Within The Ministry for the Future, there are both reactive and proactive plans. Robinson demonstrates reactive plans that target certain global warming effects as a call to arms to be more proactive in preventing climate change. The reactive solutions have potentially negative consequences, which are shown in dying the Artic Ocean yellow, spraying sulfur dioxide in the air in India, and the cost of pumping water from underneath glaciers. These are considered “experiment[s] in managing the Earth system” (Robinson 524) but are truly experiments in managing humans’ effect on the Earth system. The people who work in Antarctica pumping water from underneath the glaciers in “Project Slowdown” are likely successful in their actions of reducing the speed that glaciers are melting and therefore rising water levels but are reactive in the fact that they do not address the root problem of rising temperatures.
First, it is important to understand what is being done
here. The basis of the idea comes from scientists using drillholes to check
subglacial lakes (81). Therefore, one could assume it would be possible to make
these same holes and extract the water from these subglacial lakes. The weight
of the glaciers brings the water up about 90%, and then it is pumped to move it
the last 10% and spread it over the glacier to refreeze. But the scientists
have trouble at first. A “shift in the ice…cut off our hole” (121) in the
Thwaites Glacier. Then the water froze too fast, and Jordi got stuck (258-259).
There was “not enough energy, not enough pipe, not enough land” (260) to be
successful. But they overcame all these obstacles to be successful in what they
were trying to accomplish.
It
is also important to understand what is causing the glaciers to melt. And the fact
of the matter is that it is rising temperatures caused by humans. And this solution
does not address that at all, it just combats one effect of this. Scientists
will have to continuously be working on pumping these subglacial lakes for as
long as temperatures are elevated. Furthermore, this is not the only effect of
rising temperatures. There are various events that occur throughout the book
that are all consequences of rising temperatures. And there are various
reactive solutions to these consequences.
The
ultimate goal they are trying to solve is rising sea levels. “All the ice
melting around the world was now raising sea level at a rate of some 5
millimeters a year” (180), as opposed to 3 millimeters previously. This puts
many communities at risk of flooding. “Project Slowdown has been active for a
decade” (471), and there was a glacier that had bottomed out, but it will take
a few years to know for sure if they were successful. People will also have to
be working there for the foreseeable future, maybe even forever (473-474). But
they were successful in getting the glacier to bedrock and slowing down its movement
and melting, with over 10 billion dollars spent on the project. So successful
in its goal? Likely. But worth the cost? Depends on the alternative. But
Robinson demonstrates that proactive solutions would be much better.
I love your point that these Antarctic glacial experiments are as much geoengineering experiments as they are social engineering experiments! How feasible would it really be to organize such an effort requiring ongoing international collaboration?
ReplyDeleteOne of the larger barriers to embarking on such a project is organizing the appreciation of capital necessary to begin work. How do you get funding for a project without immediate benefit? Following reading a section about difficulty with the prototype, I was pained to see the conclusion of the chapter, "if at first you don't succeed -- You'll never get funded again" (122). As someone studying science, I was very troubled to read this. No experimental method works on the first try, and failure is a necessary part of the development cycle. This quote reflects the fiscally-minded nature of everything, even science! What is painful is that this is a reasonable and plausible model for scientific funding for new, radical projects. While the science behind the Antarctic geoengineering project is interesting, these chapters better act as psychological insights into international interest (or lack thereof) in such a project.
Ultimately, the project succeeds, but only with substantial investment and collaboration between multiple countries' navies. It is implied that this project was only facilitated by the end of naval warfare... that these naval ships didn't have anything else to do anyway... This raises the question: Will humans in the future understand the importance of funding experimental geoengineering projects of utmost importance whatever the cost?