Up until recently geoengineering was broadly understood to be just another dangerous set of schemes devised by the mad scientists. Five years ago articles like Scientific American's 'The Hidden Dangers of Geoengineering' which focused on the uncertainty and unintended consequences of the schemes were commonplace. How times have changed. Now everywhere the in mass media, including Scientific American, articles are asking 'Has the Time Come to Consider Geoengineering?'. Apparently capitalism's spin doctors have succeeded in stalling and resisting opposition long enough that global warming has become an accepted reality and now the spinners can move on to the next phase - geoengineering the growth of investors' portfolios.
The geoengineering schemes being developed by the mad scientist's may be nonsensical from an environmental and scientific perspective, but they fit neatly into extractive capitalism's agenda. Fuck every living thing, only short term profits count in the 'market'. In reality, geoengineering MIGHT slow global warming a bit in the short term but it won't do a damned thing to stop all the other insults the biosphere is suffering from extractive capitalism.
This past week two stories about the rapid melting of Arctic sea ice have set the the climate science dervishes whirling. One is about the lake forming at top of the world as the North Pole melts, the other being the hyperbolic, and already broadly discredited, claims by the fear-mongering Arctic Emergency Methane Group that a catastrophic methane burp that would cost the world $60trillion was 'likely' to occur in the next decade and that the only solution is a geoengineering scheme called Solar Radiation Management [formerly chemtrails]. Unfortunately, despite what are almost certainly well motivated intentions by AEMG's scientists, sensationalized stories that try to use fear to fuel the fires of action only harm the cause of real communication and give ammunition to global warming's opponents.
Probably the most surprising website, chocked full of informative and in-depth links, that i found while researching geoengineering this last couple weeks is the one produced by the Tea Party Command Center. Strange eh.
IMO geoengineering is crap disguised as a solution. IMO, conservation, and only conservation, can solve the widespread environmental degradation being caused by consumer's demands and extractive capitalism's blind ambition to fulfill them. As Jorge Majfud says, "Trying to reduce environmental pollution without reducing consumerism is like combating drug trafficking without reducing the drug addiction." It's important to notice that Majfud refers to the broad issue of environmental pollution, not just to global warming.
