A few weeks ago, I gave a talk at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati under the slightly provocative title “Small Gods and the Art of Technology Innovation”.  The talk is now available on-line (slides and audio at least) – and viewable below – through the excellent work of the folk at CAC.

Rather sneakily, I used the opportunity to talk to a (mainly) lay audience about risk science in the 21st century – did I get away with it I wonder…?

This is an extremely quick and dirty blog post, as I really need to be somewhere else.  But while traveling to the World Economic Forum meeting in China today, I came across a new paper that piques my interest.

The paper is by David Keith at the University of Calgary (published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science), and is a theoretical investigation of how injecting large quantities of precisely engineered particles into the upper atmosphere might provide a cost-effective tool for climate intervention – geoengineering.

The idea of using aerosol particles for messing with climate change isn’t a new one – the idea of injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect more sunlight away from the earth has been around for a while.  But there were a couple of novel aspects of David’s paper that caught my attention.

The first was that he proposes engineering particles as disks a few micrometers wide and around 50 nanometers thick, that are designed to automatically congregate where they are most useful in the atmosphere – in other words, this is a beautiful case of nanotechnology meets geoengineering.

The second aspect of the paper that caught my attention was that I was working with precisely engineered particles not too dissimilar from those that David described back in the 1990′s, which got me wondering whether techniques being used then for fabrication of silicon particles could be used for the more complex particles being proposed here.

In a nutshell, David’s idea is to engineer discs around 10 micrometers across and 50 nanometers thick, with a core of aluminum, a top layer of aluminum oxide, and a bottom layer of barium titanate.  Injected high enough into the atmosphere (so Brownian motion didn’t muck things up) the discs should align with the lighter aluminum/aluminum oxide side facing up, and the heavier barium titanate side facing down.  This is important, because the way these two surfaces interact with air molecules when the particles heat up – as they would do in sunlight – means that there would be a net force pushing the discs up (photophoresis).  In effect, the particles would levitate to a stable position in the atmosphere, while keeping their shiny side to the sun – thus reflecting sunlight away from the earth (or increasing albedo).

The idea’s a lot more sophisticated than dumping huge quantities of sulfates into the atmosphere, as in principle more could be achieved with less material, and in a more controlled manner.  By engineering nanoparticles appropriately, it might also be possible to control where they go even further – by introducing a magnetic component for instance, so they follow the Earth’s magnetic field.

The idea is an intriguing one.  The science that David Keith outlines – which admittedly is broad brushstrokes science – is plausible.  The forces on discs the size he suggests should be sufficient to keep them aligned in the upper atmosphere – even when the Sun isn’t present for short periods of time.  And if sufficient quantities could be produced, they should have a measurable cooling effect.  The neat thing of course is that this is a concept that can be tested reasonably easily in the lab, using simulated atmospheres and prototype particles.  And with advances in materials manufacturing in recent years, it shouldn’t be too hard to make small batches of the discs.

Which brings me to the second reason the paper caught my eye.  Back in the 1990′s I was interested in how non-spherical airborne particles – including discs – behaved in aerosol samplers.  One particular source of particles I played around with was precisely engineered uniform discs, just a few micrometers in diameter, formed using micromachining techniques more usually used to manufacture semiconductor chips.

This was a technique described by Mark Hoover (a good colleague from NIOSH) and colleagues, and developed in the UK by Pauk Kaye.  By using suitable templates, precisely shaped particles could be etched on the surface of a silicon wafer, then floated off and aerosolized.  The result was an airborne cloud of precisely engineered discs.

[The images of these particles in Hoover et al. are copyright, but check out the figures in the paper]

Of course, Mark and Paul were using silicon as their main material.  But with modern Chemical Vapor Deposition techniques, it would be easy to use a similar technique to manufacture the particles described by David Keith.  The question then is, how expensive would they be?

In his paper, David estimates that around 10 billion kg of these nano-discs would be needed.  That’s a lot – but probably economically viable with large-scale investment in production and if the benefits were deemed important enough (David runs the figures assuming the cost of manufacture is less than 1% the cost of abating CO2 emissions, and arrives at a cost of less than $60/kg).

There is another question though, and that is the question of environmental and human health impact.  If the use of such particles was ever explored seriously – even at the laboratory scale – it goes without saying that parallel studies would be needed to understand how they might interact with the atmosphere, environment and people in less than helpful ways, and how adverse impacts might be avoided.  Here again though David Keith comes up with a thought-provoking idea:  What if the particles were engineered to have a finite lifespan, so that potential adverse impacts were minimized?  This might be done – he suggests – by designing particles that degrade over time under UV radiation and a constant assault from oxygen radicals in the atmosphere.  Safety by design in other words – an idea that has been discussed in nanotechnology circles for a while (including in the 2006 Safe Handling of Nanotechnology commentary in Nature) – but it’s good to see it being explored in this context.

At present, geoengineering the climate using engineered nanoparticles is just an idea – but it is a plausible one, and shows what can happen when different technologies and ideas begin to converge.  One to watch in the future I suspect.

Ten years ago at the close of the 20th century, people the world over were obsessing about the millennium bug – an unanticipated glitch arising from an earlier technology.  I wonder how clear it was then that, despite this storm in what turned out to be a rather small teacup, the following decade would see unprecedented advances in technology – the mapping of the human genome, social media, nanotechnology, space-tourism, face transplants, hybrid cars, global communications, digital storage, and more.  Looking back, it’s clear that despite a few hiccups, emerging technologies are on a roll – one that’s showing no sign of slowing down.

So what can we expect as we enter the second decade of the twenty first century?  What are the emerging technology trends that are going to be hitting the headlines over the next ten years?

Here’s my list of the top ten technologies I think are worth watching. I’m afraid that, as with all crystal ball gazing, it’s bound to be flawed. Yet as I work on the opportunities and challenges of emerging technologies, these do seem to be areas that are ripe for prime time.

Geoengineering

2009 was the year that geoengineering moved from the fringe to the mainstream.  The idea of engineering the climate on a global scale has been around for a while. But as the penny has dropped that we may be unable – or unwilling – to curb carbon dioxide emissions sufficiently to manage global warming, geoengineering has risen up the political agenda.  My guess is that the next decade will see the debate over geoengineering intensify.  Research will lead to increasingly plausible and economically feasible ways to tinker with the environment.  At the same time, political and social pressure will grow – both to put plans into action (whether multi- or unilaterally), and to limit the use of geoengineering.  The big question is whether globally-coordinated efforts to develop and use the technology in a socially and politically responsible way emerge, or whether we end up with an ugly – and potentially disastrous – free for all.

Smart grids

It may not be that apparent to the average consumer, but the way that electricity is generated, stored and transmitted is under immense strain.  As demand for electrical power grows, a radical rethink of the power grid is needed if we are to get electricity to where it is needed, when it is needed.  And the solution most likely to emerge as the way forward over the next ten years is the Smart Grid.  Smart grids connect producers of electricity to users through an interconnected “intelligent” network.  They allow centralized power stations to be augmented with – and even replaced by – distributed sources such as small-scale wind farms and domestic solar panels.  They route power from where there is excess being generated to where there is excess demand.  And they allow individuals to become providers as well as consumers – feeding power into the grid from home-installed generators, while drawing from the grid when they can’t meet their own demands.  The result is a vastly more efficient, responsive and resilient way of generating and supplying electricity.  As energy demands and limits on greenhouse gas emissions hit conventional electricity grids over the next decade, expect to see smart grids get increasing attention.

Radical materials

Good as they are, most of the materials we use these days are flawed – they don’t work as well as they could.  And usually, the fault lies in how the materials are structured at the atomic and molecular scale.  The past decade has seen some amazing advances in our ability to engineer materials with increasing precision at this scale.  The result is radical materials – materials that far outperform conventional materials in their strength, lightness, conductivity, ability to transmit heat, and a whole host of other characteristics.  Many of these are still at the research stage.  But as demands for high performance materials continue to increase everywhere from medical devices to advanced microprocessors and safe, efficient cars to space flight, radical materials will become increasingly common.  In particular, watch out for products based on carbon nanotubes.  Commercial use of this unique material has had it’s fair share of challenges over the past decade.  But I’m anticipating many of these will be overcome over the next ten years, allowing the material to achieve at least some of it’s long-anticipated promise.

Synthetic biology

Ten years ago, few people had heard of the term “synthetic biology.”  Now, scientists are able to synthesize the genome of a new organism from scratch, and are on the brink of using it to create a living bacteria.  Synthetic biology is about taking control of DNA – the genetic code of life – and engineering it, much in the same way a computer programmer engineers digital code.  It’s arisen in part as the cost of reading and synthesizing DNA sequences has plummeted.  But it is also being driven by scientists and engineers  who believe that living systems can be engineered in the same way as other systems.  In many ways, synthetic biology represents the digitization of biology.  We can now “upload” genetic sequences into a computer, where they can be manipulated like any other digital data.  But we can also “download” them back into reality when we have finished playing with them – creating new genetic code to be inserted into existing – or entirely new – organisms.  This is still expensive, and not as simple as many people would like to believe – we’re really just scratching the surface of the rules that govern how genetic code works.  But as the cost of DNA sequencing and synthesis continues to fall, expect to see the field advance in huge leaps and bounds over the next decade.  I’m not that optimistic about us cracking how the genetic code works in great detail by 2020 – the more we learn at the moment, the more we realize we don’t know.  However, I have no doubt that what we do learn will be enough to ensure synthetic biology is a hot topic over the next decade.  In particular, look out for synthesis of the first artificial organism, the development and use of “BioBricks” – the biological equivalent of electronic components – and the rise of DIY-biotechnology.

Personal genomics

Closely related to the developments underpinning synthetic biology, personal genomics relies on rapid sequencing and interpretation of an individual’s genetic sequence.  The Human Genome Project – completed in 2001 – cost taxpayers around $2.7 billion dollars, and took 13 years to complete.  In 2007, James Watson’s genome was sequenced in 2 months, at a cost of $2 million.  In 2009, Complete Genomics were sequencing personal genomes at less than $5000 a shot.  $1000 personal genomes are now on the cards for the near future – with the possibility of substantially faster/cheaper services by the end of the decade.  What exactly people are going to do with all these data is anyone’s guess at this point – especially as we still have a long way to go before we can make sense of huge sections of the human genome.  Add to this the complication of epigenetics, where external factors lead to changes in how genetic information is decoded which can pass from generation to generation, and and it’s uncertain how far personal genomics will progress over the next decade.  What aren’t in doubt though are the personal, social and economic driving forces behind generating and using this information. These are likely to underpin a growing market for personal genetic information over the next decade – and a growing number of businesses looking to capitalize on the data.

Bio-interfaces

Blurring the boundaries between individuals and machines has long held our fascination. Whether it’s building human-machine hybrids, engineering high performance body parts or interfacing directly with computers, bio-interfaces are the stuff of our wildest dreams and worst nightmares.  Fortunately, we’re still a world away from some of the more extreme imaginings of science fiction – we won’t be constructing the prototype of Star Trek Voyager’s Seven of Nine anytime soon.  But the sophistication with which we can interface with the human body is fast reaching the point where rapid developments should be anticipated.  As a hint of things to come, check out the Luke Arm from Deka (founded by Dean Kamen).  Or Honda’s work on Brain Machine Interfaces.  Over the next decade, the convergence of technologies like Information Technology, nanoscale engineering, biotechnology and neurotechnology are likely to lead to highly sophisticated bio-interfaces.  Expect to see advances in sensors that plug into the brain, prosthetic limbs that are controlled from the brain, and even implants that directly interface with the brain.  My guess is that some of the more radical developments in bio-interfaces will probably occur after 2020.  But a lot of the groundwork will be laid over the next ten years.

Data interfaces

The amount of information available through the internet has exploded over the past decade.  Advances in data storage, transmission and processing have transformed the internet from a geek’s paradise to a supporting pillar of 21st century society.  But while the last ten years have been about access to information, I suspect that the next ten will be dominated by how to make sense of it all.  Without the means to find what we want in this vast sea of information, we are quite literally drowning in data.  And useful as search engines like Google are, they still struggle to separate the meaningful from the meaningless.  As a result, my sense is that over the next decade we will see some significant changes in how we interact with the internet.  We’re already seeing the beginnings of this in websites like Wolfram Alpha that “computes” answers to queries rather than simply returning search hits,  or Microsoft’s Bing, which helps take some of the guesswork out of searches.  Then we have ideas like The Sixth Sense project at the MIT Media Lab, which uses an interactive interface to tap into context-relevant web information.  As devices like phones, cameras, projectors, TV’s, computers, cars, shopping trolleys, you name it, become increasingly integrated and connected, be prepared to see rapid and radical changes in how we interface with and make sense of the web.

Solar power

Is the next decade going to be the one where solar power fulfills its promise?  Quite possibly.  Apart from increased political and social pressure to move towards sustainable energy sources, there are a couple of solar technologies that could well deliver over the next few years.  The first of these is printable solar cells.  They won’t be significantly more efficient than conventional solar cells.  But if the technology can be scaled up and some teething difficulties resolved, they could lead to the cost of solar power plummeting.  The technology is simple in concept – using relatively conventional printing processes and special inks, solar cells could be printed onto cheap, flexible substrates; roll to roll solar panels at a fraction of the cost of conventional silicon-based units.  And this opens the door to widespread use.  The second technology to watch is solar-assisted reactors.  Combining mirror-concentrated solar radiation with some nifty catalysts, it is becoming increasingly feasible to convert sunlight into other forms of energy at extremely high efficiencies.  Imagine being able to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using sunlight and an appropriate catalyst for instance, then recombine them to reclaim the energy on-demand – all at minimal energy loss.  Both of these solar technologies are poised to make a big impact over the next decade.

Nootropics

Drugs that enhance mental ability – increasingly referred to as nootropics – are not new.  But their use patterns are.  Drugs like ritalin, donepezil and modafinil are increasingly being used by students, academics and others to give them a mental edge.  What is startling though is a general sense that this is acceptable practice.  Back in June I ran a straw poll on 2020 Science to gauge attitudes to using nootropics.  Out of 207 respondents, 153 people (74%) either used nootropics, or would consider using them on a regular or occasional basis.  In April 2009, an article in the New Yorker reported on the growing use of “neuroenhancing drugs” to enhance performance. And in an informal poll run by Nature in April 2008, 1 in 5 respondents claimed “they had used drugs for non-medical reasons to stimulate their focus, concentration or memory.” Unlike physical performance-enhancing drugs, it seems that the social rules for nootropics are different.  There are even some who suggest that it is perhaps unethical not to take them – that operating to the best of our mental ability is a personal social obligation.  Of course this leads to a potentially explosive social/technological mix, that won’t be diffused easily.  Over the next ten years, I expect the issue of nootropics will become huge.  There will be questions on whether people should be free to take these drugs, whether the social advantages outweigh the personal advantages, and whether they confer an unfair advantage to users by leading to higher grades, better jobs, more money.  But there’s also the issue of drugs development.  If a strong market for nootropics emerges, there is every chance that new, more effective drugs will follow.  Then the question arises – who gets the “good” stuff, and who suffers as a result?  Whichever way you look at it, the 2010′s are set to be an interesting decade for mind-enhancing substances.

Cosmeceuticals

Cosmetics and pharmaceuticals inhabit very different worlds at the moment.  Pharmaceuticals typically treat or prevent disease, while cosmetics simply make you look better.  But why keep the two separate?  Why not develop products that make you look good by working with your body, rather than simply covering it?  The answer is largely due to regulation – drugs have to be put through a far more stringent set of checks and balances that cosmetics before entering the market, and rightly so.  But beyond this, there is enormous commercial potential in combining the two, especially as new science is paving the way for externally applied substances to do more than just beautify.  Products that blur the line are already available – in the US for instance, sunscreens and anti dandruff shampoos are considered drugs.  And the cosmetics industry regularly use the term “cosmeceutical” to describe products with medicinal or drug-like properties.  Yet with advances in synthetic chemistry and nanoscale engineering, it’s becoming increasingly possible to develop products that do more than just lead to “cosmetic” changes.  Imagine products that make you look younger, fresher, more beautiful, by changing your body rather than just covering up flaws and imperfections.  It’s a cosmetics company’s dream – one shared by many of their customers I suspect.  The dam that’s preventing many such products at the moment is regulation.  But if the pressure becomes too great – and there’s a fair chance it will over the next ten years – this dam is likely to burst.  And when it does, cosmeceuticals are going to hit the scene big-time.

So those are my ten emerging technology trends to watch over the next decade.  But what happened to nanotechnology, and what other technologies were on my shortlist?

Nanotech has been a dominant emerging technology over the past ten years.  But in many ways, it’s a fake.  Advances in the science of understanding and manipulating matter at the nanoscale are indisputable, as are the early technology outcomes of this science.  But nanotechnology is really just a convenient shorthand for a whole raft of emerging technologies that span semiconductors to sunscreens, and often share nothing more than an engineered structure that is somewhere between 1 – 100 nanometers in scale.  So rather than focus on nanotech, I decided to look at specific technologies which I think will make a significant impact over the next decade.  Perhaps not surprisingly though, many of them depend in some way on working with matter at nanometer scales.

In terms of the emerging technologies shortlist, it was tough to whittle this down to ten trends. My initial list included batteries, decentralized computing, biofuels, stem cells, cloning, artificial intelligence, robotics, low earth orbit flights, clean tech, neuroscience and memristors – there are many others that no doubt could and should have been on it.  Some of these I felt were likely to reach their prime sometime after the next decade.  Others I felt didn’t have as much potential to shake things up and make headlines as the ones I chose.  But this was a highly subjective and personal process.  I’m sure if someone else were writing this, the top ten list would be different.

And one final word.  Many of the technologies I’ve highlighted reflect an overarching trend: convergence.  Although not a technology in itself, synergistic convergence between different areas of knowledge and expertise will likely dominate emerging technology trends over the next decade.  Which means that confident as I am in my predictions, the chances of something completely different, unusual and amazing happening are…  pretty high!

Update, 12/27/09  Something’s been bugging me, and I’ve just realized what it is – in my original list of ten, I had smart drugs, but in the editing process they somehow got left by the wayside!  As I don’t want to go back and change the ten emerging technology trends I ended up posting, they will have to be a bonus.  As it is, drug delivery timelines are so long that I’m not sure how many smart drugs will hit the market before 2020.  But when they do, they will surely mark a turning point in therapeutics.  These are drugs that are programmed to behave in various ways.  The simplest are designed to accumulate around disease sites, then destroy the disease on command – gold shell nanoparticles fit the bill here, preferentially accumulating around tumors then destroying them by heating up when irradiated with infrared radiation.  More sophisticated smart drugs are in the pipeline though that are designed to seek out diseased cells, provide local diagnostics, then release therapeutic agents on demand.  The result is targeted disease treatment that leads to significantly greater efficacy at substantially lower doses.  Whether or not these make a significant impact over the next decade, they are definitely a technology to watch.

Update 12/29/09  Which emerging technologies do you thing will trend over the next decade?  Join the discussion on the 2020 Science Facebook page.

By George Kimbrell, International Center for Technology Assessment, and the Center for Food Safety

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series

Andrew asked us to write about “how technological innovation should contribute to life in the 21^st century.”  Technological innovation is often blindly referred to as “progress.”  The question is — progress towards what?

We live in the age of technology.  In past generations, most people spent the majority of their time in nature, and then in later years more often in social settings.  In the modern world, most of us spend an ever-increasing amount of time in an interconnected web of machines.  I’d like to say I’m writing this on a riverside, but unfortunately I’m not – I’m in my office typing on my laptop, with my email open on a different web browser.

What currently drives this technological innovation, this technological bubble that defines our age?  In modern society, self-interest, greater productivity, greater consumption, the laws of supply and demand and the commoditization of the world are all drivers.  This economic system, which has now succeeded in global hegemony, dictates all our social interactions. Far from being a natural state of being, it is of course only as old as the United States (Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations was published in 1776) and not based on any natural law. In early societies, the market system was never the method by which basic societal problems were addressed; rather the marketplace was delegated only a limited role by our ancestors compared to their cultural and religious beliefs and social patterns.  Nature (not to mention labor), although treated as such, is not a commodity. Nature does not respond to supply and demand. The old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest will not speed up their growth rate to address increased demand.  More fundamentally, the natural world has intrinsic, incalculable value above and far beyond “market values”.  Even the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) recognizes this truth, in that it prohibits the extermination of species no matter how lucrative the activity  that is causing the killing.

Not only are the current dominant economic systems and their intertwined technological systems at odds with the ecological cycles of the natural world, but they are also actively and quickly eviscerating the planet.  We are exponentially reducing the earth’s capacities in every natural realm: land, air, water, and everything in between, through ozone depletion, acid rain, species extinction, deforestation, and desertification.  By commodifying nature to match our own systems we are threatening the planets’ survival and our own.  Global warming illustrates this conclusion best: Our industrial technologies have created the first global environmental crisis in human history.

We now face what is known as the technological dilemma—the “developed” portion of the world’s population has become dependent on the technological environment. Yet the same technologies that support life for the richest part of human population are threatening the very viability of life on Earth.  Even former President George W. Bush said we are “addicted to oil.”  And this addiction to these unhealthy systems of production is destroying our world.  To paraphrase and apply the wisdom of Rowlf the Dog from the Muppets to market-based mass consumerism: we can’t live with our technologies, and we can’t imagine living without them.

These are not new revelations.  And there are really only two options.  Forty years ago, writers and leaders began urging that we institute “appropriate technologies” in sync with the cycles of nature, rather than the mega-global-techno-systems causing planetary and human peril.  Attorneys and policymakers have succeeded in passing and utilizing laws that would limit the impacts of capital and industrial systems, like the ESA.  Scientists began to develop more holistic visions of their vocations.  This approach/option is a step toward addressing economic development within the context of rather than at the expense of our global environment and the society which depends upon it.

But others too have come to the conclusion that our current technology is not compatible with life.  They have foreseen the growing conflict between globalization, mass consumption, and the laws of nature.  However, their solution to the dilemma is very different.  Rather than change our economics and technology to better comport with the needs of living things, corporations and governments began to engineer life itself to better accommodate the market system and the technologies upon which it is predicated.  Ignoring the constraints of the natural world, living systems are to be remade, engineered at the genetic and molecular level to further the necessities of the technological age.

What’s the result of this worldview?  You probably see where this is going.  Genetic engineering, or recombinant DNA technology, is seen as the tool by which we can alter life at the genetic level to better fit industrial production systems and become a technological commodity.  Cloning is seen as the tool by which we can emulate the factory model of identical production for life forms.  Rather than redesigning industrial agriculture to fit the animal’s natural behavior, we are redesigning the animal to fit industrial agriculture.  Because patent control spurred production for products, we must now patent plants, animals, and human genes and cells.  Nanotechnology is a means by which we can control and manipulate matter at the atomic and molecular level to enhance industrial processes.  Lastly, synthetic biology is a means by which we combine several of these tools to create and design entirely new life forms to perform our industrial tasks. Even Dr. Frankenstein was cautious enough to not make his creature a mate; “synthetic biologists,” on the other hand, want their creatures to reproduce before systems are in place to control them.

Got environmental problems? Global warming does not to be addressed by stopping harmful greenhouse gas emissions and putting in place strictures to address systemic problems; instead, we should geo-engineer the planet to ameliorate the problem, or genetically engineer plants to be more drought- tolerant or trees to grow faster.  Chemical pollution causing environmental and health hazards? We do not need to reduce our use of harmful pesticides; instead, we should engineer production plants to be immune to them.  Pigs and chickens not amenable to horrific close-confinement factory farming?  Don’t encourage organic and humane farming and change the systems by making industrial agriculture internalize the true costs of its production; instead,  genetically alter the animals to withstand extreme confinement and diseases that proliferate therein.  Wild salmon runs dying out?  Don’t remove the dams and stop the pollution, farm them and genetically re-engineer them to grow faster in crowded, polluted ponds.

So where does that leave us?  Well, first, we must recognize and address the underlying philosophy and economy that drives and controls technological innovation. An order of magnitude in change is required; we must institute a paradigm-shift to a system of governance and life that is based on coexistence with and benefit to natural systems: An earth-centered system.  As Thomas Berry explains in The Dream of Earth, we must move from the technological age to the ecological age.  We must begin treating ourselves and the natural world as part of an interconnected web; stop thinking in straight lines and start thinking in circles.  “Progress” must include the natural as well as the human world, encouraging mutually enhancing human-earth relationships.  Human technologies should function in an integral relationship with earth technologies, not in a despotic manner.  Nature, over hundreds of millions of years and through an infinite number of experiments, worked out ecosystems that were already flourishing abundantly when we came to exist.  How can technological innovation help us determine how we can best be present in this context?  Modern society must treat life and the natural world as the spiritual force it is.  There must be a mystique of rivers if we are ever going to restore the purity of our rivers.  This is not a new idea, it is actually the oldest.  Is this an idealized vision? Perhaps, but it’s a considerably less naive world vision that that which claims we can sustain our current industrial system.

Can technological innovation help us get there?  If it changes the course current path we’re going down, if it helps stop the bleeding.  If it breaks away from being driven by corporate profits, and instead helps spread knowledge, wisdom, and awareness.  If it helps us flesh out and establish an earth-centered system to replace the current oppressive paradigm.  We must evolve our technological systems so that they are democratic and responsive to us, that we are responsible for them, and so that they comport with nature and with life forms on the earth.  We can dust off the old ways and make them the new again, making them more seductive and more logical than our current destructive ways. Only with these changes will technological innovation properly serve the planet and enhance, as well as extend, a meaningful human experience.

___________________

George A. Kimbrell is a staff attorney for the nonprofit Center for Food Safety (CFS) and its parent organization International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA), based in San Francisco, California.  He practices environmental and administrative law with a focus on legal and policy issues related to new and emerging technologies.  For ICTA, he works on matters involving nanotechnology, biotechnology and climate change technologies.  For CFS, he covers genetically engineered food and crops, organic standards, factory farming and aquaculture.

Mr. Kimbrell received his J.D. magna cum laude from Lewis and Clark Law School and has a B.A. from the College of William and Mary.  Prior to joining ICTA and CFS, he completed a clerkship on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

I do not here officially represent my organizations or clients.  The views discussed herein owe much to the ideas and writings of others.  For more detailed discussion of many of these issues, please see, inter alia, Andrew Kimbrell, Salmon Economics (and other lessons), Twenty-Third Annual E.F. Schumacher Lectures, Stockbridge, Mass. (Oct 2003).

An interesting aspect of today’s Royal Society report on geoengineering is the attempt to rate twelve potential approaches to engineering the climate by effectiveness, affordability, timeliness and safety – and to graphically compare the approaches in terms of these criteria.

While the ratings and the resulting diagram are somewhat subjective (the report’s authors call them “tentative and approximate”), they have some merit in helping make sense of a complex and uncertain bunch of data.

In the report, potential geoengineering approaches are displayed against primary axes of effectiveness and affordability.  But as the full evaluation data are available, it’s reasonably easy to re-plot them as effectiveness against “safety.”

If you do this, this is what you get:

Displaying estimated effectiveness versus "safety" for twelve geoengineering approaches. Based on data in the Royal Society Geoengineering the climate report

Showing the ratings in this way, approaches such as carbon dioxide air capture and carbon capture and storage at source emerge as options potentially combining high effectiveness with higher safety.  Increasing urban surface albedo – painting roofs while etc. – appears relatively safe in this assessment, but not particularly effective.

On the other hand, ocean fertilization, increasing sunlight reflection from deserts (desert surface albedo) and enhancing sunlight reflection from clouds (primarily by pumping cloud condensation nuclei into the atmosphere) combine low effectiveness with lower safety.

It must be stressed that this assessment is highly subjective, and will probably shift over time – as well as who rates the various approaches.  And the concept of “safety” is a rather woolly one – a high safety rating doesn’t mean “safe” – it just means that the approach is likely to have less adverse or unintended consequences than one with a lower safety rating.

Yet even with these caveats, multi-data visual presentations like this could help to weed out the less feasible geoengineering options, and ensure the focus remains on approaches that are more likely to do good than cause harm.

Source:

The plot above is based on data in table 5.1 of the Royal Society report:

Source: Geoengineering the climate. Royal Society, Sept 1 2009

Initial reflections on the new Royal Society report “Geoengineering the climate: Science, governance and uncertainty”

After many months’ hard work, the Royal Society’s much-anticipated report on geoengineering was published today.  Aimed at presenting “an independent scientific review of the range of methods proposed [for geoengineering the climate] with the aim of providing an objective view on whether geoengineering could, and should, play a role in addressing climate change, and under what conditions,”  it provides what is perhaps the most authoritative and comprehensive assessment of the options to date…

I suspect that, like most climate change-related reports these days, “Geoengineering the climate: Science, governance and uncertainty” will have ideologues on both sides of the aisle up in arms.  It dares to consider the option of actively engineering the climate on a planetary scale to curb the impacts of global warming, and advocates further research into geoengineering.  In doing so, it will no doubt simultaneously enrage deniers of anthropogenic climate change, and those who fervently maintain that technological fixes are not the solution to the consequences of humanity’s excesses.

Yet for anyone mature enough to consider the merits of evidence-based and socially-responsive decision-making, the report offers a clear and insightful perspective.

From the outset, the report presents geoengineering as a far from ideal but perhaps necessary option to curbing global warming.  In the foreword, Lord Rees – President of the Royal Society – stresses that “nothing should divert us from the main priority of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.”  Even more strongly, the top headline message of the report states

“The safest and most predictable method of moderating climate change is to take early and effective action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.  No geoengineering method can provide an easy or readily acceptable alternative solution to the problem of climate change.”

Yet, as the report’s authors point out, neither can we afford to be complacent in assuming that global emissions of greenhouse gases will be curbed sufficiently to avoid widespread economic, social and political impacts over the coming decades.  In the event that active interventions are needed, the report’s subtext is clear: we will need to face the scientific, social and political challenges up-front, openly and honestly if we are to have a hope of making smart decisions.

By taking a balanced and systematic approach, the report establishes a strong technical and social framework for assessing geoengineering options.  On a scientific and technical level, two classes of geoengineering approaches are identified: Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) techniques, and Solar Radiation Management (SRM) techniques.  Each class is addressed separately in the report.  Within these two classes, nine plausible geoengineering “solutions” are explored and assessed: biochar, enhanced weathering, carbon dioxide air capture, ocean fertilization, surface albedo alterations (urban and desert), cloud albedo modification, stratospheric aerosols and space reflectors.  These are evaluated in terms of their effectiveness, affordability, timeliness and safety.

The report summarizes the assessment of each solution in a useful graphical representation (shown below), which also includes three additional technologies not discussed extensively in the text (afforestation, carbon capture and storage at source – CCS – and bioenergy with carbon storage, or BECS).

Preliminary overall evaluation of geoengineering techniques, from the Royal Society report Geoengineering the Climate, Sept 1 2009

While the numbers assigned to effectiveness, affordability, safety and timeliness are somewhat qualitative (hence the error bars – which merely denote large uncertainties), this representation gives a sense of which geoengineering approaches might be the more promising ones.  In crude terms, the ideal method would be represented by a large green circle to the upper right of the chart.  Under these criteria, using stratospheric aerosols to scatter sunlight away from the earth comes closest to the ideal.

Interestingly, the recently-publicized approach of painting roofs white (and other urban surface albedo raising ideas) doesn’t fare too well in this assessment. Using biochar to sequester carbon dioxide is also surprisingly low  against all four criteria.  However, while this visualization may be useful for getting a feel for the pros and cons of different geoengineering options, the report cautions that diagrams like this are “no more than preliminary and approximate and should be treated as no more than a preliminary and somewhat illustrative attempt at visualising the results of the sort of multi-criterion evaluation that is needed” to make sense of complex and uncertain geoengineering options.

Beyond the technical options for geoengineering, a substantial portion of the report is dedicated to addressing societal issues.  Chapter 4 establishes a discussion framework that includes governance of geoengineering in the light of risk and uncertainty, ethical issues, oversight of research and development, public and civil society engagement, and economic factors.  These issues are approached with seriousness and respect, and exert a strong influence over the report’s subsequent recommendations.  It is telling that the report’s authors acknowledge that

“The greatest challenges to the successful deployment of geoengineering may be the social, ethical, legal and political issues associated with governance, rather than scientific and technical issues.”

The report winds up with seventeen recommendations, ranging from the development and deployment of specific geoengineering solutions, to global governance and public engagement.  These should be read and digested in their entirety by anyone interested in geoengineering, in the context of the full report, and so I’m not going to regurgitate them here wholesale.  But I did want to highlight a few of the recommendations that I suspect will strike a particular chord with proponents and opponents of geoengineering, and anyone in the business of making tough decisions on the best way forward.  They also give a good feel for the tone and emphasis of the report:

1.1 Parties to the UNFCCC should make increased efforts towards mitigating and adapting to climate change and, in particular to agreeing to global emissions reductions of at least 50% of 1990 levels by 2050 and more thereafter.  Nothing now known about geoengineering options gives any reason to diminish these efforts. [emphasis added]

1.2 Emerging but as yet untested geoengineering methods such as biochar and ocean fertilisation should not be formally accepted as methods for addressing climate change under the UNFCCC flexible mechanisms until their effectiveness, carbon residence time and impacts have been determined and found to be acceptable.

3.1 Geoengineering methods are not a substitute for climate change mitigation, and should only be considered as part of a wider package of options for addressing climate change.  CDR methods should be regarded as preferable to SRM methods as a way to augment continuing mitigation action in the long term.  However, SRM methods may provide a potentially useful short-term backup to mitigation in case rapid reductions in global temperatures are needed.

5. The Royal Society, in collaboration with other appropriate bodies, should initiate a process of dialogue and engagement to explore public and civil society attitudes, concerns and uncertainties about geoengineering as a response to climate change.  This should be designed so as to a) Clarify the impact that discussions of the possible implementation of geoengineering may have on general attitudes to climate change, adaption and mitigation; b) Capture information on the importance of various factors affecting public attitudes, including: novelty/familiarity, scale of application and effect, aesthetics, the actors involved, centralization of control, contained versus dispersed methods and impacts, and the reversibility of effects; c) Provide participants with objective information as to the potential role of geoengineering within the broader context of climate change policies, the difference between CDR and SRM, and their relative risks and benefits.

6.1 The governance challenges posed by geoengineering should be explored in more detail, and policy processes established to resolve them.

7.1 The Royal Society in collaboration with international scientific partners should develop a code of practice for geoengineering research and provide recommendations to the international scientific community for a voluntary research governance framework.  This should provide guidance and transparency for geoengineering research and apply to researchers working in the public, private and commercial sectors.  It should include a) consideration of what types and scales of research require regulation including validation and monitoring; b) the establishment of a de minimis standard for regulation of research’ c) guidance on the evaluation of methods including relevance criteria, and life cycle and carbon/climate accounting.

On a first reading, this is a balanced, sober and authoritative report on the development and deployment of geoengineering options to address climate change.  It clearly lays out the technical approaches available, and provides a robust expert perspective on their relative merits.  But its strength lies in the broader social, ethical and political framework within which it positions these options.

The result is a report that neither promotes or denigrates geoengineering, but takes a long hard look at how to ensure the safest and most effective use of geoengineering, should it become necessary.

It’s too early to say whether this will be a truly seminal report in the history of managing global climate change – although my money is on it having a significant and lasting impact.  But it is certainly a considered and mature report. And it clearly establishes the need to take geoengineering – and all of its social, ethical and political ramifications – seriously.

The question is, are we mature enough to act on it?

Inevitably, time and consequences will tell…

Download the full report: Geoengineering the climate: science, governance and uncertainty [PDF, 4756 kb]

Related blogs:

Geoengineering: Does it need a dose of geoethics?

Geoengineering goes mainstream

Steve Chu’s White Revolution

Geoengineering: Are we grown up enough to handle it?

Geoengineering options: Balancing effectiveness and safety

Update 9/3/09 – the figure above has been updated to reflect a typograpical correction made to the original (the top right effectiveness/affordability tag was incorrect).  Thanks to everyone who pointed the error out – and to the RS for fixing it so fast!

Following up on my last post – Geoengineering the planet with nanotechnology ice-cream? – here’s a short video Zoe Papadopoulou and colleagues put together on The Cloud Project from my visit in June:

Although this was filmed before the finishing touches had been applied to the ice cream van, it give a flavor for how the project is bring artists, scientists and members of the public together to talk about emerging technologies like nanotech and geoengineering.

Many thanks to Zoe for permission to post the clip here.

Photo courtesy Zoe Papadopoulou

Scientists and engineers have their moments. But it they are hard pressed to beat art students when it comes to sheer audacious creativity.

Earlier this year I received an email so intriguing I couldn’t help but follow up on it. The email was from Zoe Papadopoulou, an MA student at the Royal College of Art in London.  It was a request for help with a rather unusual design project she and fellow student Cat Kramer were hatching. Skimming through the message, phrases like “geoengineering,” “ice cream van,” “nanotechnology,” “clouds that taste of ice-cream” peaked my interest.

But then I saw the words “liquid nitrogen,” and I was hooked!

The concept was deceptively simple – use art and design to engage people on nanotechnology and geoengineering in a simple, enjoyable and appealing way. The realization was a little more complex…

The whole idea was sparked off by Professor Richard Jones – author of the Soft Machines blog and former Senior Strategic Advisor for nanotechnology for the UK’s Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC). In a talk to students on the Royal College of Art’s Design Interactions course, he introduced them to the emerging field of nanotechnology. Intrigued by the possibilities and potential hurdles here – and especially the need for public engagement – Zoe and Cat set out to use design, art and science to, in their words,

“frame a debate, and create interactions between people and their possible futures.”

The result?  An ambitious plan to retro-fit a 1980 Sherpa ice cream van to create ice-cream flavored clouds, while acting as a focus for stimulating discussions on nanotechnology and geoengineering.

The idea went something like this:

Making ice-cream using liquid nitrogen is a fun and accessible introduction to nanotechnology – the rapid freezing leads to the ice-cream having a nanoscale structure and a super-smooth texture.  Nanometer scale particles also play a role in cloud formation, and in principle it’s possible to induce clouds to come together by injecting engineered nanoparticles into the atmosphere.  So why not combine the two to get ice-cream flavored clouds?  Why not inject a stream of liquid nitrogen and ice-cream mix into the atmosphere as a fine spray, leading to flavored condensation nuclei that will seed ice-cream clouds? And why not build it all into an old ice-cream van – a mobile fun-flavored cloud machine?

As you might imagine, the gap between technology concept and realization was rather large in this case.  It’ll be a while before you’ll see (taste?) strawberry-clouds over the English countryside – although the van is fully equipped to demonstrate how the cloud machine could work.

But this wasn’t the point of the exercise.  What Zoe and Cat were trying to achieve was using art and design to draw people into conversations about emerging technologies.

And in this they succeeded brilliantly.

My role in all of this – apart from making the odd encouraging noise – was to help out at a trial-run of the van back in June.

Part of the concept here was to use the van as a platform for experts to engage with real people on nanotechnology and geoengineering.  I’m told the idea was to get experts and members of the public talking to each other in an accessible, fun, non-threatening environment.  Fun and non-threatening for the public maybe – I’m not so sure the experts felt that way about it! But then maybe this was part of the process of breaking down barriers between people that know about emerging technologies like nanotech, and those that want to know more.

Actually, I had a blast with the van. Talking about the project, nanotechnology and geoengineering with Zoe’s friends and neighbors, I was fascinated by how easily the conversations flowed amidst demonstrations of the van’s cloud generators and roof-mounted industrial-strength water spray. With the van as a backdrop (and it really is an impressive piece of design-work), people started discussing emerging technologies – and what they might mean for them personally – without having to be forced into it.

Engagement is something that is talked about a lot in science and technology circles, but rarely done well.  Yet here were a couple of arts students effortlessly* bridging the gap between emerging technologies and members of the public, using their imagination, design skills and a bit of fun.

For the past week the van has been on display outside the Royal College of Art and has been attracting plenty of attention by all accounts.  Over the coming year it’s scheduled to make a number of appearances around the country – exactly where and when (and with whom) will be posted on the Cloud Project website (where you can also find out more about the project).

If you get the chance, I’d encourage you to visit it.  It’s a lot of fun.  But it also demonstrates the importance of using art and design together with other skills in bridging the gap between new technologies coming over the horizon, and people who they are potentially going to affect.

And geoengineering the planet with nanotech ice-cream?  I don’t think it’ll happen anytime soon.  But it’s certainly something to think about as you munch on your ’99 this summer.**

End Notes

For more information on the Cloud Project, check out the project website.

Read more about the Royal College of Art Design Interactions course here.

*Actually, as Zoe and Cat will tell you, this project was far from effortless when it came to refurbishing the Sherpa van.  This took a tremendous amount of effort over the past several months – but the results are impressive!

**For non-Brits, the ’99 is the peak of British gourmet ice-cream – a whirl of soft-whip with a length of flaky chocolate stuck in it.  Delicious

]]> http://2020science.org/2009/07/05/geoengineering-the-plane-with-nanotechnology-icecream/feed/ 4 http://2020science.org/2009/06/14/geoengineering-are-we-grown-up-enough-to-handle-it/ http://2020science.org/2009/06/14/geoengineering-are-we-grown-up-enough-to-handle-it/#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:58:38 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=1741

If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to unite global warming “denialists” on both sides of the aisle, it’s geoengineering – the intentional planet-wide manipulation of the environment.  At least, you might be left with that impression after reading the comments following a thoughtful piece in Monday’s Wall Street Journal by Jamais Cascio.

It’s Time to Cool the Planet. Wall Street Journal. Credit: Viktor Koen

Cascio describes himself as a “reluctant advocate” of geoengineering.

“Many of us who have been watching this subject closely have gone from being skeptics to advocates. Very reluctant advocates, to be sure, but advocates nonetheless.”

Fraught with uncertainty and risk as geoengineering is, he argues that cutting greenhouse gas emissions will not be sufficient in the short term to curb the impacts of global warming.  Rather, direct intervention is necessary to give us a bit of breathing space.

Interestingly, he does not advocate geoengineering as a technical fix to a manmade problem.  He goes to great pains to stress that he believes reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the only long-term solution to the impact of human activities on climate change.  But geoengineering could give us more time to come up with workable solutions to achieving this.

“What geoengineering can do is slow the increase in temperatures, delay potentially catastrophic “tipping point” events—such as a disastrous melting of the Arctic permafrost—and give us time to make the changes to our economies and our societies necessary to end the climate disaster.

“Geoengineering, in other words, is simply a temporary “stay of execution.” We will still have to work for a pardon.”

Cascio also does not shy away from the potential risks as well as the social and political challenges associated with such direct action.

“Any kind of geoengineering would also face other issues. Most prominent are the political concerns. Since geoengineering is global in its effects, who determines whether or not it’s used, which technologies to deploy, and what the target temperatures will be? Who decides which unexpected side effects are bad enough to warrant ending the process? Because the expense and expertise required would be low enough for a single country, what happens when a desperate “rogue nation” attempts geoengineering against the wishes of other states? And because the benefits and possible harm from geoengineering attempts would be unevenly distributed around the planet, would it be possible to use this technology for strategic or military purposes? That last one may sound a bit paranoid, but it’s clear that any technology with the potential for strategic use will be at the very least considered by any rational international actor.

“There are also more mundane questions of liability. If, for example, South Asia experiences an unusual drought during cyclone season after geoengineering begins, who gets blamed? Who gets sued? Would all “odd” weather patterns be ascribed to the geoengineering effort? If so, would the issue of what would have happened absent geoengineering be considered relevant?”

Yet at the end of the day, he believes that, despite the very real problems associated with taking direct action, the alternatives are worse.

This is a finely written piece, and well worth reading.  It lays out the pros and cons of geoengineering in a carefully reasoned way.  It doesn’t contain much science admittedly.  But then I wouldn’t expect it to – it’s an opinion piece, and the supporting science isn’t that hard to track down.

The article also spotlights what I suspect is going to be the biggest challenge to any effective use of geoengineering – getting a disparate bunch of people across social political and geographical boundaries to work together.  I fear that, while we now have the beginnings of technologies to tackle global problems, our mindset remains too parochial to implement them wisely.  Constrained by outmoded ways of thinking and acting, we are simply too immature as a species to make good decisions on a global scale.

The answer is deceptively simple – we need to grow up.  This won’t be easy.  I’m not even sure it is possible – which doesn’t bode well for humanity.  But if we don’t find ways of making wise decisions on technology uses that potentially affect everyone, things are going to get messy.

Perhaps climate change and the threat/lure of geoengineering are the jolt we need to find innovative ways of working toegther that transcend conventional boundaries and blinkered perspectives.  I don’t know.

I do know though that progress won’t happen without innovative thinking, open dialogue and a little humility on all sides.  Jamais Cascio’s piece offers the hope that these challenges, although complex, are not beyond our reach; if only we can tackle them with the maturity they demand.

Sadly, the comments on the Wall Street Journal piece suggest we still have a lot of growing up to do.

It feels good to be ahead of the curve sometimes. About this time last year, I was slaving away painting my roof white – much to the bemusement of my Northern Virginia neighbors and friends. So I couldn’t help feeling just a little smug this morning as I read that US Secretary of Energy Steve Chu is also a great fan of roof-painting to combat global warming…

Perhaps the whitest roof in Northern Virginia

According to The Independent newspaper,

Steven Chu, the US Secretary of Energy and a Nobel prize-winning scientist, said yesterday that making roofs and pavements white or light-coloured would help to reduce global warming by both conserving energy and reflecting sunlight back into space. It would, he said, be the equivalent of taking all the cars in the world off the road for 11 years.

Speaking in London prior to a meeting of some of the world’s best minds on how to combat climate change, Dr Chu said the simple act of painting roofs white could have a dramatic impact on the amount of energy used to keep buildings comfortable, as well as directly offsetting global warming by increasing the reflectivity of the Earth.

A couple of years ago, we moved into a house with no loft space – just a few inches of paltry insulation between the standard-issue dark-shingled roof and our main living area.  And in the summer, things got hot.  Really hot.  The solution seemed obvious – paint the shingles white, to reflect the sunlight and prevent any unnecessary warming.

Now painting your roof is not something that East Coast folks seem to go in for, and it took a year to pluck up the courage and act on my convictions.  But come the warm weather last summer I decided that enough was enough.  So I purchased vast quantities of Hy-Tec Thermal Solutions Insul Cool-Coat white paint, power-washed the roof (an adventure in itself), and spent three back-breaking days painting the shingles white.

I’d like to report that, in a controlled comparison, the impact of the paint was immediate and stunning.  Unfortunately the AC unit packed in half way through the painting exercise so a strict A/B comparison was out of the question – just my luck!  Nevertheless, the qualitative and quite unscientific results of the new paint were pretty impressive – the upstairs rooms in the house underwent a figurative transformation from fiery furnace to cool cave!  More significantly, the temperature under the painted shingles was some 30 degrees Farenheit lower than that under the unpainted shingles on the garage under the mid-day sun – suggesting that an awful lot of the sun’s heat was no longer infiltrating the house.

The whole point of the exercise was to reflect as much of the sun’s heat as possible, rather than it being absorbed by the previously dark roof and subsequently having to be pumped out (at considerable expense) by the air conditioning.  The paint I used also acts as an insulator.  It’s crammed full of hollow microspheres that inhibit the flow of heat through it, as well as reflect back the sun’s light.   I think it worked – certainly the new AC system seems to be under less strain in the summer, and the house feels significantly more comfortable.  But by increasing the roof’s albedo, I was also able to do my (admittedly small) bit to counter global warming by reflecting away more of the sun’s energy.

It’s not an idea that has had much traction around here – yet.  I suspect the only way I’ve got away with it is by exuding an aura of eccentricity – at least the neighbors could whisper “well, he’s British you know…”  But now that Steve Chu has enlightened the world to the benefits of roof-painting, who knows where we’ll be in 12 month’s time – forget about going green, maybe the “white revolution” will come to McLean Virginia – and I will be able to proudly say I was there first!

Of course, regular roofs are probably trickier to paint than ours, which has a reasonably low pitch.  And I suspect not everyone will appreciate the aesthetic of white shingles or (shock horror) white painted slate.  But it has to be said, as a cheap and achievable solution to a significant problem, roof-painting has a lot to recommend it – a little bit of personal geoengineering to make the earth a better place!

It just took a savvy Nobel prize-winner to let the cat out of the bag!

]]> http://2020science.org/2009/05/27/steve-chus-white-revolution/feed/ 28 http://2020science.org/2009/04/08/geoengineering-goes-mainstream/ http://2020science.org/2009/04/08/geoengineering-goes-mainstream/#comments Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:51:14 +0000 Andrew Maynard http://2020science.org/?p=1213

Twelve months ago, geoengineering seemed little more than the fancy of science fiction writers and fringe scientists.  Now, an increasing number of people are viewing it as a viable – if extreme – option for curbing global warming.  This shift was hammered home today by Dr. John Holdren, President Obama’s science advisor, in his first interview since being confirmed to the office.  Given the enormous challenges presented by global warming, Holdren stated that geoengineering “…has got to be looked at. … We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”

Holdren is right.  The coupling between people and the planet is now at the point where radical action is needed to avoid a shift in climate that could have a catastrophic impact on society. And while conventional technologies might suffice in the short term to bring carbon dioxide levels down and otherwise manage global warming, they will eventually  run out of steam…

Emerging technologies are going to take some time to mature to the point at which they can play a major role in combating global warming.  Joseph Romm for one is highly skeptical of the role that “breakthrough technologies” will play over the next fifty years.  But at some point they will be essential.  And as long as the innovation pipeline remains full, they will begin to provide new solutions to the challenges being faced.

This maturation of emerging technologies is already being seen with geoengineering.  The past few years have seen a number of technologies mature to the point where “tinkering” with the environment on a grand scale is looking increasingly feasible.  But it is the audacity of scientists and engineers who have suddenly realized “we can do this” that is really driving the rapidly growing field.  On the back of relatively small advances in science and technology, experts are suddenly beginning to think “this isn’t science fiction – it might actually work!”

This could be good news for future generations, but there are tremendous challenges ahead.  Clearly, there is the challenge of developing and deploying engineering projects on a massive scale.  But just as serious are the ethical issues that need to be grappled with.

Back in January, I asked the question “Does geoengineering need a dose of geoethics?“  I cautiously suggested it might be a good idea, before things move along too far.  But discussions around geoengineering are now moving so fast that I would say deep and inclusive discussions of what is right and what is appropriate are essential, and needed urgently.  The problem here is not so much that geoengineering is a bad idea, but that there is an awful lot that could go horribly wrong.

Think about it for a moment:

• The history of environmental interventions is not good (in fact it is almost uniformly bad) – what guarantees do we have that geoengineering will fare any better?
• There’s a good chance that major geoengineering projects will be the equivalent of one-shot hypothesis driven science.  In other words, while scientific progress usually relies on a process of getting things wrong and learning from the mistakes (more fancily known as “hypothesis testing”), tinkering with the planet won’t afford us too many second shots.
• The earth’s environment is non-linear and out of equilibrium – tinkering is more than likely to lead to unexpected consequences.
• Geoengineering solutions will cross national boundaries, requiring many groups to be involved in decision-making – unless individual countries decide that the dangers of not acting are so severe that accepted ethical practices don’t count.
• This leads on to the questions of “who pays,” “who benefits,” and “who pays the price?”  Failure to resolve these early on will create a huge global problems.
• Finally, the social and ethical consequences of causing harm through intervention are very different from those associated with harm that results from  inaction.  Thus geoengineering interventions that go wrong may potentially end up having a far more profound impact on society than changes in climate which the interventions were aimed at mitigating.

If geoengineering is to be taken seriously – as I think it should – these and other issues must be on the table at the very beginning of the process.  Because without the appropriate “geoethics” framework, the odds are less than favourable for us getting it right.

The worst that could possibly happen is that geoengineering is used as a last ditch, deparate attempt to correct an already out of whack environment.  Because in reality, “last ditch” usually equates to just “last.”  The way round this is to ensure that discissions are not only informed by the best science and technology, but also underpinned by broader social and ethical considertions, from the get-go.

Fortunately, there still seems to be a reasonable chance of this happening.

It’s been a big week for geoengineering.  First there was the news that the world’s largest geoengineering experiment to date is about to start in the Southern Ocean.  Following close behind was a new study on how geoengineering projects could potentially impact global climate change, ranging from covering vast tracts of desert with a reflective coating to suspending giant mirrors in space.  And today sees the publication of a new paper in the journal Nature indicating that, while fertilizing oceans with iron compounds can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the sequestration rate is far lower than previously estimated.

Reading through these and other accounts, it seems clear that the deliberate modification of the Earth’s environment on a vast scale is rapidly moving from the realms of fantasy to those of possibility.  Almost overnight it seems, geoengineering has become respectable.

Climate change is largely responsible—it has hammered home the message more than anything else perhaps that humanity is now able to influence the environment on a global scale.  Just the sheer magnitude of the possible impacts of global warming has made people think seriously about countering the effects through mega-engineering.  And the simple realization that our actions can make a difference to the global environment has contributed to an intellectual leap of imagination; scientists and engineers now have the audacity to think “yes we can” when it comes to countering anthropogenic climate change with engineered interventions.

This would all be wishful thinking though if it wasn’t for rapid advances in science and technology that are underpinning the emerging “yes we can” geoengineering mentality.  Although its early days still, scientists and engineers are beginning to develop the understanding and tools to put grand schemes into place, and start playing around with Earth’s systems on a global scale.

This confluence of need, awareness and ability is bringing new vigor to geoengineering.  And it’s hard to deny that its exciting stuff. … Imagine, at the very point where humanity begins to push the boundaries of sustainable existence under existing conditions, we develop the means to conform our global environment to our needs—inverse-evolution if you like.  We discover that science and technology give us a lever large enough to shift the world, metaphorically speaking.  We find that by controlling matter at the nanoscale, we can bend it to our will at the megascale.  In short, geoengineering appears to be humanity’s right-of-passage to planetary maturity.

But back up just a minute.  It seems there is something missing here.  Sure, we have the imagination and the ability to change things on a global scale.  But these abilities seem to far outstrip our understanding of their consequences.  It almost seems that scientists are in danger of applying the hypothesis-driven science of the laboratory to the whole world, while forgetting that when the hypothesis fails, there aren’t too many options to go back and start again.  And in the clamor to find technological fixes to technology-driven problems, it sometimes appears that we’ve forgotten to ask what we should do, as well as what we can do.

If we are going to get geoengineering right—and I think in the long-run it is as important as it is inevitable—we are going to need some serious ethical input to its development and application.  And while I generally avoid artificially slicing and dicing ethics, I think it would be no bad thing to further develop the idea of geoethics, as dealing with the appropriateness of decisions that affect societies on a global scale, and possibly over many lifetimes.

Of course, the concept of geoethics isn’t new—it’s been around in one form or another for decades, usually in the context of general anthropomorphic environmental impacts.  But to my mind the potential impact of geoengineering is such that it is going to need it’s own ethical framework that enables people to agree on a wise course of action.

Certainly, geoengineering raises many tricky issues.  For instance, we are still a long way from understanding and predicting the behavior and interactions of global systems, over short, medium and long timescales.  Interfering with systems we don’t understand is likely to lead to unanticipated consequences on a global scale.   And history has repeatedly demonstrated that simplistic interventions in environmental/ecological systems lead to adverse unintended consequences. On top of this, global interventions will have global impacts, meaning that great care needs to be taken in ensuring groups affected by potential outcomes are a part of the decision-making process.

These and other questions suggest to me that it’s worth developing the area of geoethics to apply specifically to geoengineering.  I’m not the first to propose this.  Perhaps the clearest articulation of geoethics in the context of geoengineering is Jamais Cascio’s article on Worldchanging.com from 2005.  Here’s what Cascio proposed as a definition back then:

“Geoethics is the set of guidelines pertaining to human behaviors that can affect larger planetary geophysical systems, including atmospheric, oceanic, geological, and plant/animal ecosystems. These guidelines are most relevant when the behaviors can result in long-term, widespread and/or hard-to-reverse changes in planetary systems, although even transient, local and superficial alterations can be considered through the prism of geoethics. Geoethical principles do not forbid long-term, widespread and/or hard-to-reverse changes, but require a consideration of repercussions and so-called “second-order effects” (that is, the usually-unintended consequences arising from the interaction of the changed system and other connected systems).”

He follows this with a set of core principles, which I’m not sure I entirely agree with (you can read them here).  Nevertheless, it’s a start.

Admittedly, there are international guidelines and agreements in place that already cover the responsible use of geoengineering to a certain extent.  Included in these is the Convention on Biological Diversity, which cautions against ocean fertilization (for instance)—a key geoengineering approach to sequestering carbon dioxide.  But what exists currently isn’t sufficient to engage people around the world in an integrated and informed debate over how to proceed appropriately.

The start of the Southern Ocean fertilization experiment was surrounded in controversy this week, but it went ahead anyway.  Even though it involves releasing six tons of iron over 300 square kilometers of ocean, it is a triflingly small experiment compared to what could be on the books in the near future.  If the global community are to get their heads around what is right and appropriate before the next big Earth-experiment comes along, now might be a good time to start working on geoethics for geoengineering—before it’s too late.

_________________________________

Note

For a good primer on various proposed geoengineering projects, and their possible impact on global warming, I would strongly recommend the just-published paper by Lenton and Vaughan; “The radiative forcing potential of different climate geoengineering options” (Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 9, 2559–2608, 2009).

Update, 1/29/09:  Alexis Madrigal’s article “Scientists Rank Global Cooling Hacks” on Wired Science provides an excellent distillation of the key information in the Lenton and Vaughan paper.  You also have to wonder – from the title of the piece – whether we need to start thinking about an emerging “geohacker” community!