Block’s Indicator of Sustainable Growth

by Ray Block

Bjorn Lomborg, who became a darling of the conservative set as a climate change sceptic, with his book Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist Guide to Global Warming has a different tune this year. He is now concerned about the urgent need for an international agreement on global warming.

Still fashionable, with his think tank Copenhagen Consensus Centre at Copenhagen Business School, Lomborg says he is no climate change sceptic.

But he and his buddies are very  impatient with the slow moving cap and trade system, where the rate and volume  of CO2 emissions reduction will be too small to make much of a difference.

So, the Lomborg focal point is a series of geo-engineering solutions to bring down carbon emissions more quickly.

Five economists from Lomborg’s academy, three of which are Nobel laureates chose the order of potential geo-engineering solutions. According to the Financial Times energy source blog (September 4 2009) they are in order of priority:

1. Marine cloud whitening research.  Involved are methods for increasing the reflectivity of clouds, such as spraying seawater into the air. Whtening clouds, where more of the sun’s rays are reflected back into space is highly recommended.

A far out scheme would involve 1900 unmanned wind sailing vessels, which would continually crisscross the ocean, sucking up seawater, and spraying it from the top of tall funnels. This is too far fetched for me.

2.Energy research and development, which is already underway, including the growth of renewable energy, energy efficiency and the smart grid.

3.Stratospheric aerosol insertion research,  involving shooting particles such as sulphates  into the highest reaches of the atmosphere. This might have unexpected adverse weather complications.

4. Carbon storage research  in carbon capture and storage. This is already underway, with the intention to have 20 large pilot schemes proving up clean coal by extracting CO2 and storing it underground in approved geological formations. Good but expensive.

5. Planning for climate adaptation.

6. Using artificial trees to capture carbon dioxide out of the air once it has been emitted. The concept involves giant forests of artificial trees, which as the theory goes will absorb infinitely more CO2 than existing stands of real forests trees. As in carbon capture and storage, the CO2 would be stored underground.

7. Technology transfers, where the richer countries would make available technology in renewable energy and energy efficiency to developing countries to reduce their levels of greenhouse gases. The international companies involved in renewable energy want the right themselves to use their technology in developing countries, rather than just handing over the technology.

8.Expand and protect the existing world forests, which are carbon sinks and need protection from farmers clearing the land and growing cash crops, such as palm oil.

9. More efficient cooking stoves in developing nations would result in smaller emissions of soot, also known as black carbon, which heats the earth.

10.Methane reduction portfolio, involving attempts to cut down the volume of methane from animals, (this would not be possible with cattle); rotting vegetation; and the loss of fixed nitrogen from soils by nitric oxide exhalation.

11. Cutting diesel vehicle emissions.

The Royal Society, a fellowship of 1,400 eminent scientists in their study of geo-engineering released in August 2009 stressed that Lomborg style  approaches would only have a limited impact. They are not a substitute for reductions in carbon emissions. 

However, they may be the price “we may have to pay for failure to act on climate change.”  11 top scientific professors, including three women led by John Shepherd of the National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton saw the three most potential carbon removal techniques as CO2 capture from ambient air; enhanced weathering which is seen as a prospective long term solution; land use and afforestation,  regeneration and growth of new trees, which is the most obvious solution of all.

And if  world rising temperatures would start to get out of control, the three techniques with the most potential would be stratospheric aerosols; space-based methods; and cloud albedo approaches including cloud ships.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers in England has also released a report on geo-engineering, laying out smaller scale measures to cool the earth.The three most favoured techniques recommended are artificial trees, algae coated buildings; and reflective buildings.

The algae coated buildings would use strips of algae, which are fitted to the outside of buildings. Algae naturally absorbs CO2 through photosynthesis. The algae would be periodically harvested from building surfaces and used as biofuels, in conjunction with CO2 storage.This could be a win-win situation. You get the benefits of lower temperatures, and in addition the algae biofuel has already been proved as a substitute for gasoline.

Geo-engineering is not a first order priority. It is a last resort. But as a last resort, after carbon reduction, there is sense in simple geo-engineering solutions.

But we can’t go overboard with wacky proposals. As Matt Yglesias puts it: geo-engineering should be done calmly. Not in a mood of grand ideas, or in panic mood.

1Marine Cloud