CHILL OUT EARTH

Geoengineering has long been a taboo subject in scientific circles. But as Earth's climate continues to warm, experts are increasingly wondering if we could, and should, take more drastic action and start tinkering with the planet in the hope of saving it

- JONATHAN O’CALLAGHAN

Human life is facing one of the biggest challenges in its history. Rampant climate change, driven by industrial activity, threatens our entire civilisation. The destabilised currents, intensifying heat waves and increasingly frequent storms are a danger to all of us.

The undisputed solution is to reduce our emissions, which may have already passed their peak, although the rate of fall isn’t enough to avert the effects of a changing climate. Yet there might be another approach to complement our sluggish efforts at emission reduction. What if, as well as decarbonising our society, we used temporary measures to alter Earth’s climate and prevent some of the worst effects of climate change?

That’s the dream touted by those championing geoengineering, a term that refers to manipulating the environment to counteract human-caused climate change. It’s not a term that has always sat well with scientists. “Geoengineering has been pretty taboo for a long time,” says Jessica Wan, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the US. “It’s typically been seen as a way to deter mitigation efforts to cut emissions.”

Momentum, however, appears to be shifting. In May, the UK government’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), designed to fund high-risk and high-reward research, announced £56.8 million (almost $77m) in funding for 21 geoengineering projects over the next five years in a programme called Exploring Climate Cooling. It followed a handful of other experiments in the US and Australia to investigate whether any geoengineering ideas might be viable.

“It’s important to conduct small-scale research,” says Michael Gerrard, a professor of environmental and energy law at Columbia Law School in the US. So, what might the future hold and could a large-scale geoengineering project ever become a reality?