U.S. Should Pursue Controversial Geoengineering Research, Federal Scientists Say for First Time
The U.S. government office that oversees federally funded climate research has recommended studies into two areas of geoengineering research, marking the first time scientists in the executive branch have formally called for studies in the controversial field. The move, part of a climate science planning report sent today to Congress, will likely further normalize discussion of deliberate tinkering with the atmosphere to cool the planet, and of directly collecting carbon from the sky, both topics once verboten in the climate science community. Yet the new endorsement of geoengineering research comes amid deep uncertainty about the direction that climate research will take under the new administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Geoengineering is discussed in just two paragraphs of the 119-page plan, which aims to set out a research roadmap through 2021. The planned research program would provide “insight into the science needed to understand potential pathways for climate intervention or geoengineering and the possible consequences of any such measures, both intended and unintended,” the report states. One near-term step researchers could take, it says, “is defining the scale and scope of observations and modeling capabilities necessary to detect the signal of any future field experiments” of geoengineering techniques, and ways “to evaluate their consequences. Such research would also define the smallest scale of intervention experiments that would yield meaningful scientific understanding.”
The report also states that “[w]hile climate intervention cannot substitute for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the changes in climate that occur, some types of deliberative climate intervention may someday be one of a portfolio of tools used in managing climate change.”
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