flag of convenience will get there first. The internal politics of geoengineering, its scientific debates, and relationship to mainstream atmospheric physics and ecological activism, are sorely under-reported. Still, I can't think of a better book on the topic.
Morton is a professional science writer, and he has a keen grasp of good analogies to describe the flows of energy through the upper surface of Earth, and the scientific discoveries that lead to theories of geoengineering. Major volcanic eruptions in the late 90s offered a case to test the assumptions of primitive climate models against the introduction of bulk surfer aerosols, with sudden cooling and associated hemispheric changes in the weather. Of course climate models are relatively crude, and there's still much that we don't know about the effects on weather, which is what people notice and care about, rather than the climate. The ease of geoengineering is stark. Perhaps $10 billion to set up a fleet of stratospheric tankers, and a $2 billion annually to maintain the program. Big science, yes, but costs on the order of a few large nuclear plants.
The problem with geoengineering is it's Promethean potential. It's not that the actual practice is wholly new. Climate change is just one natural cycle now substantially influence-to-completely dominated by human activity, from the Haber-Bosch process and nitrogen fertilizer, to phosphorus fertilizer, to the narrowly averted disaster of CFCs and the ozone layers. To take a major Earth system deliberately in hand and say "this is what we want it to be" is a new level of planetary ambition. Geonegineering induced cooling will have some losers, and the politics of those harms are not well mapped out.
This is where Morton falls short. He imagines a scenarios where a "Concord" of minor states threatened by climate change enact geoengineering, but it seems more likely that a major power or even a billionaire operating under a flag of convenience will get there first. The internal politics of geoengineering, its scientific debates, and relationship to mainstream atmospheric physics and ecological activism, are sorely under-reported. Still, I can't think of a better book on the topic.