Welcome to Planet Days, a green newsletter for a greenwashed Planet. Thank you to Sam Liptak for editing this post.
If you’re new to Planet Days, every other week I try to send out a three-minute read on what it means to go green — ranging from topics on air-conditioners and lawns to electric vehicles and trains.
🤧 I planned to send this newsletter earlier this week but caught COVID, which forced me to delay my research and writing in favor of DayQuil and Netflix. Nonetheless, the topic is just as relevant today.
Last Monday, the Planet saw its hottest day ever recorded. Then on Tuesday, it was even hotter. On Wednesday, even hotter. On Thursday, you guessed it, even hotter.
Not only are these the four hottest days on record but many scientists believe that they’re the hottest days in the last 125,000 years. If ever there were desperate times that called for desperate measures, this is it.
The United States and European Union seem to agree.
Just before the July 4 holiday, the U.S. and E.U. separately released reports that open the doors to solar radiation management — a fancy term for blocking or reflecting sunlight to slow global warming.
Such a solution, which sprays aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight or increase cloud cover, does not come without risks: Solar radiation management can damage ecosystems, change weather, cause droughts, and even speed up climate change.
Unsurprisingly, the technique is highly controversial. As if already anticipating backlash, both the U.S. and E.U. were careful to say that they are exploring these solutions, not executing them.
The White House noted that its report “focuses on improving understanding of the potential impacts of [solar radiation management], rather than on technologies needed for deployment.”
And the E.U. said it would “assess comprehensively the risks and uncertainties” of such a solution, which will inform an eventual framework to govern solar radiation management.
But both reports also emphasize that doing nothing is also extremely risky. Climate change is already wreaking havoc on ecosystems, destabilizing food systems and economies, and causing mass migrations. As the Planet warms, more crops will fail, homes will be destroyed, and wars and famine will follow.
This risk v. reward calculus reflects other statements in favor of researching solar radiation management, including an open letter penned by 60 top scientists earlier this year:
“While reducing emissions is crucial, no level of reduction undertaken now can reverse the warming effect of past and present greenhouse gas emissions… we support a rigorous, rapid scientific assessment of the feasibility and impacts of [solar radiation management] approaches specifically because such knowledge is a critical component of making effective and ethical decisions about [solar radiation management] implementation.”
The efforts to understand solar radiation management then are an admittance that we don’t know all we can about this technology (and how it can help or hurt us).
The U.S. and E.U. are relying on the benefits of research and good science, even if such efforts reveal that the costs outweigh the benefits. Because if we’re even considering breaking the metaphorical glass in case of emergency, it’s critical we know what’s behind the glass.
Though our knee-jerk reaction to something as potentially dangerous as literally blocking sunlight is to shut it down, as some scientists and countries have tried to do, such a reaction puts us even worse off, leaving us without a solution (and we need every one we can get) that may offer tangible benefits.
That we’re even considering solar radiation management is the unfortunate reality of the era of man-made climate change. If the 20th century was about our control of nature — through engineering feats like dams and irrigation canals — then the 21st century is about our control of the control of nature, as Elizabeth Kolbert wrote in her 2021 book Under a White Sky.
And though we can lament this fact — this reengineering of ecology that has ushered in a new era, defined by human folly: the Anthropocene — we cannot let it cripple us.
Geoengineering, like solar radiation management, is not a last-ditch effort to restore a bygone era; it’s a lifeboat to prevent us from drowning in the mess we’ve made. And when you’re drowning, you don’t get to pick the size and shape of what saves you.
Of course, we may still avoid capsizing in the first place.
It's insane that we are trying all these weird, crazy, dangerous solutions to the climate crisis instead of doing the things that will help because we're just so in love with capitalism. lo! Great post. :)