[loz]

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Engineering Earth 'is feasible'

A UK Royal Society study has concluded that many engineering proposals to reduce the impact of climate change are "technically possible".

Such approaches could be effective, the authors said in their report.

But they also stressed that the potential of geo-engineering should not divert governments away from their efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

Such engineering projects could either remove carbon dioxide or reflect the Sun's rays away from the planet.

Suggestions range from having giant mirrors in space, to erecting giant CO2 scrubbers that would "clean up" the air.

Ambitious as these schemes seem, the report concluded that many of them had merit and should be pursued.

The authors stated, however, that some of the technology was barely formed and there were "major uncertainties regarding its effectiveness, costs and environmental impacts".

One of the technologies considered "too risky" was pouring iron fillings into the ocean to grow algae which, the authors said, could cause "substantial damage" to marine life and freshwater, estuary and coastal ecosystems.

That last paragraph worries me the most. If some of these technologies are just slightly 'risky', then it seems to me there is still a huge opportunity to screw things up on a global scale...

Why does man have to interfere, when the solution is to just leave it alone. (and by leave it alone, I also mean create less polution in the first place)

[DPinBucks]

Originally Posted by loz

...

Why does man have to interfere, when the solution is to just leave it alone. (and by leave it alone, I also mean create less polution in the first place)

Well, I wouldn't think that would work, but I do think we should distinguish between doing things we can control and those we can't.

What I mean is, if we built enormous numbers of 'trees' to scrub CO2 from the air, then if things went too far or pear-shaped generally we could take 'em down.

But these 'fire and forget' approaches would worry the hell out of me. How would we remove trillions of reflective discs circling the earth? Or sulphates in the upper atmosphere?

[deckingman]

All very true. Let us also not forget that CO2 is an essential trace element and not (at low concentrations) the "harmful" gas that it has been demonised into. It would indeed be possible to go too far in reducing it.

[robh2002]

In a way we (i.e. Man) is already geo-engineering by pumping out CO2...