hell in heaven

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Floods, droughts, wildfires: The economic consequences of the climate disaster are already costing the economies of many countries billions of dollars, according to figures from the Council of the European Union. France, Spain, Italy: Total damage of 2 billion euros due to forest fires. All of Europe: 5 billion per year due to river floods. Outside of Europe, things are not much better. USA: Hurricane Katrina alone caused $150 billion in infrastructure damage and rebuilding costs in 2005. Pakistan: 10 billion due to flood.

Switzerland was also not spared: Floods and landslides are one thing, drought and no snowfall are another. Farmers have to buy hay abroad because their own meadows no longer produce enough because it doesn’t rain. Winter tourism is collapsing because there is no snow or not enough snow. All this hurts our economy, all of us. Not to mention the lives lost and lost worldwide due to fires, floods and heat-related deaths. And: We are just at the beginning of the road.

a dangerous idea

It would be an idea. Actually. An impressively simple and at the same time extremely dangerous and politically controversial idea is in danger of extinction before it is properly explored. What if we just dim the sun? In turn: we change the atmosphere in the upper air layers to throw more sunlight into space? Renowned climate economist and environmental scientist Gernot Wagner, 42, is a professor at the distinguished Columbia Business School and the recently published “What if we dim the sun?” The author of the book knows that the temperature in the lower layers of the atmosphere, and therefore both the surface of the earth and the seas, would naturally cool. Precipitation levels may also return to normal as cooler air absorbs less moisture and retains it for less time. It could probably rain more often again in Switzerland, but less heavily – just like before.

Wagner, a US-Austrian dual citizen who studied at the elite universities of Harvard and Stanford and earned his doctorate from Harvard, knows that this will technically be possible in a few years, too, with relatively little effort. Special transport jets and sufficient sulfur, aluminum oxide, calcite or special salts are all it takes to evenly disperse the microscopic fine dust in the upper atmosphere.

This idea has long had a name: solar geoengineering. The good news: nature has already shown that it works. After volcanic eruptions like that of Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, the 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide blasted into the stratosphere by Pinatubo reflected about two percent of sunlight, and the global temperature dropped by 0.5 degrees – over a year. The bad news: Aerosols thrown into the stratosphere this way—that is, particles suspended in the gas—are oxidized in the air. Sulfuric acid aerosols have weakened the healing of the ozone layer that has protected us for years. Instead, ETH is currently investigating how, among other things, calcite dust particles would behave harmlessly in the stratosphere.

Undesirable side effects in the stratosphere are just one of the many problems that affect not only research but also politics and commerce, and you need to break them down by topic – and only then will you come to the conclusion, so the global research topic Solar geoengineering is a good one despite all doubts. is an idea.

Our main problem with CO₂

Too much CO₂ Not only can the air in the air cause temperatures to rise globally and therefore get out of control locally, but it also has other effects on the environment. For example, the acidification of the oceans – the oceans also absorb CO₂ Open. This makes the composition of the water more acidic. At a certain point, organisms protected from predators by shells containing lime and chitin can no longer live because the “acidic” water dissolves the scale.

There is a problem not only with larger organisms such as corals and mussels, but also with small creatures such as krill. And they, in turn, are the basis of all food chains. If the krill population collapses, if coral reefs thaw, our seas will soon look pretty empty. Roughly speaking: without reducing CO₂ in the air and with more CO₂-Emission does not catch fish in the future – because there are no fish.

Lots of CO₂ air also makes people and animals sick, fat and stupid – plants need CO₂, grow up. However, the higher the concentration during growth, the lower the nutritional value. The proportion of proteins and minerals such as iron and zinc decreases due to CO.₂-Concentration during plant growth is up to 15 percent, and that of B vitamins about one-third. In turn, plants store more starch in the form of sugars—that is, carbohydrates. At a time when people’s food security is increasingly threatened, this is an additional problem that needs to be taken seriously.

The result: Even if the temperature of the planet could be reduced without risk using solar geoengineering, which was not possible until now, CO₂ In addition to the rise in temperature in the atmosphere, it did not dissolve. Should we continue to research though? According to Wagner, many leftists and greens say, “Absolutely not!” says. “Definitely!” others say – which leads to the next, this time political problems.

Political Problem 1: Ideology blinds both the right and the left

Not only rational science, but also psychology guides our decisions, as well as those of politicians. Even if the scientific consensus is clear that we should move away from fossil fuels altogether, different ideologies clash. Left and Green politicians and US Democrats in this country rely on bans, taxes on fossil fuels, and the development of alternative energy and technologies. Again, this gets in the way of the pro-business right. From a global perspective, the Western left fears research promising a (partial) solution to climate change without addressing the root of the problem – our CO.₂– stopping emissions – being instrumentalized on the right so that you don’t have to change anything. This is one of the reasons why 60 international scientists spoke out in favor of strict regulation of solar geoengineering research last year.

Wagner shows in his book that you and the left are not wrong. At least in the United States, various Republican politicians, including Trump adviser and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich (79), spread misrepresentations about geoengineering at the turn of the millennium: “Geoengineering promises to solve global warming problems. Only a few billion dollars a year to solve it. ‘ he said in 2008.

In his book, Wagner explains how bad it would be for research if Donald Trump (76) had funded research on solar geoengineering during his tenure—which, for many democrats, would have been reason enough for Wagner to fundamentally distrust the whole. research area. It has the potential to be disastrous – but this raises a new problem area: the so-called “governance”. It is about who decides on the use of potentially dangerous technologies and who is responsible.

Political issue 2: Who does what and who is responsible for what?

A global problem requires global solutions in an ideal world. In reality, your own interests often come first. Trump’s slogan “America First” is just one example – nationalism is on the rise in various countries. And when it comes to their own existence, some people tend to try half-baked, so-called “solutions.”

In his book, Wagner provides startling examples of what a future could look like, where financially strong countries badly affected by climate change act on their own. For example, Saudi Arabia, which is fundamentally interested in producing more oil and, together with the Trump regime, blocked an international resolution to regulate solar geoengineering research in 2018, may try to cool the local climate on its own – a record temperature of 51.1 degrees in July 2020 was measured in Riyadh. Workers outside cannot survive in such a temperature for long. And as the climate disaster progresses, these extreme temperatures will continue to rise – not just in Saudi Arabia.

The temptation to quickly fix the situation locally is great when it comes to your own survival. However, local temperature control specifically using solar geoengineering could have unforeseen global consequences for food security, such as the suspension of the monsoon in India and major crop shortages globally. So if you really need technology in the future, it’s basically a good idea to continue researching globally to be on the safest side possible.

So what to do?

Solar geoengineering is already terrifying as a thought experiment. Changing the atmosphere, changing our sky is like the bible, the apocalypse. However, some ethics committees and environmental scientists, such as Ivo Wallimann-Helmer, philosopher and professor of environmental humanities at the University of Freiburg and director of the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Humanities there, assume that there will be no other option in the near future. “Geoengineering – the technical manipulation of climate – will likely soon have to become reality on a large scale,” wrote an article in 2018. And this is Wagner’s conclusion: To give humanity enough time to solve the CO problem.₂Emissions must be allowed to go in all directions, regardless of ideology, before conditions become too devastating for the survival of humans and most animals on a global scale.

What is scientifically clear is that planting millions of trees alone is not enough. CO₂Nor is it enough to bring emissions to zero at some point in the future – CO₂ must be removed in the atmosphere on a large scale using existing technologies and stored back on the ground. All this just takes time. tree planting time CO time₂ From the atmosphere, it’s time to advance our technologies in a way that is not dependent on fossil fuels. When humanity no longer has it. Solar geoengineering, if researched in the right direction globally, could extend the ever-shrinking window of time we need to survive as a species.

Source : Blick