Self-professed climate ‘realists’ would argue that the coming impacts of climate change are overhyped. They would point to ever-improving technology to say that we will mitigate really severe warming. Some folks would argue, too, that the argument for extreme weather definitely increasing due to climate change is actually quite a lot more controversial than the media often portray.
Note: I feel compelled to present the word ‘realist’ in quotes because, in science, that is a bit of a presumptuous term to identify with. I don’t do the same for alarmist because I reckon it is accurate even if some would use it as a pejorative term: the people in question are literally alarmed and think that others should be, too.
However, almost all climate ‘realists’ do believe in anthropogenic global warming. Broadly speaking, there is consensus between this group and everyone else short of alarmists about the scale of warming to come – just disagreement on how bad that will be. So, the question must be asked: what do we actually do about it?
What interests me about this question is that in principle those most concerned about climate change should enthusiastically get on board with interventions that draw support from ‘realists’. Yet, somewhat oddly, for the time being it is the realists who are overall most keen to deploy a strategy that we can be fairly sure would work, for low cost, with few side effects: climate geoengineering.
The idea here is to inject reflective aerosol particles into the upper atmosphere (solar radiation management). By decreasing the percentage of radiation from the Sun that is absorbed rather than reflected by Earth, such particles lead to a near immediate drop in global temperatures. This might sound mad but is actually something that we know works and have been actively doing (even if unintentionally).
When volcanoes erupt, they inject such aerosols – often initially as sulphur dioxide (SO2) which converts rapidly into sulphate aerosols – into the upper atmosphere. You get crazy sunsets and then an imposed ‘volcanic winter’. You’ve probably heard about this stuff from the well-documented aftermath of the Krakatoa eruption.
The point is: these particles spend maybe six months to a few years whizzing around up there before settling out again. Rainwater that is contaminated by a lot of sulphur dioxide becomes more acidic. Hence, volcanic eruptions reliably lead to a short-term cooling of the planet followed also by a spike in acid rain. However, in the longer run, once the aerosols are all returned to the surface, the CO2 belched out in an eruption lingers and offers a much longer-term warming effect. A rapid shift back to baseline planetary temperatures as the aerosols decline is called termination shock. The longer term warming that ensues is simply the all-too-familiar CO2-induced global warming effect.
Climate geoengineering via aerosols would involve injecting SO2 without any of the CO2. In other words, buy some short-term cooling without any of the long-term warming. The few estimates that exist indicate that in some ways this approach could be amazingly – scarily? – effective. Pumping into the stratosphere something like 10% of the SO2 released by humanity (at that time into the troposphere) in the 80s would offset all anthropogenic global warming. That would cost maybe 20 billion dollars a year. That’s chump change. God, it’s practically Trump change!
In fact, we have been doing a less effective version of exactly this via SO2 emissions into the troposphere (lower atmosphere) by international shipping. Interestingly, shipping fuel SO2 was just banned and the surge in temperatures seen across 2023-2024 are in some part a termination shock from the resulting loss of aerosol in the atmosphere, which was previously helping to mask some % of the anthropogenic global warming phenomenon..
However, the idea is not all fine and dandy:
1. We would need to do it every year to keep the aerosol levels high enough. Plus, governments might take this as a free pass to pump out CO2 to their heart’s content, but that would be risky because…
2. If we ever stop then we would get a large termination shock. Temperatures would just rocket back up again in a matter of years. [This argument sucks in my view since we would get a termination shock from ending any positive intervention in our environment that requires investment each year: antibiotics, fertiliser production, electricity generation… People often make this argument out of fear that with the ‘pressure off’ governments would start pumping out infinite CO2. I for one find that to be preposterous given that those same people would argue that governments have simply ignored warnings about climate change and we have ‘business as usual’. If so, there are only upsides to intervening and only downsides to not.]
3. The science is not settled. There are to my knowledge few detailed studies on what such a massive and sustained stratospheric aerosol injection would actually end up doing.
4. Acid rain. We can only offset around at best 1 C of the ~1.5 C of anthropogenic global warming seen so far before using SO2, since after that we hit a threshold beyond which rain will get pretty acidic.
5. Solving the temperature problem – at least temporarily – will not solve the fact that the CO2 is still there. Hence, we will still have ocean acidification from excess CO2.
The above problems must be contended with. However, I am perplexed that many people falling more on the side of climate alarmism have so far denigrated and dismissed the idea of direct intervention. In many cases, the idea of even doing the research is shot down and a blanket ban has been discussed. The political ramifications of this include UN committees vetoing any funding of studies in this direction.
I do not understand this. If one is a climate alarmist then anything and everything we can do to stop the problem from getting worse should be on the table. The fact that people want to summarily reject a (quasi-)solution that could be safe, clean, cheap, and effective just does not make sense to me and speaks to an ideological blind-spot that is holding the discussion back.
Indeed, many climate activists would be open about why: we can’t just solve the problem. We need to bring down capitalism and install Marxism instead! So, for now, we march on with the most alarmist people rejecting utterly the most sane solution to such an ‘emergency’. It will be important over the coming years to explain to people just how deeply disingenuous Marxists are. They paint themselves in the colours of a cause whilst denigrating the people who actually know something about it and/or propose actual solutions that don’t require Marxism. These people threaten science, the climate, and western civilisation all at once.
Overall, the emerging perspective of self-described ‘realists’ simply needs to be put rigorously to the test. I would like to see a lot more conversation about this between the moderate scientific centre and the ‘realists’. In turn, the conversation would naturally ripple over into politics in hopefully a less toxic and unhelpful way than it does currently…
Climate realists and geoengineering advocates might well be wrong, but this must be proven through rational discourse and scientific study. Besides, what if they are right?! A prosperous, safe, and environmentally sustainable future might just be within our grasp. All we would need to do is reach out and claim it.
As always, I am very much open to changing my mind. Please reach out to me on X @lithologuy if you have counterpoints to discuss.
Many of those pushing the climate alarmism are degrowth advocates. Some are Marxists of various stripes. The last thing they would want is a technological "fix".
I am, of course, worried about unintended consequences from any human intervention in the climate. We do not understand the climate system well enough to do this yet. Climate is a complex system, subject to nonlinear dynamics. We are not sure what our intentional interference might do on a global scale.
We have been attempting to "cloud seed" in small areas for many decades, with some mixed success. And I expect that eventually, we might reach a point where we have more control over the weather. But we are a long, long ways from that level of understanding and technology now.
I love science.
But:
-climate science is inexact;
-politicians (e.g. Al Gore, ...) and ecofanatics (Greta, ...) have been predicting doom for years, and have been totally wrong.
Rx:
-get the best climate scientists together to study the issue and produce a good report, based on science alone;
-tell all countries, especially China and Inida, that's it's all or none - everybody helps fix any identified problems or everyone is on their own.