Should higher education advance or oppose geoengineering?

Posted on August 1, 2021 by Bryan Alexander

As the climate crisis deepens, geoengineering options are in the air. My question for today is: should academia support and advance geoengineering research, development, and deployment, or should higher education do its best to resist any such efforts?

To explain: geoengineering in this context refers to artificial interventions into the total Earth system in order to reduce global warming. There are many ways we can mount such projects. Altering the brightness of clouds or oceans could bounce back some solar radiation into space. Many and/or large mirrors orbiting the Earth could intercept some solar radiation. Seeding the oceans with iron could encourage algal blooms or more phytoplankton, which like to eat carbon dioxide, then plummet to seabeds bearing their carbon cargo. Launching aerosols, such as sulfates, into the stratosphere could reduce the amount of energy reaching the Earth’s surface.

(To be clear: yes, the term “geoengineering” can cover other projects, including some humanity has already done, like damming a river. In this post we’re just focused on the climate change aspect. If it helps, think of these projects as solar radiation management (SRM) or solar geoengineering, since they focus on adjusting how much the Earth receives from the sun. Direct air capture of CO2 could fall under this header, but I’m saving that for another post. Also, we’re not going to talk about conspiracy theories this time…