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The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World
The risks of global warming are pressing and potentially vast. The difficulty of doing without fossil fuels is daunting, possibly even insurmountable. So there is an urgent need to rethink our responses to the crisis. To meet that need, a small but increasingly influential group of scientists is exploring proposals for planned human intervention in the climate system: a stratospheric veil against the sun, the cultivation of photosynthetic plankton, fleets of unmanned ships seeding the clouds. These are the technologies of geoengineerin--and as Oliver Morton argues in this visionary book, it would be as irresponsible to ignore them as it would be foolish to see them as a simple solution to the problem.
"The Planet Remade" explores the history, politics, and cutting-edge science of geoengineering. Morton weighs both the promise and perils of these controversial strategies and puts them in the broadest possible context. The past century's changes to the planet--to the clouds and the soils, to the winds and the seas, to the great cycles of nitrogen and carbon--have been far more profound than most of us realize. Appreciating those changes clarifies not just the scale of what needs to be done about global warming, but also our relationship to nature.
Climate change is not just one of the twenty-first century's defining political challenges. Morton untangles the implications of our failure to meet the challenge of climate change and reintroduces the hope that we might. He addresses the deep fear that comes with seeing humans as a force of nature, and asks what it might mean--and what it might require of us--to try and use that force for good.
"The Planet Remade" explores the history, politics, and cutting-edge science of geoengineering. Morton weighs both the promise and perils of these controversial strategies and puts them in the broadest possible context. The past century's changes to the planet--to the clouds and the soils, to the winds and the seas, to the great cycles of nitrogen and carbon--have been far more profound than most of us realize. Appreciating those changes clarifies not just the scale of what needs to be done about global warming, but also our relationship to nature.
Climate change is not just one of the twenty-first century's defining political challenges. Morton untangles the implications of our failure to meet the challenge of climate change and reintroduces the hope that we might. He addresses the deep fear that comes with seeing humans as a force of nature, and asks what it might mean--and what it might require of us--to try and use that force for good.
440 pages, Hardcover
First published November 3, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
April 20, 2018
Molto interessante, affronta un tema attualissimo (quello del riscaldamento della Terra) con un approccio strettamente scientifico ma molto ben comprensibile. Direi che è un saggio quasi avvicente, anzi tolgo il "quasi" nel caso dell'ultimo capitolo, in cui quanto esposto nel libro viene riassunto in uno scenario mondiale da fantascienza (molto "scienza" e poco "fanta").
Mi ha colpito un fatto accettato nella comunità scientifica: la strategia attuale volta a ridurre le emissioni avrà effetti benefici scarsi e che, comunque, si vedranno fra decenni. Sarà necessario intervenire con azioni di "geoingegneria", una scienza per ora di nicchia e sconosciuta ai più ma che avrà sempre maggior peso negli anni futuri, avendo come obiettivo la modificazione INTENZIONALE del clima del nostro pianeta. L'intervento che, ad oggi, sembra più quotato è la velatura del cielo che farà da schermo alla luce del sole e che può essere ottenuta mediante la dispersione di migliaia di tonnellate di zolfo nella stratosfera, zona relativamente stabile e capace di trattenere le particelle. Le implicazioni, anche su scala socio-politica, saranno molte e non tutte prevedibili. Il cielo velato sarà grigio, e ai nostri nipoti e pronipoti racconteremo, come in una favola, di quando il cielo era blu.
Mi ha colpito un fatto accettato nella comunità scientifica: la strategia attuale volta a ridurre le emissioni avrà effetti benefici scarsi e che, comunque, si vedranno fra decenni. Sarà necessario intervenire con azioni di "geoingegneria", una scienza per ora di nicchia e sconosciuta ai più ma che avrà sempre maggior peso negli anni futuri, avendo come obiettivo la modificazione INTENZIONALE del clima del nostro pianeta. L'intervento che, ad oggi, sembra più quotato è la velatura del cielo che farà da schermo alla luce del sole e che può essere ottenuta mediante la dispersione di migliaia di tonnellate di zolfo nella stratosfera, zona relativamente stabile e capace di trattenere le particelle. Le implicazioni, anche su scala socio-politica, saranno molte e non tutte prevedibili. Il cielo velato sarà grigio, e ai nostri nipoti e pronipoti racconteremo, come in una favola, di quando il cielo era blu.
September 8, 2016
Mankind has spent millennia altering and changing their local environment, but with the discovery of fossil fuels and our current addiction to them we have begun the process of changing the entire global climate. He explores the effect we have had on our world with carbon dioxide, nitrogen fertilisers and sulphate in the atmosphere and considers the perilous situation that the world could be in just a few years. Even though some choose to ignore it, climate change is the thing that isn’t going to go away.
A need to address the risks of global warming is urgent and pressing. A small group of scientists are looking at proposals such as cultivation of photosynthetic plankton or a stratospheric veil against the sun or having automated robotic ships cloud seeding for intervention against the effect of climate change. In this book Morton seeks to inform us about the benefits and hazards of these geoengineering strategies. Even trying to change things in a positive way is fraught with danger, but inaction holds equal dangers.
Morton has drawn together a broad overview on the coming threats of climate change and the possibilities that geoengineering offers in digging us out of the mire. It does make for interesting reading the discussion of the technologies available to reduce carbon emissions and reflect sunlight back into space. While he covers various new technologies and new ways that are being considered to combat this, he didn’t seem to be bold enough to commit to the one he would recommend. Overall this isn’t a bad book, but didn’t seem to have the focus that I was expecting, but then that might be because the solution might be as dangerous as the problem. 2.5 stars.
A need to address the risks of global warming is urgent and pressing. A small group of scientists are looking at proposals such as cultivation of photosynthetic plankton or a stratospheric veil against the sun or having automated robotic ships cloud seeding for intervention against the effect of climate change. In this book Morton seeks to inform us about the benefits and hazards of these geoengineering strategies. Even trying to change things in a positive way is fraught with danger, but inaction holds equal dangers.
Morton has drawn together a broad overview on the coming threats of climate change and the possibilities that geoengineering offers in digging us out of the mire. It does make for interesting reading the discussion of the technologies available to reduce carbon emissions and reflect sunlight back into space. While he covers various new technologies and new ways that are being considered to combat this, he didn’t seem to be bold enough to commit to the one he would recommend. Overall this isn’t a bad book, but didn’t seem to have the focus that I was expecting, but then that might be because the solution might be as dangerous as the problem. 2.5 stars.
July 23, 2016
We've had plenty of books on climate change - its impact, what we can do about it and so forth. But one of the aspects that tends to be treated very narrowly is that 'what we can do about it.' Specifically, solutions tend to be about reducing production of greenhouse gasses. But all the evidence is that this will not be enough, and that there will be a requirement for geoengineering - taking on active changes to reduce warming or to get carbon out of the atmosphere or both.
Many green organisations don't like geoengineering, because they see it as more of the same - humans interfering with the environment which they should leave alone - but if you take a logical, rather than emotional approach, then some form of geoengineering will almost certainly be necessary.
Oliver Morton makes a persuasive case for this in an odd book, which meanders between the factual and unnecessarily poetic in a way that readers will either love or hate. Considering the content, the book is far too long - padded out with an awful lot of prose that doesn't do much, often making tangential references to some kind of geoengineering activity. So, for instance, on the last page we get this paragraph:
Up above and far away, too far for any eye but the mind's, a future lifted on long, strong wings starts a graceful, cautious turn. It seems almost beyond the bonds of Earth, but it does not fly in freedom; there are things it cannot do and must not do - many ways for it to slip and fall. The future is hemmed in on one hand by its design, on the other by the unforgiving laws of nature. But its heading and height can, with skill, be changed.
What? Really? Haven't a clue, and that's 30 seconds of my life I won't get back. There is far too much of this meandering waffle, and were it not for the power of the argument when he does stay on topic, I would only give this book three stars. But, the fact is that when Morton does focus we get lots of great material on geoengineering. He spends a lot of time on modifying what he calls the 'earthsystem' by 'veilmaking' (as you may gather, he likes making up words, or using these neologisms if someone else dreamed them up) i.e. spraying material up in the stratosphere which will reduce incoming energy from the Sun and hence reduce warming.
There is also a fair amount - probably the most interesting part of the book - on cloud science and manipulation of clouds and their impact on warming or cooling. By comparison, most of the methods of taking carbon out of the atmosphere get short shrift. Carbon capture and storage is, probably correctly, dismissed as simply not doing enough, and most of the mechanisms for taking carbon from the air at large are simply too expensive in money and/or land usage to be meaningfully deployed.
I came out of the other end of the experience of reading this book convinced we ought to be doing more on geoengineering, but without a clear picture of the way forward, in part because of the obscurity of the writing. I think this book will delight someone who wants to get all touchy feely about the concept, but it left me wanting more. Even so, it is doing something that no one else has, and so is worth a try.
Many green organisations don't like geoengineering, because they see it as more of the same - humans interfering with the environment which they should leave alone - but if you take a logical, rather than emotional approach, then some form of geoengineering will almost certainly be necessary.
Oliver Morton makes a persuasive case for this in an odd book, which meanders between the factual and unnecessarily poetic in a way that readers will either love or hate. Considering the content, the book is far too long - padded out with an awful lot of prose that doesn't do much, often making tangential references to some kind of geoengineering activity. So, for instance, on the last page we get this paragraph:
Up above and far away, too far for any eye but the mind's, a future lifted on long, strong wings starts a graceful, cautious turn. It seems almost beyond the bonds of Earth, but it does not fly in freedom; there are things it cannot do and must not do - many ways for it to slip and fall. The future is hemmed in on one hand by its design, on the other by the unforgiving laws of nature. But its heading and height can, with skill, be changed.
What? Really? Haven't a clue, and that's 30 seconds of my life I won't get back. There is far too much of this meandering waffle, and were it not for the power of the argument when he does stay on topic, I would only give this book three stars. But, the fact is that when Morton does focus we get lots of great material on geoengineering. He spends a lot of time on modifying what he calls the 'earthsystem' by 'veilmaking' (as you may gather, he likes making up words, or using these neologisms if someone else dreamed them up) i.e. spraying material up in the stratosphere which will reduce incoming energy from the Sun and hence reduce warming.
There is also a fair amount - probably the most interesting part of the book - on cloud science and manipulation of clouds and their impact on warming or cooling. By comparison, most of the methods of taking carbon out of the atmosphere get short shrift. Carbon capture and storage is, probably correctly, dismissed as simply not doing enough, and most of the mechanisms for taking carbon from the air at large are simply too expensive in money and/or land usage to be meaningfully deployed.
I came out of the other end of the experience of reading this book convinced we ought to be doing more on geoengineering, but without a clear picture of the way forward, in part because of the obscurity of the writing. I think this book will delight someone who wants to get all touchy feely about the concept, but it left me wanting more. Even so, it is doing something that no one else has, and so is worth a try.
December 17, 2016
56th book for 2016.
Oliver Morton has been following the geoengineering movement for years. In this book he offers a detailed assessment of where things were, are, and (perhaps) will be.
I came into the book as a huge skeptic of either the utility or feasibility of geoengineering the planet to mitigate the effects of global warming. By the end of the book I was convinced the geoengineering would happen, and perhaps even that this was a good thing (at the least the best course in a very bad situation).
For anyone interested in global warming and all things Anthropocene this is a necessary read.
Oliver Morton has been following the geoengineering movement for years. In this book he offers a detailed assessment of where things were, are, and (perhaps) will be.
I came into the book as a huge skeptic of either the utility or feasibility of geoengineering the planet to mitigate the effects of global warming. By the end of the book I was convinced the geoengineering would happen, and perhaps even that this was a good thing (at the least the best course in a very bad situation).
For anyone interested in global warming and all things Anthropocene this is a necessary read.
May 27, 2020
In The Planet Remade, Oliver Morton makes the case for geoengineering. Readers can learn a lot from this book, even if they are only willing to consider geoengineering a thought experiment through which they will learn about climate change.
Morton opens his exploration considering two questions he was asked by Robert Socolow. First, do you believe the risks of climate change merit serious action aimed at lessening them? Second, do you think that reducing an industrial economy's carbon dioxide emissions to near zero is very hard? Morton categorizes many climate change deniers as No/ Yes and many climate activists as Yes/ No. Even if these activists might claim they're Yes/ Yes, Morton argues they can't believe it's that hard to reduce CO2 emissions or else they'd be more willing to consider geoengineering. Morton considers the moral hazard argument—that by increasing the planet's albedo we would decrease our drive to reduce CO2 emissions—but is unconvinced by it. How much should we worry about moral hazard when global annual CO2 emissions have risen throughout this century of environmental awareness and activism?
There is a second way into this analysis. In Whole Earth Discipline, Stewart Brand looks at Bill McKibben's End of Nature and takes its conclusions literally rather than rhetorically. There's no going back and our nostalgia for a past equilibrium is, however understandable, not pragmatic. Here, Morton argues that human action now partially drives the planet's climate and points out that the green revolution is already a sort of geoengineering, just not one that's being used to counter climate change. The Planet Remade can be thought of as a work calling for adaptation (as opposed to mitigation—reducing CO2 emissions) and reading it I wonder if eco-moderns will wind up advocating for both adaptation (including many forms of geoengineering) and mitigation. In William Nordhaus's Climate Casino, what's right, environmentally speaking, becomes a question of money. Solar radiation management doesn't seem that expensive and I can see eco moderns thinking, as I often did, "if we could reduce energy entering the atmosphere, how much time could we buy to draw down CO2?"
There's something a bit mad scientist about The Planet Remade, but I wonder if that says more about my own ignorance than about this book. JASON was looking into altering or weaponizing climate decades ago. CCS seemed mad scientist not long ago and now it seems all but mainstream. If we're clearing 450 ppm in 2030, I wonder if we won't be taking solar radiation management more seriously. If that is our projection, shouldn't we be ramping up research into SRM in addition to mitigation? In his concluding chapter, Morton considers a few scenarios by which solar radiation management might happen. In one, a small group of nations whose shores are especially threatened by rising sea levels decide to start seeding the atmosphere so that it reflects light. How long could they do it without other governments noticing?
*A final note. I was able to learn more about geoengineering in Ezra Klein's interview with Jane Flegal. If you really like the idea of geoengineering, the interview offers a bit more detail into the limits of this strategy than Morton does. See episode 284 of the Ezra Klein Show.
Morton opens his exploration considering two questions he was asked by Robert Socolow. First, do you believe the risks of climate change merit serious action aimed at lessening them? Second, do you think that reducing an industrial economy's carbon dioxide emissions to near zero is very hard? Morton categorizes many climate change deniers as No/ Yes and many climate activists as Yes/ No. Even if these activists might claim they're Yes/ Yes, Morton argues they can't believe it's that hard to reduce CO2 emissions or else they'd be more willing to consider geoengineering. Morton considers the moral hazard argument—that by increasing the planet's albedo we would decrease our drive to reduce CO2 emissions—but is unconvinced by it. How much should we worry about moral hazard when global annual CO2 emissions have risen throughout this century of environmental awareness and activism?
There is a second way into this analysis. In Whole Earth Discipline, Stewart Brand looks at Bill McKibben's End of Nature and takes its conclusions literally rather than rhetorically. There's no going back and our nostalgia for a past equilibrium is, however understandable, not pragmatic. Here, Morton argues that human action now partially drives the planet's climate and points out that the green revolution is already a sort of geoengineering, just not one that's being used to counter climate change. The Planet Remade can be thought of as a work calling for adaptation (as opposed to mitigation—reducing CO2 emissions) and reading it I wonder if eco-moderns will wind up advocating for both adaptation (including many forms of geoengineering) and mitigation. In William Nordhaus's Climate Casino, what's right, environmentally speaking, becomes a question of money. Solar radiation management doesn't seem that expensive and I can see eco moderns thinking, as I often did, "if we could reduce energy entering the atmosphere, how much time could we buy to draw down CO2?"
There's something a bit mad scientist about The Planet Remade, but I wonder if that says more about my own ignorance than about this book. JASON was looking into altering or weaponizing climate decades ago. CCS seemed mad scientist not long ago and now it seems all but mainstream. If we're clearing 450 ppm in 2030, I wonder if we won't be taking solar radiation management more seriously. If that is our projection, shouldn't we be ramping up research into SRM in addition to mitigation? In his concluding chapter, Morton considers a few scenarios by which solar radiation management might happen. In one, a small group of nations whose shores are especially threatened by rising sea levels decide to start seeding the atmosphere so that it reflects light. How long could they do it without other governments noticing?
*A final note. I was able to learn more about geoengineering in Ezra Klein's interview with Jane Flegal. If you really like the idea of geoengineering, the interview offers a bit more detail into the limits of this strategy than Morton does. See episode 284 of the Ezra Klein Show.
November 2, 2016
I really went back and forth on this book, chapter by chapter. Some chapters I quite liked, but others were frankly out of place an inexplicably included in this book. In fact, it is these two things that made me ultimately rate the book as 3 stars. It badly needs an editor, as it is not really sure if it is a book about the history of human impact on the environment, a book about the anthropocene in general, or a book about geoengineering in particular. I expected it to be a coherent story about the third category, and this is why I rated it as I did. Frankly, I wanted to read a book about the current status of geoengineering research, and this book was not that, but instead largely an argument about how we a) have already modified the earth significantly (i.e. it's the anthropocene), b) what we might be able to do about climate change (though this description is more limited than I expected), and c) why these things are simply a continuation of previous thinking on the topic.
If you have read the book Arming Mother Nature, then this is in the same vein. The author is politically astute and historically interested in where we come from, with the idea that it tells us where we should be going. I'm not necessarily on board with this premise, but I understand the point, and the rationale behind the intention. I also agree with the author (wholeheartedly) that, given the sad state of political "progress" in terms of how we're dealing with climate change, then geoengineering merits much more attention and much more consideration as an option. Morton clearly understands the nuances of political negotiation, and he is by no means naive. Nor does he overstate the potential contribution of geoengineering. He even addresses many of the concerns his readers might have, and preemptively at that. Morton's lack of a scientific background - and extensive experience as a grumpy journalist - is an asset in this regard.
But what it does not deal with is the uncertainty of science, especially when it comes to translating models and ecosystem understanding to reality. We don't have a good track record in this area, and this book does nothing to alleviate the concern that we would do any better when we enter the stratosphere (for instance) and spray a thin veil around the earth to mimic volcanos. Sure, it works in theory....and sure, the models say it might work to alleviate the effects of rising CO2 in many regions....but there is nothing to indicate that our models will align with reality, and our track record is so poor, the reader can be forgiven for their distrust. If you read this book and you are aware that we can't even introduce one species in an ecosystem to control another, then this book won't give you the reassurance and/or evidence you are after to show that this time will be different, nor will it directly confront the difference between knowledge in theory and in practice (or in soft vs hard science).
Still, what it does provide is a very strong and sophisticated argument about why geoengineering merits more research, and it is here where I can't disagree with Morton. I am, like him, shocked that this is not an area that we are attending to, given the institutional failure of global negotiations. So while the book has succeeded in convincing me that this is an area that deserves our attention, it has failed in convincing me that we have enough evidence to say that there are potentially strong effects that offset the risks of geoengineered interventions. Ultimately, the logic of this book is built on an argument about how much we have already modified the world, and an argument that engineering it for the benefit of the climate is simply a logical step; but even so, it does not convince me of the ethical arguments. Yes, we are in the anthropocene. Yes, we have modified the world beyond what we could have possibly imagined. But nowhere in the book is a strong case made that this leads to a logical conclusion - and a proven intervention - that we should try to manipulate this to our own ends, as a means of adapting to climate change. There just isn't the data to support a stronger, more coherent argument.
And speaking of coherency...this book is in need of a good editor. I love the historical bits. They are interesting. But they are completely out of place. This book is a mix of information about the anthropocene (which many authors have addressed already), information about how we've modified the earth already (with the aim to lump all global environmental change drivers under the concept of "geoengineering), and information about how formal geoengineering solutions might work. I read this book because I wanted more information on the final category, but it was confusingly mixed in with everything else. {As an example, chapter 5 suddenly talks about the history of discussions about humans modifying the planet, with the argument being that there is precedence...but wouldn't logic dictate that you start with that?} It was thus about twice as long as it needed to be, given the content, and I'd love to see this book after a tough (but fair) editing.
If you haven't read other books on the anthropocene, then this is probably worthwhile, but otherwise I would suggest that you wait until a more focused book on geoengineering- and more focused research in general - is developed before reading this book. Morton is poitically astute and quite realistic, but ultimately his message is a bit mundane and unfocussed in this book.
If you have read the book Arming Mother Nature, then this is in the same vein. The author is politically astute and historically interested in where we come from, with the idea that it tells us where we should be going. I'm not necessarily on board with this premise, but I understand the point, and the rationale behind the intention. I also agree with the author (wholeheartedly) that, given the sad state of political "progress" in terms of how we're dealing with climate change, then geoengineering merits much more attention and much more consideration as an option. Morton clearly understands the nuances of political negotiation, and he is by no means naive. Nor does he overstate the potential contribution of geoengineering. He even addresses many of the concerns his readers might have, and preemptively at that. Morton's lack of a scientific background - and extensive experience as a grumpy journalist - is an asset in this regard.
But what it does not deal with is the uncertainty of science, especially when it comes to translating models and ecosystem understanding to reality. We don't have a good track record in this area, and this book does nothing to alleviate the concern that we would do any better when we enter the stratosphere (for instance) and spray a thin veil around the earth to mimic volcanos. Sure, it works in theory....and sure, the models say it might work to alleviate the effects of rising CO2 in many regions....but there is nothing to indicate that our models will align with reality, and our track record is so poor, the reader can be forgiven for their distrust. If you read this book and you are aware that we can't even introduce one species in an ecosystem to control another, then this book won't give you the reassurance and/or evidence you are after to show that this time will be different, nor will it directly confront the difference between knowledge in theory and in practice (or in soft vs hard science).
Still, what it does provide is a very strong and sophisticated argument about why geoengineering merits more research, and it is here where I can't disagree with Morton. I am, like him, shocked that this is not an area that we are attending to, given the institutional failure of global negotiations. So while the book has succeeded in convincing me that this is an area that deserves our attention, it has failed in convincing me that we have enough evidence to say that there are potentially strong effects that offset the risks of geoengineered interventions. Ultimately, the logic of this book is built on an argument about how much we have already modified the world, and an argument that engineering it for the benefit of the climate is simply a logical step; but even so, it does not convince me of the ethical arguments. Yes, we are in the anthropocene. Yes, we have modified the world beyond what we could have possibly imagined. But nowhere in the book is a strong case made that this leads to a logical conclusion - and a proven intervention - that we should try to manipulate this to our own ends, as a means of adapting to climate change. There just isn't the data to support a stronger, more coherent argument.
And speaking of coherency...this book is in need of a good editor. I love the historical bits. They are interesting. But they are completely out of place. This book is a mix of information about the anthropocene (which many authors have addressed already), information about how we've modified the earth already (with the aim to lump all global environmental change drivers under the concept of "geoengineering), and information about how formal geoengineering solutions might work. I read this book because I wanted more information on the final category, but it was confusingly mixed in with everything else. {As an example, chapter 5 suddenly talks about the history of discussions about humans modifying the planet, with the argument being that there is precedence...but wouldn't logic dictate that you start with that?} It was thus about twice as long as it needed to be, given the content, and I'd love to see this book after a tough (but fair) editing.
If you haven't read other books on the anthropocene, then this is probably worthwhile, but otherwise I would suggest that you wait until a more focused book on geoengineering- and more focused research in general - is developed before reading this book. Morton is poitically astute and quite realistic, but ultimately his message is a bit mundane and unfocussed in this book.
November 30, 2015
Morton begins his synopsis of the possibilities of geoengineering by establishing the necessity of it. He begins with two questions: do you think climate change is bad enough to do something about it? do you think reducing emissions enough is very hard to do, maybe impossible? He answers yes to both questions, and says that most of today's politicans and environmentalists today answer no to one of these questions and yes to the other, depending on their political leanings. But, he says, if we need to do something about climate change and emissions reductions are not enough, we have to look at geoengineering.
The primary action he examines is injecting aerosols into the stratosphere. That would, in effect, shade us a bit, so that we can have high carbon dioxide levels but not so much heating. He's definitely a cheerleader for this, but he's aware of the objections that have been or will be raised as this possibility works its way into the mainstream discussion about climate change.
He includes a wide-ranging historical analysis of how humans have changed the climate, both intentionally (or considered doing it intentionally) and unintentionally. This discussion was wide and detailed enough that he lost my interest a couple times, but I'll credit him with being thorough. And he does make his point. We are now and have been for at least a few decades, if not centuries, influential enough to change climate on a geologically noticeable scale.
He doesn't side-step the fear that intentionally changing the climate excites in most people. He addresses objections one by one in a more or less fair manner. He makes other forms of geoengineering, such as pulling CO2 out of the air and storing it, or seeding the ocean with nutrients to sequester CO2 that way, seem interesting but insufficient. In the latter case, it may even hurt the cause. And one of the biggest objections is that people may think that spreading sulfates as a shield would mean that we don't then need to reduce emissions... that's absolutely false, we still would, and he clearly states that over and over. So on the whole I thought he presented a responsible picture of the possibilities and risks of trying to construct our own climate.
In the end, I'm not as enthusiastic about geoengineering as Morton is, but I'm thankful for the well-researched, well-written book, and I walk away more informed and open-minded than when I started. That's a good outcome for any book on the topic, I would think.
I got a free copy of this from Net Galley.
The primary action he examines is injecting aerosols into the stratosphere. That would, in effect, shade us a bit, so that we can have high carbon dioxide levels but not so much heating. He's definitely a cheerleader for this, but he's aware of the objections that have been or will be raised as this possibility works its way into the mainstream discussion about climate change.
He includes a wide-ranging historical analysis of how humans have changed the climate, both intentionally (or considered doing it intentionally) and unintentionally. This discussion was wide and detailed enough that he lost my interest a couple times, but I'll credit him with being thorough. And he does make his point. We are now and have been for at least a few decades, if not centuries, influential enough to change climate on a geologically noticeable scale.
He doesn't side-step the fear that intentionally changing the climate excites in most people. He addresses objections one by one in a more or less fair manner. He makes other forms of geoengineering, such as pulling CO2 out of the air and storing it, or seeding the ocean with nutrients to sequester CO2 that way, seem interesting but insufficient. In the latter case, it may even hurt the cause. And one of the biggest objections is that people may think that spreading sulfates as a shield would mean that we don't then need to reduce emissions... that's absolutely false, we still would, and he clearly states that over and over. So on the whole I thought he presented a responsible picture of the possibilities and risks of trying to construct our own climate.
In the end, I'm not as enthusiastic about geoengineering as Morton is, but I'm thankful for the well-researched, well-written book, and I walk away more informed and open-minded than when I started. That's a good outcome for any book on the topic, I would think.
I got a free copy of this from Net Galley.
January 10, 2018
Oliver Morton's book is intended, as he says, to provide readers with the tools they need to "imagine a better world" than the one we are headed toward with our ever increasing production of greenhouse gases and no clear path to reversing this. Far from being a downer, this book documents mankind's predicament in cold, factual language, while laying out the many possibilities being discussed for changing our future. The challenge Morton sees is for us to first imagine, and then become excited about, things that can be done to change our earth system for the better.
The various possibilities for geoengineering range from causing the sun's energy to be reflected back into space to removing CO2 from the air. The whole intent of these bold and massive interventions would be to buy time for people to develop practical alternatives to burning fossil fuels. He sees geoengineering as a critical way to minimize the worst side-effects of global warming, but not a substitute for ultimate greenhouse gas reduction.
His book is a comprehensive introduction to the topic of geoengineering, which we are beginning to hear more about as extreme weather events are occurring more frequently worldwide. It is not a quick or light read, but an important source for anyone looking for answers to what might possibly be done.
The various possibilities for geoengineering range from causing the sun's energy to be reflected back into space to removing CO2 from the air. The whole intent of these bold and massive interventions would be to buy time for people to develop practical alternatives to burning fossil fuels. He sees geoengineering as a critical way to minimize the worst side-effects of global warming, but not a substitute for ultimate greenhouse gas reduction.
His book is a comprehensive introduction to the topic of geoengineering, which we are beginning to hear more about as extreme weather events are occurring more frequently worldwide. It is not a quick or light read, but an important source for anyone looking for answers to what might possibly be done.
July 1, 2018
I perhaps should have read some more reviews about this book before I started it. I thought that it would be covering the science behind different types of geoengineering, the good and bad points. And, whilst it does that, there is a lot of historical narrative in there and quite a bit of speculation. The author doesn't hide his belief that geoengineering is likely to be necessary (and he might be right) but also obviously believes that cloud seeding is the way forward. I remain to be convinced and the book didn't change my mind. I've given it two stars because I found the book quite tedious and a bit repetitive and wondered if it was a book that seemed like a good idea, but was lacking substance due to the fact that there is not a lot of research or examples out there - although I understand that they have done some cloud seeding experiments in places.
November 14, 2015
In this ambitious book Oliver Morton attempts a tricky task: simultaneously introducing and examining the scope of climate geoengineering; and also imagining its utopian application (not just technologically utopian, but also politically and socially). The book’s strength is that it largely achieves these two potentially contradictory tasks. Morton delivers a utopian scenario for climate geoengineering while still giving enough attention to its possible pitfalls and missteps to reveal just how difficult such a path would be to craft in reality. Time and again he emphasizes the need for care, compassion and justice in in both the purposes and design of a climate geoengineering intervention.
Morton’s utopian scenario is one in which stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is deployed to give society ‘breathing space’ to ramp down carbon emissions and develop carbon removal techniques. It’s deployment would be led by a ‘club’ of low-emission nations, and used as negotiated leverage to incite elevated mitigation by others (Morton acknowledges that the linkage here might be hard to achieve, and that others might rather slack off their efforts). In what might be a nod to Iain Banks’ ‘Concern’ (from Transition, 2009), Morton’s climate club is dubbed ‘The Concert’. It begins in secret with little power, but with high leverage approaches plays a critical role in changing how humanity sees its role on the planet and relationship with nature.
Morton claims only that he has constructed one plausible pathway for a beneficial deployment of SAI – for which his alias of ‘veil making’, used ostensibly to avoid technical language, softens the idea, making it more palatable as well as more accessible. He is, however, at pains to acknowledge alternative, more damaging routes: which may in reality be more likely in the face of real-world irrationality. He treats the ‘moral hazard’ - that critical actors might reduce mitigation efforts if geoengineering is available - seriously and neatly encapsulates one scary variant as the ‘superfreak pivot’ (that climate deniers will shift to support geoengineering as yet another reason to do nothing about emissions).
The crux is that Morton does not believe pathways without geoengineering can avoid climate harms without causing other serious social or economic harms. He sees a need for high leverage interventions (with strong governance foundations) because economic and climate inertia mean mitigation is now too late or slow. So he is forced to seek out a ‘good’ geoengineering pathway, however difficult it is to construct.
The Planet Remade covers all the main proposed geoengineering techniques – (not just SAI, but also ocean iron fertilization (OIF), marine cloud brightening (MCB), bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and direct air capture (DAC)), outlining their history, the current state of knowledge, and expected risks and benefits (and impressively, without descending into the alphabet soup of all these acronyms). But – thankfully - it is more than a popular science book about new technologies: it raises important philosophical, ethical and political questions. It successfully pushes the reader beyond current assumptions about what geoengineering might be, and why it might be done – to recognize other possibilities both tempting and concerning.
But while Morton does well to offer contrary views on the science and technologies involved, he is less successful in breaking out of the pervasive framings of geoengineering. In posing two questions in his introduction (do you believe climate risk to merit serious action? Do you think it will be very hard to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to near zero?), he already reproduces the most sticky frames: that unabated climate change is a huge (even catastrophic) problem; that political approaches to resolving the challenge have largely failed (and cannot now be expected to work); and that novel technological responses are the most likely possibilities now – as ways to ameliorate climate impacts without deep changes in society. Elsewhere he rows back from most of these framings at least a little, exploring questions of politics and justice, and actively rejecting climate emergency arguments, but in terms of establishing a setting in which geoengineering appears rational, unavoidable and even desirable, the horse has already bolted.
Morton though clearly disagrees with those who categorically reject geoengineering – for example on grounds of hubris, or because it might prevent desirable deep changes in society (see for example, Clive Hamilton (Earthmasters, 2013) and Mike Hulme (Can Science Fix Climate Change, 2014)). He recognizes that climate engineering could embody a nuclear weapon-like “Dr Strangelove sensibility and an I-am-become-death-the-destroyer-of-worlds hubris” (p311) but asserts that “If I thought this was a necessary truth at the heart of climate geoengineering I would not have written this book” (p312). He concentrates instead on whether it is practical, and how it could be done well, transparently governed and justly distributed.
Here Morton’s technological optimism is at its strongest: arguments that geoengineering could not be controlled – even those backed by scientific experimentation – are pushed aside, in favor of the implicit utopian belief that SAI could be fine-tuned to minimize harms (even though the effects are almost impossible to attribute – especially over short time scales). This though remains an argument on Morton’s terms: a largely utilitarian assessment of net costs and benefits. Those who think geoengineering is categorically unjustified are unlikely to be convinced by arguments like this on either side. Overall, Morton offers less to such readers than to those ready to consider the possibility that the world is past the point at which practical accelerated mitigation and adaptation action can adequately ameliorate the growing impacts of climate change.
The book is also rich in history and Morton finds lessons in wealth of different contexts: from weather-making to nuclear dreams (and nightmares) and even asteroid impact detection. Morton does not subscribe to the ‘exceptionalist’ doctrine that climate geoengineering is entirely unprecedented and demanding of novel responses, and many of his examples add weight to this position. However, the book’s least convincing passages are those where he seeks to persuade the reader that past human interventions in the nitrogen cycle represent geoengineering in practice, and offer helpful lessons for future geo-engineering. A more grounded reading suggests that – like fossil fuel exploitation – human activities to fix nitrogen (for explosives and fertilizers) are - at most - ‘unintentional’ geoengineering, and the responses Morton praises in the more efficient and sustainable management of nitrogen have much more in common with emissions abatement than they do with climate geoengineering.
Despite its focus, The Planet Remade is not just about geoengineering. It is also about the increasingly trendy idea of the Anthropocene: the suggestion that human impact on the planet is so great that we have, collectively become not just a geological force but the dominant one in the modern age, and that our impacts will be seen in the geological record for eons to come. Despite his memorable description of the worst possible outcome of the Anthropocene as being “a Frankenstein planet stitched together by geological resurrection men” (p258), Morton’s sympathies seem to lie closer to the Promethean scientists who seek to manage an unavoidable (and potentially even ‘good’) Anthropocene, than with more precautionary scientists and environmentalists who use the term as a warning – a reason for humanity to pull back from scientifically identified ‘planetary boundaries’ and lessen our interference. Some readers might even see the historic links Morton notes between environmentalism and racist eugenicism as an implicit critique of environmental objections to geoengineering in a heavily populated world. However, I don’t believe Morton intends such an association, as elsewhere he clearly resists the polarization of debate it would imply.
In the end I may disagree on the desirability of the particular society and engineered earth-system that Morton portrays (both in his utopian scenario, and in the frames he reproduces), but I can celebrate the excellent job he has done of making the reader consider and envisage alternative futures in which both technology and society are transformed. The most valuable role of geoengineering is not necessarily how it might act on the physical world, but how its consideration can help us change our mental and social worlds for the better. Discussing it, as Morton does, with open reference to the moral hazards involved and the potential justice implications is a positive step forward in developing responsible discourses of climate futures.
Morton’s utopian scenario is one in which stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) is deployed to give society ‘breathing space’ to ramp down carbon emissions and develop carbon removal techniques. It’s deployment would be led by a ‘club’ of low-emission nations, and used as negotiated leverage to incite elevated mitigation by others (Morton acknowledges that the linkage here might be hard to achieve, and that others might rather slack off their efforts). In what might be a nod to Iain Banks’ ‘Concern’ (from Transition, 2009), Morton’s climate club is dubbed ‘The Concert’. It begins in secret with little power, but with high leverage approaches plays a critical role in changing how humanity sees its role on the planet and relationship with nature.
Morton claims only that he has constructed one plausible pathway for a beneficial deployment of SAI – for which his alias of ‘veil making’, used ostensibly to avoid technical language, softens the idea, making it more palatable as well as more accessible. He is, however, at pains to acknowledge alternative, more damaging routes: which may in reality be more likely in the face of real-world irrationality. He treats the ‘moral hazard’ - that critical actors might reduce mitigation efforts if geoengineering is available - seriously and neatly encapsulates one scary variant as the ‘superfreak pivot’ (that climate deniers will shift to support geoengineering as yet another reason to do nothing about emissions).
The crux is that Morton does not believe pathways without geoengineering can avoid climate harms without causing other serious social or economic harms. He sees a need for high leverage interventions (with strong governance foundations) because economic and climate inertia mean mitigation is now too late or slow. So he is forced to seek out a ‘good’ geoengineering pathway, however difficult it is to construct.
The Planet Remade covers all the main proposed geoengineering techniques – (not just SAI, but also ocean iron fertilization (OIF), marine cloud brightening (MCB), bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and direct air capture (DAC)), outlining their history, the current state of knowledge, and expected risks and benefits (and impressively, without descending into the alphabet soup of all these acronyms). But – thankfully - it is more than a popular science book about new technologies: it raises important philosophical, ethical and political questions. It successfully pushes the reader beyond current assumptions about what geoengineering might be, and why it might be done – to recognize other possibilities both tempting and concerning.
But while Morton does well to offer contrary views on the science and technologies involved, he is less successful in breaking out of the pervasive framings of geoengineering. In posing two questions in his introduction (do you believe climate risk to merit serious action? Do you think it will be very hard to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to near zero?), he already reproduces the most sticky frames: that unabated climate change is a huge (even catastrophic) problem; that political approaches to resolving the challenge have largely failed (and cannot now be expected to work); and that novel technological responses are the most likely possibilities now – as ways to ameliorate climate impacts without deep changes in society. Elsewhere he rows back from most of these framings at least a little, exploring questions of politics and justice, and actively rejecting climate emergency arguments, but in terms of establishing a setting in which geoengineering appears rational, unavoidable and even desirable, the horse has already bolted.
Morton though clearly disagrees with those who categorically reject geoengineering – for example on grounds of hubris, or because it might prevent desirable deep changes in society (see for example, Clive Hamilton (Earthmasters, 2013) and Mike Hulme (Can Science Fix Climate Change, 2014)). He recognizes that climate engineering could embody a nuclear weapon-like “Dr Strangelove sensibility and an I-am-become-death-the-destroyer-of-worlds hubris” (p311) but asserts that “If I thought this was a necessary truth at the heart of climate geoengineering I would not have written this book” (p312). He concentrates instead on whether it is practical, and how it could be done well, transparently governed and justly distributed.
Here Morton’s technological optimism is at its strongest: arguments that geoengineering could not be controlled – even those backed by scientific experimentation – are pushed aside, in favor of the implicit utopian belief that SAI could be fine-tuned to minimize harms (even though the effects are almost impossible to attribute – especially over short time scales). This though remains an argument on Morton’s terms: a largely utilitarian assessment of net costs and benefits. Those who think geoengineering is categorically unjustified are unlikely to be convinced by arguments like this on either side. Overall, Morton offers less to such readers than to those ready to consider the possibility that the world is past the point at which practical accelerated mitigation and adaptation action can adequately ameliorate the growing impacts of climate change.
The book is also rich in history and Morton finds lessons in wealth of different contexts: from weather-making to nuclear dreams (and nightmares) and even asteroid impact detection. Morton does not subscribe to the ‘exceptionalist’ doctrine that climate geoengineering is entirely unprecedented and demanding of novel responses, and many of his examples add weight to this position. However, the book’s least convincing passages are those where he seeks to persuade the reader that past human interventions in the nitrogen cycle represent geoengineering in practice, and offer helpful lessons for future geo-engineering. A more grounded reading suggests that – like fossil fuel exploitation – human activities to fix nitrogen (for explosives and fertilizers) are - at most - ‘unintentional’ geoengineering, and the responses Morton praises in the more efficient and sustainable management of nitrogen have much more in common with emissions abatement than they do with climate geoengineering.
Despite its focus, The Planet Remade is not just about geoengineering. It is also about the increasingly trendy idea of the Anthropocene: the suggestion that human impact on the planet is so great that we have, collectively become not just a geological force but the dominant one in the modern age, and that our impacts will be seen in the geological record for eons to come. Despite his memorable description of the worst possible outcome of the Anthropocene as being “a Frankenstein planet stitched together by geological resurrection men” (p258), Morton’s sympathies seem to lie closer to the Promethean scientists who seek to manage an unavoidable (and potentially even ‘good’) Anthropocene, than with more precautionary scientists and environmentalists who use the term as a warning – a reason for humanity to pull back from scientifically identified ‘planetary boundaries’ and lessen our interference. Some readers might even see the historic links Morton notes between environmentalism and racist eugenicism as an implicit critique of environmental objections to geoengineering in a heavily populated world. However, I don’t believe Morton intends such an association, as elsewhere he clearly resists the polarization of debate it would imply.
In the end I may disagree on the desirability of the particular society and engineered earth-system that Morton portrays (both in his utopian scenario, and in the frames he reproduces), but I can celebrate the excellent job he has done of making the reader consider and envisage alternative futures in which both technology and society are transformed. The most valuable role of geoengineering is not necessarily how it might act on the physical world, but how its consideration can help us change our mental and social worlds for the better. Discussing it, as Morton does, with open reference to the moral hazards involved and the potential justice implications is a positive step forward in developing responsible discourses of climate futures.
December 25, 2017
Morton begins the book with two questions: 1) Do you think human emissions of carbon dioxide are changing Earth's climate? 2) Do you think it will be difficult to transition away from the centuries-long and multi-trillion dollar reliance on fossil fuels? If your answer is "yes and yes", then it may be necessary to embark on some form of geoengineering, the deliberate introduction of (most likely) sulfur aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect more light into space and counter the greenhouse effect.
Morton is a professional science writer, and he has a keen grasp of good analogies to describe the flows of energy through the upper surface of Earth, and the scientific discoveries that lead to theories of geoengineering. Major volcanic eruptions in the late 90s offered a case to test the assumptions of primitive climate models against the introduction of bulk surfer aerosols, with sudden cooling and associated hemispheric changes in the weather. Of course climate models are relatively crude, and there's still much that we don't know about the effects on weather, which is what people notice and care about, rather than the climate. The ease of geoengineering is stark. Perhaps $10 billion to set up a fleet of stratospheric tankers, and a $2 billion annually to maintain the program. Big science, yes, but costs on the order of a few large nuclear plants.
The problem with geoengineering is it's Promethean potential. It's not that the actual practice is wholly new. Climate change is just one natural cycle now substantially influence-to-completely dominated by human activity, from the Haber-Bosch process and nitrogen fertilizer, to phosphorus fertilizer, to the narrowly averted disaster of CFCs and the ozone layers. To take a major Earth system deliberately in hand and say "this is what we want it to be" is a new level of planetary ambition. Geonegineering induced cooling will have some losers, and the politics of those harms are not well mapped out.
This is where Morton falls short. He imagines a scenarios where a "Concord" of minor states threatened by climate change enact geoengineering, but it seems more likely that a major power or even a billionaire operating under a flag of convenience will get there first. The internal politics of geoengineering, its scientific debates, and relationship to mainstream atmospheric physics and ecological activism, are sorely under-reported. Still, I can't think of a better book on the topic.
Morton is a professional science writer, and he has a keen grasp of good analogies to describe the flows of energy through the upper surface of Earth, and the scientific discoveries that lead to theories of geoengineering. Major volcanic eruptions in the late 90s offered a case to test the assumptions of primitive climate models against the introduction of bulk surfer aerosols, with sudden cooling and associated hemispheric changes in the weather. Of course climate models are relatively crude, and there's still much that we don't know about the effects on weather, which is what people notice and care about, rather than the climate. The ease of geoengineering is stark. Perhaps $10 billion to set up a fleet of stratospheric tankers, and a $2 billion annually to maintain the program. Big science, yes, but costs on the order of a few large nuclear plants.
The problem with geoengineering is it's Promethean potential. It's not that the actual practice is wholly new. Climate change is just one natural cycle now substantially influence-to-completely dominated by human activity, from the Haber-Bosch process and nitrogen fertilizer, to phosphorus fertilizer, to the narrowly averted disaster of CFCs and the ozone layers. To take a major Earth system deliberately in hand and say "this is what we want it to be" is a new level of planetary ambition. Geonegineering induced cooling will have some losers, and the politics of those harms are not well mapped out.
This is where Morton falls short. He imagines a scenarios where a "Concord" of minor states threatened by climate change enact geoengineering, but it seems more likely that a major power or even a billionaire operating under a flag of convenience will get there first. The internal politics of geoengineering, its scientific debates, and relationship to mainstream atmospheric physics and ecological activism, are sorely under-reported. Still, I can't think of a better book on the topic.
July 18, 2016
A well-researched and -reasoned argument for a serious research effort into climate geoengineering, Morton’s account doesn’t quite convince me that human beings could manage such a process successfully, but it comes closer to doing so that any previous account I’ve ever read. Morton traces the history of various geoengineering efforts (some purposeful interventions, others less so) and the state of the research into various schemes under consideration. Less explored here is the politics and governance issues behind geoengineering; Morton admits that such efforts are necessary, but doesn’t go into sufficient detail.
January 20, 2019
Bello, a tratti poetico (meglio: geopoetico), intelligentissimo.
Dopo averlo letto le parole ambiente, natura, ambientalismo, progresso, bellezza e responsabilità per le generazioni future avranno davvero un senso accresciuto, concetti come scienze prometeiche rimarranno impressi.
Nel dettaglio oltre a essere un saggio di rivolta e comprensione contro certi paradigmi vi sono trovano una serie di soggetti creativi e scenari da post sci-fi davvero ottimi. Basta pensare al cielo nero di Matrix o a Snowpiercer.
Assolutamente da non perdere.
Riletto, confermo e rilancio: è un testo fondamentale anche soltanto per pensare a termine come Antropocene, figuriamoci per parlarne.
Dopo averlo letto le parole ambiente, natura, ambientalismo, progresso, bellezza e responsabilità per le generazioni future avranno davvero un senso accresciuto, concetti come scienze prometeiche rimarranno impressi.
Nel dettaglio oltre a essere un saggio di rivolta e comprensione contro certi paradigmi vi sono trovano una serie di soggetti creativi e scenari da post sci-fi davvero ottimi. Basta pensare al cielo nero di Matrix o a Snowpiercer.
Assolutamente da non perdere.
Riletto, confermo e rilancio: è un testo fondamentale anche soltanto per pensare a termine come Antropocene, figuriamoci per parlarne.
December 11, 2015
This is a confused and confusing book. Morton is an evangelist for geoengineering, but the reader has to work hard to discover what that actually means. The political implications are certainly tackled, rather more clearly than the science, but it's all bound up in language which Morton wants to be poetic but which never quite makes it. Interesting but disappointing.
June 9, 2019
The author of this book makes conflicting statements left and right. The historical and scientific research he exposes is fascinating, but his conclusions are deeply problematic.
December 4, 2016
I was going to rate this book 4/5 stars, because although it was overall a quick read with large typeface, I agree with other reviewers that it was still a bit too long and meandering. Then I did a twitter search for "geoengineering" and what I found was basically madness writ large, full of conspiracy theories and overall a lack of clear thinking about the subject.
Set in that context, with such an important problem, the content of this book overwhelms any concerns about the style, and I can say that it is strongly recommended. The main meat of the primary geoengineering approach that he espouses is in Chapters 3 and 4 if you just want to read that.
More research and small-scale experimentation into geoengineering is urgently needed, as it may help provide the "breathing room" that will allow implementation of clean-tech and carbon-capture before warming does very large amounts of damage. To be clear: climate change will probably still do large amounts of damage if the amount of stratosphere veiling is only mitigating or slowing, but probably not as large.
My main takeaways:
- more geoengineering research and small scale in situ experiments should be done
- politics ruins everything
- we need a way to terraform Mars with CO2 stat (this was not discussed in the book, but it's one of my takeaways regardless)
Good words/concepts: agitprop, Tambora, dammit (used well throughout), Holocene, Promethean science
Quotes:
On the difficulty of getting off of fossil fuels: "One principle, he says, is that energy transitions have been slow -- they take about a century" - p 11
"Current assessments of the Fukushima meltdown suggest that there will be no discernible deaths as a result. Compare that with more than a million who die with coal-ruined lungs every year." - p 16
"But fossil fuels have become cheaper, not more expensive, and look likely to stay quite affordable for rich countries for decades to come." - p 19
On why it's important to recognize the distinction that geoengineering is deliberate: "The extinction of the dodo is one thing; that of smallpox is another." - p 26
"To talk of 'saving the planet' rather than of preserving and enhancing the boons the planet offers to the people who live on it divorces environmental rhetoric from the moral causes that most concern me." - p 61
"Archimedes is said to have said that, given a lever long enough and a place to stand, he could move the Earth."
"Direct sunlight can be overpowering; it burns up the molecular engines of photosynthesis, forcing the leaf to put in time and effort into their repair. Indirect light is good, because it gets to parts of the leaf that would otherwise be in shadow."- p 97
"All models are wrong; but precipitation models are particularly wrong" - p 116
"Carbon dioxide: it has proved a much easier substance to agree on than to control... While Britain emitted 15% less carbon dioxide in 2005 than it did in 1990, the carbon dioxide emitted in producing all the products Britain consumed was 19% higher; it was just that more of the production, and thus more of the carbon-dioxide emission, was going on elsewhere." - p 145
"Because sunshine geoengineering efforts would do nothing about ocean acidification, they did much less to undermine the politics surrounding the reduction of the carbon-dioxide emissions." p 153
"One spur of particularly well-rehearsed argument is the risk that simply talking about climate geoengineering will lead to less climate mitigation -- the same concern that contributed to the marginalization of adaptation efforts in the past. This is often called the 'moral hazard' problem." p 158
"Both natural and social scientists tend to make this sort of mistake -- to talk as though what geoengineering is has already been decided, rather than treating it as something still up for grabs." - p 168
"Producing a dollar's worth of food typically takes more than five times as much energy as producing the same value through manufacturing." - p 194
"If it were not for climate change, the build-up of various different forms of reactive nitrogen in the world's soils, water, and air would probably be the single biggest topic of environmental conversation and concern." - p 197 [damage in Europe estimated between 70B-320B euros/year]
"The authors of the [ENA] estimated that reactive nitrogen in the air is cutting six months to a year off the life expectancy of the whole population of central Europe (those to the west, who get fresh air from the Atlantic, do better). The health costs they attribute to diseases brought on by poor air quality dominate their estimate of the damage done by nitrogen. Worldwide, outdoor air pollution is thought to cause perhaps four to seven million deaths a year; reactive nitrogen and the things it produces account for a significant fraction of them." - p 199
Cosma Shalizi's take on the key imperial skill mastered by the British: "long-range trade backed by highly organized violence" - p 228
"In the Denovian, when forests were first spreading, the [carbon dioxide] level was probably five or six times that of today. The long-term decline is due to the fact that carbon dioxide dissolved in rain and seawater plays a role in the 'weathering' of silicate rocks, a process which produces rocks with carbonate ions locked into them, such as limestone and marble." - p 233
"If you are not going to indulge in some form of sunshine geoengineering, the only way to stop the warming is to bring emissions to zero." - p 264
"In 3000 years the Earth's orbital cycles will hit the sort of alignment that would seem likely to trigger an ice age.... [I]f humans go on emitting at something like the current rate for just a few more decades and do not subsequently choose to get into the carbon-removal business, there will still be enough industrial carbon dioxide left in the atmosphere three millennia hence to stop that ice age before it starts." - p 267
"How much aerosols have masked the effects of global warming in the past, and how much they continue to do so in a present, is a question of great uncertainty." - p 279
"What was needed for the time being, the academic scientists said -- as they can be relied on to say in almost any area where they get to set their own agenda -- was basic research." - p 318
"[T]here is now no serious doubt that one day a little more than 66 million years ago an asteroid about 12 kilometres across hit what is now the Yucatan with an energy equivalent to that of 20,000 simultaneous all-out nuclear wars." - p 328
"I would never say that geoengineering was the solution, or even a solution. But then I think that it is a mistake to treat climate change as a problem to be solved. Something as complex as the relationship of industrial civilization to the earthsystem that it shapes and is shaped by isn't the sort of thing that is simply solved, once and for all, and it's a snare to think that it is." p 346
"I have been aware, writing this book, that my own hopes for geoengineering, and the meanings that I ascribe to it, reflect feelings deeper than those I have about radiative forcing and the goings-on above the tropopause.... The constant sense that, if there could be a bit more room, a bit less pressure, if only the envelope could be expanded, the boundaries pushed back, if only there were time, and space, to breathe: that is my confined, asphyxiated perception. It comes from experiences within my life, some of which I understand a bit, some of which I doubtless don't. It probably chimes with the experiences of some of you, too, in some way and to some degree. Who has room enough, time enough, choice enough?" - p 377
Set in that context, with such an important problem, the content of this book overwhelms any concerns about the style, and I can say that it is strongly recommended. The main meat of the primary geoengineering approach that he espouses is in Chapters 3 and 4 if you just want to read that.
More research and small-scale experimentation into geoengineering is urgently needed, as it may help provide the "breathing room" that will allow implementation of clean-tech and carbon-capture before warming does very large amounts of damage. To be clear: climate change will probably still do large amounts of damage if the amount of stratosphere veiling is only mitigating or slowing, but probably not as large.
My main takeaways:
- more geoengineering research and small scale in situ experiments should be done
- politics ruins everything
- we need a way to terraform Mars with CO2 stat (this was not discussed in the book, but it's one of my takeaways regardless)
Good words/concepts: agitprop, Tambora, dammit (used well throughout), Holocene, Promethean science
Quotes:
On the difficulty of getting off of fossil fuels: "One principle, he says, is that energy transitions have been slow -- they take about a century" - p 11
"Current assessments of the Fukushima meltdown suggest that there will be no discernible deaths as a result. Compare that with more than a million who die with coal-ruined lungs every year." - p 16
"But fossil fuels have become cheaper, not more expensive, and look likely to stay quite affordable for rich countries for decades to come." - p 19
On why it's important to recognize the distinction that geoengineering is deliberate: "The extinction of the dodo is one thing; that of smallpox is another." - p 26
"To talk of 'saving the planet' rather than of preserving and enhancing the boons the planet offers to the people who live on it divorces environmental rhetoric from the moral causes that most concern me." - p 61
"Archimedes is said to have said that, given a lever long enough and a place to stand, he could move the Earth."
"Direct sunlight can be overpowering; it burns up the molecular engines of photosynthesis, forcing the leaf to put in time and effort into their repair. Indirect light is good, because it gets to parts of the leaf that would otherwise be in shadow."- p 97
"All models are wrong; but precipitation models are particularly wrong" - p 116
"Carbon dioxide: it has proved a much easier substance to agree on than to control... While Britain emitted 15% less carbon dioxide in 2005 than it did in 1990, the carbon dioxide emitted in producing all the products Britain consumed was 19% higher; it was just that more of the production, and thus more of the carbon-dioxide emission, was going on elsewhere." - p 145
"Because sunshine geoengineering efforts would do nothing about ocean acidification, they did much less to undermine the politics surrounding the reduction of the carbon-dioxide emissions." p 153
"One spur of particularly well-rehearsed argument is the risk that simply talking about climate geoengineering will lead to less climate mitigation -- the same concern that contributed to the marginalization of adaptation efforts in the past. This is often called the 'moral hazard' problem." p 158
"Both natural and social scientists tend to make this sort of mistake -- to talk as though what geoengineering is has already been decided, rather than treating it as something still up for grabs." - p 168
"Producing a dollar's worth of food typically takes more than five times as much energy as producing the same value through manufacturing." - p 194
"If it were not for climate change, the build-up of various different forms of reactive nitrogen in the world's soils, water, and air would probably be the single biggest topic of environmental conversation and concern." - p 197 [damage in Europe estimated between 70B-320B euros/year]
"The authors of the [ENA] estimated that reactive nitrogen in the air is cutting six months to a year off the life expectancy of the whole population of central Europe (those to the west, who get fresh air from the Atlantic, do better). The health costs they attribute to diseases brought on by poor air quality dominate their estimate of the damage done by nitrogen. Worldwide, outdoor air pollution is thought to cause perhaps four to seven million deaths a year; reactive nitrogen and the things it produces account for a significant fraction of them." - p 199
Cosma Shalizi's take on the key imperial skill mastered by the British: "long-range trade backed by highly organized violence" - p 228
"In the Denovian, when forests were first spreading, the [carbon dioxide] level was probably five or six times that of today. The long-term decline is due to the fact that carbon dioxide dissolved in rain and seawater plays a role in the 'weathering' of silicate rocks, a process which produces rocks with carbonate ions locked into them, such as limestone and marble." - p 233
"If you are not going to indulge in some form of sunshine geoengineering, the only way to stop the warming is to bring emissions to zero." - p 264
"In 3000 years the Earth's orbital cycles will hit the sort of alignment that would seem likely to trigger an ice age.... [I]f humans go on emitting at something like the current rate for just a few more decades and do not subsequently choose to get into the carbon-removal business, there will still be enough industrial carbon dioxide left in the atmosphere three millennia hence to stop that ice age before it starts." - p 267
"How much aerosols have masked the effects of global warming in the past, and how much they continue to do so in a present, is a question of great uncertainty." - p 279
"What was needed for the time being, the academic scientists said -- as they can be relied on to say in almost any area where they get to set their own agenda -- was basic research." - p 318
"[T]here is now no serious doubt that one day a little more than 66 million years ago an asteroid about 12 kilometres across hit what is now the Yucatan with an energy equivalent to that of 20,000 simultaneous all-out nuclear wars." - p 328
"I would never say that geoengineering was the solution, or even a solution. But then I think that it is a mistake to treat climate change as a problem to be solved. Something as complex as the relationship of industrial civilization to the earthsystem that it shapes and is shaped by isn't the sort of thing that is simply solved, once and for all, and it's a snare to think that it is." p 346
"I have been aware, writing this book, that my own hopes for geoengineering, and the meanings that I ascribe to it, reflect feelings deeper than those I have about radiative forcing and the goings-on above the tropopause.... The constant sense that, if there could be a bit more room, a bit less pressure, if only the envelope could be expanded, the boundaries pushed back, if only there were time, and space, to breathe: that is my confined, asphyxiated perception. It comes from experiences within my life, some of which I understand a bit, some of which I doubtless don't. It probably chimes with the experiences of some of you, too, in some way and to some degree. Who has room enough, time enough, choice enough?" - p 377
November 14, 2017
National Geographic and similar outfits like to publish beautiful pictures of supposedly wild places untouched by man. However, since humanity has become a major geological force in the 20th century, no place on Earth is really untouched by man. The annual mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 280ppm in the mid-18th century and 407ppm in 2017. This of course has a major effect on the growth of plants and the rest of the ecology even in wild places. Since the invention of the Haber-Bosch process, humans have also at least doubled the amount of atmospheric nitrogen bonded with other atoms into inorganic compounds; inorganic fertilizer that hasn't been absorbed by crops is washed away into rivers and seas, and from there it evaporates and rains even upon wild places. So does sulfuric acid from sulfurous coal and oil burned in power plants and engines. And so on.
This book is about the environmentalists who say, "Since we are already doing planetary-scale engineering inadvertently, let us do it consciously. Let us spray aerosols into the stratosphere, which would dim the planet. Let us use grind sea salt into minute particles and inject them into clouds over the sea to make them brighter, which would reflect more solar radiation into space. This would counteract global warming and give humanity time to decarbonize the economy over a few generations." Of course no one knows whether this will work or make things worse, but then the changes to the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the sulfur cycle were made without even thinking about the consequences.
This book is about the environmentalists who say, "Since we are already doing planetary-scale engineering inadvertently, let us do it consciously. Let us spray aerosols into the stratosphere, which would dim the planet. Let us use grind sea salt into minute particles and inject them into clouds over the sea to make them brighter, which would reflect more solar radiation into space. This would counteract global warming and give humanity time to decarbonize the economy over a few generations." Of course no one knows whether this will work or make things worse, but then the changes to the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the sulfur cycle were made without even thinking about the consequences.
September 13, 2018
The Planet Remade by Oliver Morton is a masterpiece of serious nonfiction. Rigorously researched, richly imagined, and compellingly told, it weaves the science, philosophy, and politics of geoengineering into a thought-provoking narrative that shows how this little-known field may take the world stage in the not-too-far future. I found it utterly fascinating and thought-provoking in the extreme. No matter what you think about geoengineering or climate change, this book will deepen and complicate your perspective.
May 27, 2021
This is a fascinating book about climate change and what we might be able to do about it.
June 9, 2021
An interesting set of ideas but dreadfully written, and insufficient attention to the downsides and limitations.
May 30, 2019
Great insights on alternatives to help humanity adapt and slow climate change. Stimulates the imagination and puts our challenges ahead in perspective. Sometimes the author lost me in his poetry, but most of the time made me travel to an alternative engineered prosperous future.
September 22, 2016
This book changed my previously pretty well informed opinion, on the necessity of having a stratospheric sulfur veil. And the book also made it clear to me that some solar shading project was actually going to be inevitable, within the next 2 decades.
Morton effectively describes many options and reviews widely dispersed data, in a way that's really easy to understand, yet also reaches back to first principles of chemistry and physics.
I especially love how he seeks and highlights points of highest leverage in the earth system, such that a few million tons of sulfur applied carefully can have a larger impact than billions more of carbon dioxide, for example. Or how a small amount of difluoromethane could quickly reverse an ice-balling planet.
Morton tries to make the book more literary, and perhaps interesting, by including many historical references and personal anecdotes. For me, as one reader, these just made the book 3 times as long as it should've been, and somewhat opaque if you didn't follow the nonessential cultural references.
Morton effectively describes many options and reviews widely dispersed data, in a way that's really easy to understand, yet also reaches back to first principles of chemistry and physics.
I especially love how he seeks and highlights points of highest leverage in the earth system, such that a few million tons of sulfur applied carefully can have a larger impact than billions more of carbon dioxide, for example. Or how a small amount of difluoromethane could quickly reverse an ice-balling planet.
Morton tries to make the book more literary, and perhaps interesting, by including many historical references and personal anecdotes. For me, as one reader, these just made the book 3 times as long as it should've been, and somewhat opaque if you didn't follow the nonessential cultural references.
July 31, 2017
Wow that was a tough read. And I put it down multiple times and had to force hard through a number of sections. Wordy. And definitely unfocused. The writing style much of the time was annoying. And yes I got lots of the non science references but that doesn't mean they should have been there. But the book was also specific and particular. The case that we have been doing geoengineering for a long time was pretty strong. The scenario at the end around the Concert was mostly well done. And I particularly liked the chapters by element on Nitrogen, Carbon and Sulfur. The author also went out of his way to separate who thinks or thought or claims what and where possible what agenda they seem to have - it made the book harder to read but perhaps more valuable. Not a fun read. And it doesn't look like it is setup well as a reference book either. 2.5 of 5.
December 5, 2015
Very interesting take on geoengineering. Must read for those concerned about climate change.
September 3, 2016
The short version of this long review is that if you care about global warming this is well written book worth reading that discusses points not usually addressed. I'm not sold on all the conclusions or points of emphasis or perspectives but it's a good read.
Geoengineering is the deliberate modification of the globe--the "Earthsystem" in Morton's preferred term. Ideas about geoengineering once flowed from a triumphal mindset--when I was in a kid in elementary school in the '70s I got the tail end of this in some reading material, like ideas to build canals to let the Sahara bloom, fertilize the Australian deserts, or (my favorite, and I swear I'm not making it up) damn the Black Sea and Straights of Gibraltar so you could lower the level of the Mediterranean and get more cropland. It was an age when many liberals considered pesticides an undiluted good and we still had the ignorant confidence that made us think of grandiose ways to mess things up without realizing what we were doing.
Today geoengineering is about trying to clean up the mess we made. It's a patch, possibly a desperate one. We already changed the globe unintentionally by radically changing the carbon cycle; do we have options to deliberately reduce the impact of those unintentional changes? Morton makes a case that just reducing carbon emissions to near zero is not just hard, but so hard as to be totally unrealistic. The metaphor of a lever is introduced: CO2 is a lever we can manipulate to warm the Earth by making relatively small changes; what other levers can we hit in the climate to go the other way?
Global warming is caused by carbon dioxide and other emissions trapping heat from incoming sunlight. So there are basically two approaches on the engineering side: Get rid of CO2 or reduce the sunlight. On some level I thought getting rid of CO2 from the atmosphere is doable if we really wanted to--we put it there didn't we?--but I overlooked the fact that we did this by finding really concentrated sources of carbon (fossil fuels) and adding them to the atmosphere at parts-per-million concentrations. Intervention when something is concentrated is obviously much easier than doing it in reverse; we see this with impact fertilizers have had on the nitrogen cycle as well, where we pull nitrogen out of the air (at 70% concentration) and put it in the soil at ppm levels, also with with a big impact. Putting CO2 scrubbers at the point emissions are most concentrated--fossil fuel burning power plants--has more promise but is unpopular for various reasons (more on this later.)
The most intriguing CO2 removal idea is to seed nutrient poor areas of the ocean with iron to fertilize it, causing a marine floral bloom. They'll them photosythentically fix CO2, as they've evolved to do, then die and fall to the bottom of the ocean. This would be truly a lever, as scientists calculate small amounts would enable a massive bloom, so we gave it a try. The iron hypothesis was proven--good science in the abstract--but unfortunately the net effect is to encourage growth of creatures that don't sink and sequester the carbon when they die. Since they starve other life, the net result might be more warming. Morton discusses this and moves on, but in my opinion it's worth taking a moment to consider that in one of the few cases where we've done a scale experiment we hit an unpredicted failure almost right away.
There are a few interesting sci-fi type ideas for reducing sunlight, like genetically engineering plants to have more reflective leaves. (This idea--genetic modification in the service of geoengineering--is like the greatest troll possible for some environmentalists. Morton's amused, and so am I).
The more promising ideas though are making more clouds and increasing their reflectivity, using ocean going "cloud ships" that emit carefully sized droplets, and putting something reflective (like sulfates) into the stratosphere. The sulfate experiment has been done in nature, by volcanoes. There should be a lot of problems using this to counteract CO2--after all, greenhouse warming is always and everywhere while sunlight is highest during the day, the summer, and in the tropics--but the best guesses by modelers are that it actually balances out amazing well. Reduce incoming light by a few watts per square meter and you counteract a few watts per square meter worth of CO2 induced forcings. Some things are worse, and there are certainly changes; some things are actually better though, such as plants that benefit from high CO2 without the damage of high temperatures.
So is this actually a good idea? Geoengineering actually has a very bad reputation in the mainstream environmental movement for a few reasons, some emotional and some practical. Emotionally the basic problem is that the early industrialist triumphalism is out of style: "we can totally handle the problems we created by beating on Gaia until she submits to our will" is obviously not the sort of thing Greenpeace or the Sierra Club will get behind. The practical ones is that this is all a wonderful excuse not to do anything to stop global warming if that's your goal, and in fact many deniers seem awful willing to move from "We don't understand the climate enough to even know if we're causing warming" to "I'm totally comfortable that we can micromanage the climate easily if there are any problems" in a way that makes no sense except to the extent you interpret them as simply wanting to side with unfettered business practice. (Morton calls this the "Superfreak pivot" after a Levitt & Dubner essay. The book is seldom overtly funny but the author must I suspect have a charming of humor.)
Morton kind of deals himself a get out of jail free card by repeatedly stating that even if it turns out not to be a good idea, it should certainly be on the table and considered, and even if we learn we can't do it or decide we shouldn't, engaging would teach us a lot. He clearly sympathizes with the frustrations of many proponents, sincerely worried about warming and earnestly trying to offer options. And put that way, I'm totally sold. Global warming is a serious problem, and anything to get us where we need to be should be considered.
I think he breezes past some relevant problem though. The first is a scientific or engineering one: big complex projects are more likely to go wrong or fail or backfire in unpredictable ways. Now, if you think of the project in terms of dealing with man-made things--replacing 90% of the power generation of the world versus spraying sulfates in the air--this consideration favors geoengineering. But if you think of it in terms of modifying the planet, a lot of solar plants and expensive hydraulic storage is perhaps ridiculously expensive but far simpler and predictable; we're trying to avoid modifying the complicated machinery, which is the Earthsystem itself. I'm suspicious of all massive projects, which are seldom on time, on budget, and more likely to be a catastrophe--and remember the one deliberate geoengineering test we did backfired. He never really grapples with the complexity side; he understands uncertainty but I think he scores mentally geoengineering as simpler. (Important point on this note though--if you can't reduce CO2 quickly enough, but do successfully reduce the temperature rise with a solar shade, you may be back in the "least change to the complex system" territory.)
The second is the practical politics of these proposals. Morton puts a lot of weight in our ability to sensibly manage geoengineering if there are problems, and makes the point that if you don't trust us to be able work together to to manage this big project you probably shouldn't be confident in our ability shut off our carbon output either. Fair enough, but even as I find this rhetorically neat I'm unconvinced. Independent of cost there's a limited focus for big projects, and I suspect two big projects (geoengineering + carbon mitigation) are quite likely to become an either / or choice. And the history of opposition to CO2 reduction does boil down to faux "let's not rush into it" concerns for which geoengineering research is perfectly suited. Sure, it's nice that the academics, innovators and researchers Morton admires are sincere, but they aren't going to be driving this if it becomes mainstream. Consider: GM foods spread across the US, with no labeling, everywhere profit was in sight but once the people truly committed to the common wealth (as with golden rice) can't offer monetary profits the technology languishes. And geoengineering is only profitable to individual companies to the extent that it stops them from needing to do other things. I don't think it's cynical to worry about or even expect this to be abused.
But net, including the worries I just raised, I think this should be on the table along with everything else, including a big carbon tax and emissions caps and nuclear power.
As I mentioned in another recent review, I tend to do these as notes for myself as much as anything to note important facts, and I found a lot important here. In the unlikely event you've made it this far, thanks for reading but your time would be better spent with the book itself!
Geoengineering is the deliberate modification of the globe--the "Earthsystem" in Morton's preferred term. Ideas about geoengineering once flowed from a triumphal mindset--when I was in a kid in elementary school in the '70s I got the tail end of this in some reading material, like ideas to build canals to let the Sahara bloom, fertilize the Australian deserts, or (my favorite, and I swear I'm not making it up) damn the Black Sea and Straights of Gibraltar so you could lower the level of the Mediterranean and get more cropland. It was an age when many liberals considered pesticides an undiluted good and we still had the ignorant confidence that made us think of grandiose ways to mess things up without realizing what we were doing.
Today geoengineering is about trying to clean up the mess we made. It's a patch, possibly a desperate one. We already changed the globe unintentionally by radically changing the carbon cycle; do we have options to deliberately reduce the impact of those unintentional changes? Morton makes a case that just reducing carbon emissions to near zero is not just hard, but so hard as to be totally unrealistic. The metaphor of a lever is introduced: CO2 is a lever we can manipulate to warm the Earth by making relatively small changes; what other levers can we hit in the climate to go the other way?
Global warming is caused by carbon dioxide and other emissions trapping heat from incoming sunlight. So there are basically two approaches on the engineering side: Get rid of CO2 or reduce the sunlight. On some level I thought getting rid of CO2 from the atmosphere is doable if we really wanted to--we put it there didn't we?--but I overlooked the fact that we did this by finding really concentrated sources of carbon (fossil fuels) and adding them to the atmosphere at parts-per-million concentrations. Intervention when something is concentrated is obviously much easier than doing it in reverse; we see this with impact fertilizers have had on the nitrogen cycle as well, where we pull nitrogen out of the air (at 70% concentration) and put it in the soil at ppm levels, also with with a big impact. Putting CO2 scrubbers at the point emissions are most concentrated--fossil fuel burning power plants--has more promise but is unpopular for various reasons (more on this later.)
The most intriguing CO2 removal idea is to seed nutrient poor areas of the ocean with iron to fertilize it, causing a marine floral bloom. They'll them photosythentically fix CO2, as they've evolved to do, then die and fall to the bottom of the ocean. This would be truly a lever, as scientists calculate small amounts would enable a massive bloom, so we gave it a try. The iron hypothesis was proven--good science in the abstract--but unfortunately the net effect is to encourage growth of creatures that don't sink and sequester the carbon when they die. Since they starve other life, the net result might be more warming. Morton discusses this and moves on, but in my opinion it's worth taking a moment to consider that in one of the few cases where we've done a scale experiment we hit an unpredicted failure almost right away.
There are a few interesting sci-fi type ideas for reducing sunlight, like genetically engineering plants to have more reflective leaves. (This idea--genetic modification in the service of geoengineering--is like the greatest troll possible for some environmentalists. Morton's amused, and so am I).
The more promising ideas though are making more clouds and increasing their reflectivity, using ocean going "cloud ships" that emit carefully sized droplets, and putting something reflective (like sulfates) into the stratosphere. The sulfate experiment has been done in nature, by volcanoes. There should be a lot of problems using this to counteract CO2--after all, greenhouse warming is always and everywhere while sunlight is highest during the day, the summer, and in the tropics--but the best guesses by modelers are that it actually balances out amazing well. Reduce incoming light by a few watts per square meter and you counteract a few watts per square meter worth of CO2 induced forcings. Some things are worse, and there are certainly changes; some things are actually better though, such as plants that benefit from high CO2 without the damage of high temperatures.
So is this actually a good idea? Geoengineering actually has a very bad reputation in the mainstream environmental movement for a few reasons, some emotional and some practical. Emotionally the basic problem is that the early industrialist triumphalism is out of style: "we can totally handle the problems we created by beating on Gaia until she submits to our will" is obviously not the sort of thing Greenpeace or the Sierra Club will get behind. The practical ones is that this is all a wonderful excuse not to do anything to stop global warming if that's your goal, and in fact many deniers seem awful willing to move from "We don't understand the climate enough to even know if we're causing warming" to "I'm totally comfortable that we can micromanage the climate easily if there are any problems" in a way that makes no sense except to the extent you interpret them as simply wanting to side with unfettered business practice. (Morton calls this the "Superfreak pivot" after a Levitt & Dubner essay. The book is seldom overtly funny but the author must I suspect have a charming of humor.)
Morton kind of deals himself a get out of jail free card by repeatedly stating that even if it turns out not to be a good idea, it should certainly be on the table and considered, and even if we learn we can't do it or decide we shouldn't, engaging would teach us a lot. He clearly sympathizes with the frustrations of many proponents, sincerely worried about warming and earnestly trying to offer options. And put that way, I'm totally sold. Global warming is a serious problem, and anything to get us where we need to be should be considered.
I think he breezes past some relevant problem though. The first is a scientific or engineering one: big complex projects are more likely to go wrong or fail or backfire in unpredictable ways. Now, if you think of the project in terms of dealing with man-made things--replacing 90% of the power generation of the world versus spraying sulfates in the air--this consideration favors geoengineering. But if you think of it in terms of modifying the planet, a lot of solar plants and expensive hydraulic storage is perhaps ridiculously expensive but far simpler and predictable; we're trying to avoid modifying the complicated machinery, which is the Earthsystem itself. I'm suspicious of all massive projects, which are seldom on time, on budget, and more likely to be a catastrophe--and remember the one deliberate geoengineering test we did backfired. He never really grapples with the complexity side; he understands uncertainty but I think he scores mentally geoengineering as simpler. (Important point on this note though--if you can't reduce CO2 quickly enough, but do successfully reduce the temperature rise with a solar shade, you may be back in the "least change to the complex system" territory.)
The second is the practical politics of these proposals. Morton puts a lot of weight in our ability to sensibly manage geoengineering if there are problems, and makes the point that if you don't trust us to be able work together to to manage this big project you probably shouldn't be confident in our ability shut off our carbon output either. Fair enough, but even as I find this rhetorically neat I'm unconvinced. Independent of cost there's a limited focus for big projects, and I suspect two big projects (geoengineering + carbon mitigation) are quite likely to become an either / or choice. And the history of opposition to CO2 reduction does boil down to faux "let's not rush into it" concerns for which geoengineering research is perfectly suited. Sure, it's nice that the academics, innovators and researchers Morton admires are sincere, but they aren't going to be driving this if it becomes mainstream. Consider: GM foods spread across the US, with no labeling, everywhere profit was in sight but once the people truly committed to the common wealth (as with golden rice) can't offer monetary profits the technology languishes. And geoengineering is only profitable to individual companies to the extent that it stops them from needing to do other things. I don't think it's cynical to worry about or even expect this to be abused.
But net, including the worries I just raised, I think this should be on the table along with everything else, including a big carbon tax and emissions caps and nuclear power.
As I mentioned in another recent review, I tend to do these as notes for myself as much as anything to note important facts, and I found a lot important here. In the unlikely event you've made it this far, thanks for reading but your time would be better spent with the book itself!
March 22, 2020
I was put off by the rather argumentative tone of the book.
I was expecting a fairly neutral technical discussion of the various approaches being pursued in geoengineering.
Instead I found a very pointed ideological agenda: Morton is deeply suspicious of the current consensus on fighting climate change and spends as much time bashing mainstream environmentalists as he does discussing the science of geoengineering.
But I did learn a lot, especially about the history of different ideas to engineer the climate.
One thing that stood out to me was the chapter on the Nitrogen cycle. He rightfully makes the point that human impact on the planetary Nitrogen cycle has been one of the most massive and impactful acts of geoengineering, but it is rarely recognized as such.
But in general basically evangelizes for the solar radiation management idea and harshly criticizes mainstream environmentalists who are skeptical of geoengineering. I think he makes a good point in criticizing the "appeal to nature" fallacy: The argument that humans shouldn't do any geoengineering simply because "it's unnatural."
But he didn't persuade me to his view that society needs to more broadly embrace geoengineering.
(1) Everything he discussed showed just how complicated "the earth-system" is. Any attempt at geoengineering is very likely to have a lot of unintended consequences (especially the "solar radiation management" that he so loves).
(2) The "moral hazard" problem is very real. There doesn't seem to be any solution to climate change in which we don't substantially reduce our carbon emissions. Trying to deny that reality seems more like wishful thinking than visionary bravery.
(3) The current geoengineering technologies seem far too expensive and it's not totally clear if any geoengineering technology will ever be both cheap enough and safe enough to deploy on the planetary scale that would be needed to make a significant impact.
Personally, I strongly support continued research into geoengineering. I would love it if these technologies continue to improve in terms of cost. So far the various greenhouse gas removal approaches seem to have the lowest risk of unintended consequences.
But unlike what Morton says, I think we DO know what we have to do:
(1) A global carbon tax, with a global market for carbon credits. Most economists agree that this is the most efficient solution.
(2) Continued heavy investment into renewable electricity generation. Many options like solar and wind are getting cheaper and are already competitive with fossil fuels.
(3) Continued investment in non-emitting transportation technologies such as electric vehicles. They are not cheap enough yet, but it seems probable they will be in 20 years.
(4) Continued heavy investment in batteries. They are too expensive now, but they are getting cheaper very quickly and will make a big difference for electric cars and for renewable electricity generation.
(5) Reducing meat consumption and general extreme consumerism. This is an individual choice and requires no new technologies.
The above steps will not solve the entire problem, but they are things we can do TODAY and if done widely and on a large enough scale will make a difference.
And if some magical geoengineering technology can help along that will just be icing on the cake!
I was expecting a fairly neutral technical discussion of the various approaches being pursued in geoengineering.
Instead I found a very pointed ideological agenda: Morton is deeply suspicious of the current consensus on fighting climate change and spends as much time bashing mainstream environmentalists as he does discussing the science of geoengineering.
But I did learn a lot, especially about the history of different ideas to engineer the climate.
One thing that stood out to me was the chapter on the Nitrogen cycle. He rightfully makes the point that human impact on the planetary Nitrogen cycle has been one of the most massive and impactful acts of geoengineering, but it is rarely recognized as such.
But in general basically evangelizes for the solar radiation management idea and harshly criticizes mainstream environmentalists who are skeptical of geoengineering. I think he makes a good point in criticizing the "appeal to nature" fallacy: The argument that humans shouldn't do any geoengineering simply because "it's unnatural."
But he didn't persuade me to his view that society needs to more broadly embrace geoengineering.
(1) Everything he discussed showed just how complicated "the earth-system" is. Any attempt at geoengineering is very likely to have a lot of unintended consequences (especially the "solar radiation management" that he so loves).
(2) The "moral hazard" problem is very real. There doesn't seem to be any solution to climate change in which we don't substantially reduce our carbon emissions. Trying to deny that reality seems more like wishful thinking than visionary bravery.
(3) The current geoengineering technologies seem far too expensive and it's not totally clear if any geoengineering technology will ever be both cheap enough and safe enough to deploy on the planetary scale that would be needed to make a significant impact.
Personally, I strongly support continued research into geoengineering. I would love it if these technologies continue to improve in terms of cost. So far the various greenhouse gas removal approaches seem to have the lowest risk of unintended consequences.
But unlike what Morton says, I think we DO know what we have to do:
(1) A global carbon tax, with a global market for carbon credits. Most economists agree that this is the most efficient solution.
(2) Continued heavy investment into renewable electricity generation. Many options like solar and wind are getting cheaper and are already competitive with fossil fuels.
(3) Continued investment in non-emitting transportation technologies such as electric vehicles. They are not cheap enough yet, but it seems probable they will be in 20 years.
(4) Continued heavy investment in batteries. They are too expensive now, but they are getting cheaper very quickly and will make a big difference for electric cars and for renewable electricity generation.
(5) Reducing meat consumption and general extreme consumerism. This is an individual choice and requires no new technologies.
The above steps will not solve the entire problem, but they are things we can do TODAY and if done widely and on a large enough scale will make a difference.
And if some magical geoengineering technology can help along that will just be icing on the cake!
April 1, 2022
Oh how I wanted this book to be great! But instead it's merely good. Still important and worth reading, but not earth-changing.\n\nThe book starts from a strong premise; if you believe global warming is an urgent threat and that current efforts at carbon emissions limitation won't be enough to stop it, what else can we do? You have to consider geoengineering as a means to counter global warming.\n\nThen the book launches into an excellent description of one of the most appealing geoengineering options; blocking out ~1% of sunlight by means of a veil of sulfurous gasses sprayed into the atmosphere by airplanes. It sounds crazy at first but the cost is very low, the effects are not scarily permanent, and it seems imminently doable without inventing new technology. It's worth talking about, if nothing else than because of the risk that some one country may decide to do it unilaterally.\n\nSo far so good with the book. But then it goes off the rails a bit. It provides a lot of interesting history of science context. Other ways that we have unintentionally engineered the climate, like all the effects of nitrogen fertilizers. Cold War discussions of various ways to affect global weather, including large scale cloud-seeding experiments, etc etc.\n\nBut the book never returns to what I hoped was its central purpose, a review of various geoengineering technologies and a discussion of their current plausbility. There's some of that but a lot more just speculation and philosophizing, much of which didn't seem insightful enough to be really exciting.\n\nStill it's an important topic and I'm grateful to the author for writing an approachable book. Also with excellent citations and bibliography, should the reader wish to study more.
January 4, 2019
I have two degrees in environmental science and this book made me rethink so much. Geoengineering was only ever casually mentioned in my classes, thrown in at the end of lectures as a quick "oh and here are some other ideas people have to solve this problem," so Morton's detailed introduction to various geoengineering topics was very welcome. At first it felt like Morton was coming off incredibly cynical, claiming that efforts to reduce carbon emissions were unrealistic, but his well-laid arguments made me a convert. I appreciated how Morton approached talking about people who were against these types of projects - he validated their feelings while showing how their claims were illogical; I feel like a lot of books I've been reading lately have not been able to successfully do that in their arguments and it was such a refreshing change. I need a "mature" nonfiction book like this to start my new year. I also appreciated Morton's descriptions and explanations of the science and chemistry involved. It was explained very thoroughly and clearly, without having to dumb it down for his audience. Bravo!
Couldn't truly give it 5 stars, though, because there were far too many times where I'd zone out in a paragraph and have to reread it again because sometimes it just could not hold my interest, and five stars are reserved for those books that you just can't put down, the kind of books that you don't zone out on.
Couldn't truly give it 5 stars, though, because there were far too many times where I'd zone out in a paragraph and have to reread it again because sometimes it just could not hold my interest, and five stars are reserved for those books that you just can't put down, the kind of books that you don't zone out on.
December 30, 2017
Despite the title, the author does a great job of discussing potential objections to geoengineering from various perspectives (technical, political, preservationist, moral-hazard, etc.). To do so, he delves into the roots of environmental movements and sentiments, as well as the growing awareness that human beings can change the planet (to include the ozone hole and nuclear winter). Since geoengineering isn't really a singular thing, there are many different ways to approach it, there are objections to the whole notion as well as specific arguments against each potential technology within the whole with their own range of advantages and disadvantages in the minds of various stakeholders. Some of these objections hinge on nothing more than the discomfort of knowing it is possible. Given the cacophony of discordant views (and much of it uninformed), I think the author's scenario at the end rings very true--that humanity will be stuck in analysis paralysis about this unless someone unilaterally takes action. I have been predicting as much for quite some time myself, especially since the burden of things to come will disproportionately fall on some.
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