Wednesday, January 15. 2014Does humanity’s tightening grip on the fate of nature portend new sources of global conflict? | #climate #geoengineering
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Illustration by McKibillo
More than a decade ago, Paul Crutzen, who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research on the destruction of stratospheric ozone, popularized the term “Anthropocene” for Earth’s current geologic state. One of the more radical extensions of his idea—that human activity now dominates the planet’s forests, oceans, freshwater networks, and ecosystems—is the controversial concept of geoengineering, deliberately tinkering with the climate to counteract global warming. The logic is straightforward: if humans control the fate of natural systems, shouldn’t we use our technology to help save them from the risks of climate change, given that there’s little hope of cutting emissions enough to stop the warming trend? In recent years a number of scientists—including Crutzen himself in 2006—have called for preliminary research into geoengineering techniques such as using sulfur particles to reflect some of the sun’s light back into space. With the publication of A Case for Climate Engineering, David Keith, a Harvard physicist and energy policy expert, goes one step further. He lays out arguments—albeit hedged with caveats—for actually deploying geoengineering. He says that releasing sun-blocking aerosol particles in the stratosphere (see “A Cheap and Easy Plan to Stop Global Warming,” March/April 2013) “is doable in the narrow technocratic sense.” Indeed, Keith is steadfastly confident about the technical details. He says a program to cool the planet with sulfate aerosols—solar geoengineering—could probably begin by 2020, using a small fleet of planes flying regular aerosol-spraying missions at high altitudes. Since sunlight drives precipitation, could reducing it lead to droughts? Not if geoengineering was used sparingly, he concludes. Australian ethicist Clive Hamilton calls the book “chilling” in its technocratic confidence. But Keith and Hamilton do agree on one thing: solar geoengineering could be a major geopolitical issue in the 21st century, akin to nuclear weapons during the 20th—and the politics could, if anything, be even trickier and less predictable. The reason is that compared with acquiring nuclear weapons, the technology is relatively easy to deploy. “Almost any nation could afford to alter the Earth’s climate,” Keith writes. That fact, he says, “may accelerate the shifting balance of global power, raising security concerns that could, in the worst case, lead to war.”
Thing reviewed
The potential sources of conflict are myriad. Who will control Earth’s thermostat? What if one country blames geoengineering for famine-inducing droughts or devastating hurricanes? No treaties ban climate engineering explicitly. And it’s not clear how such a treaty would operate. Keith professes ambivalence about whether humans are truly able to wield such powerful technology wisely. Yet he feels that the more information scientists uncover about the risks of geoengineering, the lower the chances the technology will be used recklessly. Though his book leaves unanswered many of the questions that arise over how to govern geoengineering, a policy paper that he published in Science last year goes further to address them: he and a coauthor proposed government authority over research and a moratorium on large-scale geoengineering but said there should be no treaties regulating small-scale experiments. Hamilton says this approach would lead nations on a path toward the conflict that he thinks would inevitably surround geoengineering. Allowing lightly regulated small experiments, he suggests, could undermine the urgency of political efforts toward cutting emissions. This, in turn, increases the possibility that geoengineering will be used, since failing to restrain emissions will leave temperatures rising. Hamilton accuses Keith of seeking a “naïve … cocoon of scientific neutrality” and says researchers cannot “absolve themselves of responsibility for how their schemes might be used or misused in the future.” That may be true, but Keith deserves credit for directing attention to ideas he knows are dangerous. Accepting the concept of the Anthropocene means accepting that humans have the responsibility to find technological fixes for disasters they have created. But little progress has been made toward a process for rationally supervising such activity on a global scale. We need a more open discussion about a seemingly outlandish but real geopolitical risk: war over climate engineering.
Personal comment:
"Who will control Earth’s thermostat?" Oh well, following yesterday's news, I would suggest Google, they have "smart" technology ...
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Culture & society, Science & technology, Territory
at
16:39
Defined tags for this entry: artificial reality, climate, culture & society, engineering, geography, science & technology, territory, weather
Wednesday, September 18. 2013Lightning Farm
Via BLDGBLOG -----
[Image: Triggered lightning technology at the University of Florida's Lightning Research Group].
[Images: From a project by Farah Aliza Badaruddin at the Bartlett School of Architecture].
[Image: Triggered lightning technology at the University of Florida Lightning Research Group].
[Images: From a project by Farah Aliza Badaruddin at the Bartlett School of Architecture].
[Image: Triggered lightning technology at the University of Florida's Lightning Research Group].
[Image: Aerial collage view of the lightning farm, by Farah Aliza Badaruddin at the Bartlett School of Architecture].
[Image: Collage of the lightning farm, by Farah Aliza Badaruddin at the Bartlett School of Architecture].
[Image: Farah Aliza Badaruddin].
[Images: From a project by Farah Aliza Badaruddin at the Bartlett School of Architecture].
[Images: From a project by Farah Aliza Badaruddin at the Bartlett School of Architecture].
[Images: From a project by Farah Aliza Badaruddin at the Bartlett School of Architecture].
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Architecture, Territory
at
14:23
Defined tags for this entry: architecture, artificial reality, ecology, energy, engineering, fiction, geography, research, speculation, territory
Friday, January 18. 2013The Cloud Machine – A Personalized Weather Modification Prototype-----
de Greg J. Smith
![]() More about it on Creative Applications. Related Links:
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Art
at
11:23
Defined tags for this entry: air, art, artists, engineering, geography, molecules, speculation, weather
Tuesday, December 04. 2012The Coldscape
Via Cabinet ----- By Nicola Twilley
More than three-quarters of the food consumed in the United States today is processed, packaged, shipped, stored, and sold under artificial refrigeration. The shiny, humming stainless steel box in your kitchen is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak—a tiny fragment of the vast global network of temperature-controlled storage and distribution warehouses cumulatively capable of hosting uncounted billions of cubic feet of chilled flesh, fish, or fruit. Add to that an equally vast and immeasurable volume of thermally controlled space in the form of shipping containers, wine cellars, floating fish factories, international seed banks, meat-aging lockers, and livestock semen storage, and it becomes clear that the evolving architecture of coldspace is as ubiquitous as it is varied, as essential as it is overlooked.
(...)
More about it and about a "perpetual winter" on Cabinet's website.
Related Links:
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Architecture, Culture & society
at
09:55
Defined tags for this entry: architecture, artificial reality, conditioning, culture & society, engineering, food, geography, globalization, goods, weather
Monday, November 05. 2012Geoengineering Could Be Essential to Reducing the Risk of Climate Change
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Using technology to cool the planet may be the only way to deal with the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, argues scientist David Keith. By Kevin Bullis David Keith spoke at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech conference this week.
Geoengineering—using technology to purposefully change the climate—is the only option for reducing the risk of climate change from greenhouse-gas emissions in the next few decades, says David Keith, a professor of public policy and applied physics at Harvard University. And he says that if it’s done in moderation, it could be much safer than some experts have argued. In fact, says Keith, effective methods of geoengineering are so cheap and easy that just about any country could do it—for better or worse. Keith, speaking this week at MIT Technology Review’s annual EmTech conference, says it is already too late to avoid climate changes by reducing carbon emissions alone. The carbon dioxide that’s been released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels is already likely to cause significant harm, such as raising temperatures enough to hurt crop yields in many places. “If you want to, say, really stop the loss of Arctic sea ice or stop heat-stress crop losses over the next few decades, geoengineering is pretty much the only thing you can do,” he says (see “Why Climate Scientists Support Geoengineering Research”). Keith’s preferred method of geoengineering is to shade the earth by injecting sulfate particles into the upper atmosphere, imitating a similar process that happens with large volcanic eruptions, which are known to temporarily cool the planet. The technique could be effective even if far less sulfate were injected than is currently emitted by fossil-fuel power plants. A million tons per year injected into the stratosphere would be enough—whereas 50 million tons are injected into the lower part of the atmosphere by coal plants, he says. (In the lower atmosphere, the sulfates are less effective at cooling because they stay airborne for shorter periods.)
One of the main objections to geoengineering is that the measures that might be taken to cool the planet won’t exactly offset the effects of carbon dioxide, so they could actually make things much worse—for example, by altering patterns of precipitation. Keith says recent climate models suggest that injecting sulfate particles into the upper reaches of the atmosphere might not affect precipitation nearly as much as others have warned. “I propose that you start in about 2020, and you start very, very gradually increasing your amount of sulfate engineering so that you cut about in half the rate of warming,” he says. “Not eliminate it, but cut it about in half. Cutting it in half is a big benefit.” One of the benefits could be increased crop production. Though some critics have worried that geoengineering would alter monsoon patterns that are key to agriculture in India, Keith says moderate geoengineering could actually boost crop productivity there by 20 percent, in part by reducing temperatures. Keith and some of his colleagues recently hired engineers to estimate how much one approach to sulfate injection might work, and how much it might cost. It could be done at first with existing airplanes—certain business jets can fly high enough to inject the particles into the upper atmosphere. Eventually we would need new planes that can fly higher. All in all, once the procedure is scaled up it would cost about a billion dollars a year and require about 100 aircraft. That’s cheap enough for most countries to pull off on their own. The fact that it’s easy isn’t necessarily a good thing, Keith says. There’s the potential that if one country does it, another might blame that country—rightly or wrongly—for ensuing bad weather (see “The Geoengineering Gambit”). And there are also real concerns about the impact sulfates might have on the atmosphere (see Geoengineering May Be Necessary, Despite Its Perils). It’s known that sulfates can be involved in reactions that deplete the ozone layer. As the earth warms, water vapor levels are increasing, which could exacerbate the problem. Keith is proposing a test to discover quantitatively just what the effect of the injections could be. He would introduce small clouds of sulfate and water vapor into the stratosphere using balloons, and then carefully measure the reactions that take place. And Keith acknowledges a concern many have had about geoengineering: that using it to offset problems from climate change will reduce the incentive to tackle the greenhouse-gas emissions at the root of the problem. Even if geoengineering is employed, reducing emissions will still be important. Sulfate injection does nothing to address the ocean acidification associated with increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And if emissions continue to grow, ever-increasing amounts of sulfate will be needed. But Keith thinks the potential benefits might be worth the dangers. “We don’t know enough yet to start,” he says. “But the current balance of evidence is that doing this really would reduce risks. And for that reason, we’ve got to take it seriously. It really would be reckless not to look at something that could reduce risk like this could.”
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Science & technology, Sustainability
at
08:40
Defined tags for this entry: artificial reality, climate, energy, engineering, food, geography, globalization, science & technology, sustainability
Wednesday, December 07. 2011The RoundsVia BLDGBLOG ----- (...) 5) "Imagine a lush forest: silent but for the chirping of birds flying through a dense canopy overhead, and damp, aromatic earth underfoot. Now picture a mountain of incinerated trash, 12 million tons of what was once a toxic heap of rotting fish and vegetables, old clothes, broken furniture, diapers and all manner of discarded items." This describes a new project by architect Tadao Ando called the Sea Forest. The Sea Forest "will transform 88 hectares of reclaimed land, a 30-meter deep mound of alternating layers of landfill, into a dense forest of nearly half a million trees" in Tokyo Bay. Ando adds that it is also an experiment in climate-engineering, or weather control as the future of urban design: "not only will [the forest] become a refreshing retreat for stressed out city workers, it will also create a cool ocean breeze to sweep through the capital and cool its sweaty denizens in summer."
a) The archipelago has run out of space: mostly mountainous, the surfaces fit for settlement are subdivided in microscopic, centuries old patchworks of ownership Architecture thus becomes the literal geopolitical extension of the state, constructing new territory—such as floating forests and artificial islands—over which to govern. It's a kind of proactive gerrymandering, we might say: not redesigning the district map, but constructing new districts. In any case, I recommend the book. (...)
Related Links:
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Architecture
at
16:30
Defined tags for this entry: architects, architecture, books, engineering, geography, history, theory
Saturday, December 03. 2011Solar energyPersonal comment: This is a quite beautiful object. Architectured weather and light effects around the convergent point of the solar beams. 800 °C around the top! Thursday, November 17. 2011Should Scientists Seed the Sky With Chemicals?Via GOOD ----- by Sarah Laskow
Photo via (cc) Flickr user dcysurfer/Dave Young
Personal comment:
While I agree with the fears of Sarah Laskow about geo-engineering the planet, I want also to add this comment: we've already geo-engineered the planet for decades! Even so it was not an intended one (or was it?), 7 billion humans with their food production systems, architectures and travel infrastructures, energy production, factories, etc. are a very strong geo-engineering force, especially in the developed countries! It is no more a natural Earth we are living in, but a man transformed one (the famous "anthropocene" described by some), in its very essence (up to the quality of the air we are breathing).
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Science & technology, Sustainability, Territory
at
10:27
Defined tags for this entry: conditioning, engineering, geography, science & technology, sustainability, territory
Wednesday, November 16. 2011Project Ice Shield
The project aims to artificially create "naleds"—ultra-thick slabs of ice that occur naturally in far northern climes when rivers or springs push through cracks in the surface to seep outwards during the day and then add an extra layer of ice during the night. Unlike regular ice formation on lakes—which only gets to a metre in thickness before it insulates the water below—naleds continue expanding for as long as there is enough water pressure to penetrate the surface. Many are more than seven metres thick, which means they melt much later than regular ice. Fascinatingly, naleds have already been used as foundations for infrastructural projects elsewhere; in North Korea, for instance, the Guardian reports, the military has utilized naleds "to build river crossings for tanks during the winter and Russia has used them as drilling platforms." The ideal site has the following characteristics: deep, narrow, slow flow in a single straight channel with gradual approaches to the ice; no tributary streams, creeks or lakes immediately upstream; and it is located near an existing road network. The site should also be free of warm springs and sand bars and not subject to major snow drifting. Being downstream of riffles/rapids may be conducive to supercooling and frazil ice formation that might accelerate ic e formation and growth at the bridge site. (...) Once natural ice cover has progressed across the channel thick enough to bear the weight of personnel and light equipment, existing snow cover is removed to accelerate ice growth at the bottom of the ice sheet. Variation exists in whether snow is removed or just compacted. Snow removal is recommended on upstream and downstream sides of the road for a distance of 23-30 meters (75-100 feet) as well as on the road itself. Subsequent to ice growth in response to snow removal, surface flooding is recommended to build up ice thickness on the road surface. (...) Lateral barriers of snow, logs or boards are used to contain floodwater on the road surface. Water should be applied by layering, allowing full freezing of previous water applications before the next. Conflicting recommendations exist as to whether brush or logs should be incorporated into the ice. One study did document the increase in ice strength after incorporating geo-grid material during the ice buildup process. A regular regime of ice drilling and monitoring of ice thickness is recommended. If you want something a little more hi-tech, on the other hand, the U.S. Army Cold Regions Test Center has slowly been amassing insight into the construction of ice roads and ice bridges.
The engineers built field-expedient water tanks, berms of snow and crushed ice, to keep the water in designated areas for freezing. They move about 70,000 gallons of water per day using a gas-powered water pump and water lines. Once the bridge is capable of holding the weight, they will use 5,000 gallon water trucks to help speed up the process by delivering water faster than the pump. The frames and techniques used for building with frozen water, then, are very similar to those used when dealing with concrete; in either case, it is the architecture of hardened liquids.
Thursday, September 08. 2011Giant pipe and balloon to pump water into the sky in climate experimentVia The Guardian via WMMNA -----
Field test by British academics marks first step towards recreating an artificial volcano that would inject particles into the stratosphere and cool the planet
It sounds barmy, audacious or sci-fi: a tethered balloon the size of Wembley stadium suspended 20km above Earth, linked to the ground by a giant garden hose pumping hundreds of tonnes of minute chemical particles a day into the thin stratospheric air to reflect sunlight and cool the planet. But a team of British academics will next month formally announce the first step towards creating an artificial volcano by going ahead with the world's first major "geo-engineering" field-test in the next few months. The ultimate aim is to mimic the cooling effect that volcanoes have when they inject particles into the stratosphere that bounce some of the Sun's energy back into space, so preventing it from warming the Earth and mitigating the effects of man-made climate change. (...) more about it on The Guardian.
and also, in the same article:
Hacking the planet - potential geo-engineering solutions Ocean nourishment Billions of iron filings are deposited in the ocean to stimulate a phytoplankton bloom. The aim is to enhance biological productivity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Many experiments have been conducted, including fertilisation of 900 square kilometers (350 sq miles) of the Atlantic. Results so far are disappointing. Space mirrors Giant "mirrors", made of wire mesh, could be sent into in orbit to deflect sunlight back into space. But the scale needed, the expense and the potential unintended consequences are so great that it is widely considered unrealistic. In the same league as the idea to mine the moon to create a shielding cloud of dust. Cloud whitening The idea is to increase the water content in low clouds by spraying sea water at them. This makes them reflect more sunlight. It would be pretty harmless, and cheap but would have to be done on an immense scale to have any global effect. Backed by Bill Gates. Artificial trees Proposed by climate scientist Wallace Broecker who imagines 60m artificial "trees" dotted around the world, "scrubbing" the air by capturing CO2 in a filter and then storing it underground. The trees could remove more carbon dioxide than an equivalent-sized real tree. Albedo changes Painting roofs and roads white, covering deserts in reflective plastic sheeting, dropping pale-coloured litter into the ocean and genetically engineering crops to be paler have all been proposed to reflect sunlight back into space. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) Carbon dioxide is collected from coal or other fossil fuel power plants and is then pumped underground. Works in principle but it is expensive and increases the fuel needs of a coal-fired plant by 25%-40%. More than 40 plants have been built with many others planned.
Personal comment: Read also the scientific article on MIT Technology Review.
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Science & technology, Territory
at
13:17
Defined tags for this entry: air, engineering, environment, geography, science & technology, territory, weather
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fabric | rblgThis blog is the survey website of fabric | ch - studio for architecture, interaction and research. We curate and reblog articles, researches, writings, exhibitions and projects that we notice and find interesting during our everyday practice and readings. Most articles concern the intertwined fields of architecture, territory, art, interaction design, thinking and science. From time to time, we also publish documentation about our own work and research, immersed among these related resources and inspirations. This website is used by fabric | ch as archive, references and resources. It is shared with all those interested in the same topics as we are, in the hope that they will also find valuable references and content in it.
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