The (in)sane revolution in climate change

Climate change, at the forefront of scientific, technological and political debate is the single greatest concern of the 21^st century to date. To begin, let’s clear up a common, naive misconception; climate change is an inevitable, natural process the Earth has experienced over the past ~4.55 billion years. However, our issue with respect to climate change is the anthropogenic perturbations to the climate system over the past century. Personally, I am not a fan of the term, but for ease I will save this qualm for a later post.

To date, current efforts have predominantly aimed at reducing Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) emissions via implementation of, ‘clean energy,’ yet current energy infrastructure and consumption prevents the succession of these efforts in the face of political and economic factors. This societal hindrance and anthropocentric outlook thus influenced the (in)sane revolution in which methods of geo-engineering are being addressed as techniques to manage a state of climate emergency. Such emergencies are characterised by ‘tipping points’ in the Earth’s climate system, a scenario in which non-linear feedbacks result in a state of irreversibility (Lenton et al. 2013). Geo-engineering remains shrouded in ambiguity, whilst inter-governmental summits are now progressing to implement constraint on global emissions three factors are fundamental to this (in)sane revolution and the opportunity for geo-engineering as a realism, rather than an idea.

• Uncertainty in predicting the climate system.
• An opportunity to provide global societies time to manage mitigation and greenhouse gas emissions.
• To prevent further damage to Earth's ecological systems.

Methods of geo-engineering take two forms: fixing Carbon from directly from the atmosphere and industrial sources or solar radiation management. Although these methods differ vastly, the aim of these concepts both receive criticism from an ecocentric stance. Such mitigation strategies allow for human consumption and behaviours to continue, leading to the question, are we simply masking the real cause and concern regarding anthropogenic climate change in an excuse to carry on as we are?

Though geo-engineering remains in its infancy, here we shall discuss and evaluate the multitude of methods in our effort to combat the anthropogenic negative of our ever changing climate. One can guarantee these impacts are to be unpredictable and undesired, but I finish on the question: 

Are we in(sane) to consider geo-engineering or are we in(sane) to ignore it?