Could a rogue nation 'hijack' climate change?

Could a rogue nation 'hijack' climate change? New report warns of the dangerWarning comes from World Economic Forum's Global Risks report

• Such geoengineering could have terrifying unintended consequences
  
  

By
Damien Gayle

PUBLISHED: 16:57, 10 January 2013 UPDATED: 16:57, 10 January 2013

A rogue nation could use climate
change as an excuse to carry out potentially disastrous experiments with
geoengineering, experts warn.
A
country threatened by rising sea levels or even a wealthy individual
could use their resources to tamper with the atmosphere in a bid to cool
the planet, with uncertain consequences.
The
nightmare possibility, which could set off a disastrous chain reaction
in the Earth's climate systems, is one possible 'X Factor' considered in
a report on global risks by the World Economic Forum.




An aircraft leaving a
vapour trail: A new report warns that a rogue nation or individual
could use climate change as an excuse to unilaterally send planes into
the stratosphere to release dust to block light from the Sun
'The
global climate could, in effect, be hijacked by a rogue country or even
a wealthy individual, with unpredictable costs to agriculture,
infrastructure and global stability,' the report warns.
Scientists
worried about climate change are exploring ways in which they could
artificial manipulate the Earth's climate in an attempt to mitigate some
of its worst effects.
Many
different processes have been mooted for such geoengineering, but the
most common suggestion is for 'solar radiation management' in which
particles of sulphur could be injected into the stratosphere to block
solar energy.
In the past,
volcanic eruptions have achieved the same effect, and scientists have
claimed such solar management would take effect quickly and be cheap to
implement.

Recent studies have suggested
that a small fleet of aircraft could inject a million tons of sulphur
compounds into the stratosphere - enough to offset half the global
warming recorded to date - for just $1-2billion a year.
'In
theory, the technology would be tantamount to a planetary thermostat,
giving humans direct control over global temperature,' said the WEF
report.
'The direct impact of dimming the sun would be felt within weeks to months.'
But the potential side effects of such
large-scale interference with our planet's climate systems are unknown -
and could be disastrous.
'The
problem is that incoming solar radiation drives the entire climate
system, so reducing sunlight would fundamentally alter the way energy
and water moves around the planet,' the report said.
'Almost
any change in weather and climate patterns is likely to create winners
and losers, but determining causation and quantifying impacts on any
given region or country would be a massive challenge.'




Melting: These images from Nasa show reveal the
full extent of Arctic ice shrinkage, showing a new record low compared
to the average minimum extent over the past 30 years (in yellow)

The warning came in a special
section of the WEF's Global Risks report published on Tuesday which
focuses on 'X Factors' - emerging concerns of possible future importance
and with unknown consequences.
In
collaboration with the respected scientific journal Nature, the
report's writers present five possible high risk scenarios which could
sneak up on an unsuspecting world with little warning.
In addition to the threat posed by rogue geoengineers, other X Factors identified in the report include:

• The risk that climate change could trigger a runaway chain reaction that would make the Earth inhospitable to life;
  
• Ethical
  dilemmas related to the emergence of cognitive enhancing drugs and
  devices that could make some people artficially smarter;
  
• Medical
  advances that could lead to a future society burdened by a 'mass of
  arthritic, demented and, above all, expensive, elderly';
  
• The discovery of alien life and the huge implications that could have on our societies.
  

Last
month a scientist claimed that not only could we use geoengineering to
refreeze the Arctic, but that 'any significant nation' could find the
resources to carry out the operation.

IT'S ALREADY HAPPENING...


The
possibility that a nation or individual could unilaterally tamper with
the globe's climate may seem like the plot of a Hollywood spy thriller
but, as the World Economic Forum report notes, it has already happened.

In
July last year, California businessman Russ George attempted to capture
carbon from the air by dumping 100 tons of iron sulphate into the
Pacific Ocean to spawn an artificial plankton bloom.

He
succeeded in producing a bloom as large as 10,000 sq/km which he hoped
would absorb carbon dioxide from the air then sink to the sea bed,
allowing him to cash in on lucrative carbon credits.
However,
his actions may have been in violation of two international agreements.
Lab tests have shown that such plankton blooms can pump out
neurotoxins, disrupt food chains and alter ecosystems in unexpected
ways.
Worse still, they can even expedite ocean acidification, which would actually accelerate global warming.

David Keith, professor of applied
physics at Harvard University, is lead author on papers published in
Nature Climate Change and Environmental Research Letters which speculate
as to how we could restore the polar ice.
'The
really hard questions here aren’t mostly technical. They’re questions
about what kind of planet we want and who we are,' he told Canadian
newspaper The Windsor Star.
Professor
Keith used climate models to suggest that injecting reflective
particles into the atmosphere could reduce the amount of sunlight
reaching the Earth, engineering a regional effect that could bring ice
back to the Arctic.
His
paper claims that by reducing the penetration of sunlight by just 0.5
per cent is could be possible to restore the sea-ice around the North
Pole back to pre-industrial era levels.
'Decisions involving (solar radiation management) do not need to be reduced to a single "global thermostat",' the paper says.
His
second paper suggests the whole operation could be accomplished with
just a few modified Gulfstream jets, costing somewhere in the region of
$8billion a year.
However,
while he believes action must be taken to tackle the amount of pollution
spewed into the Earth's atmosphere, he doesn't yet advocate the kind of
action his papers suggest.
Open-air
and large-scale geoengineering of the kind Professor Keith has
suggested has been ruled out by the United Nations Convention on
Biological Diversity.
Such
drastic geoengineering could have disastrous unintended effects but
could be a viable response to a 'climate emergency' such as the sudden
collapse of ice sheets or a killing drought, Professor Keith suggested.


Source:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2260282/Could-rogue-nation-hijack-climate-change-New-report-warns-danger.html