Climatic Changes and Geoengineering

(The Fate of Kyoto)

 

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ΑΤΤΑC-Hellas

E. Benaki 71a

106 80 Athens

Τel. 210 3327732

http://www.attac-hellas.org

 

KYOTO

 

The Protocol of Kyoto is a 1997 international agreement providing for a 5.8% reduction by the year 2010 in  emissions of greenhouse gases on the basis of 1990 levels.  Implementation of the agreement is under threat because it has not yet been ratified by large countries such as the USA and Russia.

 

GEOENGINEERING)

 

‘The intentional large-scale manipulation of the global environment. The term has usually been applied to proposals to manipulate the climate with the primary intention of reducing undesired climatic change caused by human influences. …(G)eoengineering schemes seek to mitigate the effect of fossil-fuel combustion on the climate without abating fossil fuel use; for example, by placing shields in space to reduce the sunlight incident on the Earth.’  (Keith, D. W. 1999. Geoengineering. Εncyclopaedia of Global Change. New York)

 

Geoengineering includes land, sea and air-based components. Some of the remedies it proposes, e.g. large-scale planting of trees,  appear uncontroversial.  (Greenpeace, though, has expressed reservations concerning proposals for so-called ‘carbon sinks’).  Others, such as the ‘Geritol’ cure of sowing iron filings into the oceans to stimulate the growth of carbon-consuming phytoplankton, seem more problematic. Others again, such as the ‘sunscreen’ proposal of scattering millions of tons of metallic particles in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space before it could be emitted in heat radiation and then absorbed by carbon dioxide, are clearly seen by most geoengineering theorists as virtually impossible to sell to the public.

 

 

 

 

 

There was a geoengineering debate in the popular scientific press in the USA in the mid-nineties.  The  discussion made its reappearance in Europe around the New Year of 2003-2004 with some discussion by the BBC and the publication of a number of articles by the ‘Guardian’ newspaper.  The renewal of the geoengineering debate coincided with statements by a senior advisor to  Prime Minister Blair that  global climate change is ‘a greater threat than international terrorism.’

At a conference which took place in Cambridge, England, from 7th to 9th January 2004, Professor Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber of the Tyndall Centre for Climatic Change admitted that some of the measures being proposed by conference participants, such as giant shields in space and huge reservoirs to hold the additional water released by the melting of the polar ice caps, are ‘exotic ideas’.  ‘However,’ he added, ‘this is a desperate situation and people should start thinking about the unconventional.’

Systematic presentation of the main geoengineering proposals that have been put forward (and many of which are already clearly being implemented, though without official acknowledgement), are to be found in the American National Academy of Science’s report ‘Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming: Mitigation, Adaptation, and the Science Bases’,  (http://books.nap.edu/books/0309043867/html/index.html)  where the official conclusion by the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research is that the most effective global warming method of mitigation (corrective) is the spraying of reflective aerosol compounds into the atmosphere utilizing commercial, military and private aircraft.

 

 

 

RESOLUTION OF ATTAC-HELLAS

 

1.  We support the Protocol of Kyoto as a minimum first step towards a solution of the problem of catastrophic climate change.

 

2.  Geoengineering measures are not a solution.  The proposed cures are worse than the disease. 

 

3.  Geoengineering takes  present  structures of  uncontrolled and limitless economic growth as an unquestionable fact of  life.

 

4.  Official acknowledgement of the existence of geoengineering plans, even if only theoretical, is a step forward from the dogmatic denial that global climatic changes have economic and social roots (a viewpoint still predominant in the USA).  The danger exists, however,  that the same spirit of fear-mongering and hysteria that characterizes the ‘war  on terrorism’ and the nuclear arms race may also be introduced into the approach to climatic changes.

 

5.  Geoengineering plans are being implemented behind our backs and over our heads. Every citizen has a responsibility to inform himself/herself about this and take the appropriate measures, both individual and collective (for example by introducing and promoting the subject in organizations of  active citizens).

 

6.  In the face of the huge problem of  ongoing destruction of the ecological system of the planet, ATTAC remains open to the search for suitable scientifically-accredited solutions, so that a proper human-centred approach may be adopted, promoting a harmonic relationship between the natural and social worlds.