In defence of dimming the Sun

Geoengineering ought to be a neat solution to what environmentalists see as the climate crisis. Large-scale projects that manipulate the environment could, if successful, slow down or even reverse the effects of climate change. This would allow humans to continue producing and developing, without fear of global warming or other adverse effects.

This might sound like science fiction, but experiments in geoengineering are already underway. Last week, the news broke that scientists in the UK are planning to ‘dim the Sun’, as part of a £50million government-funded scheme. What this really means is either injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, or brightening clouds to reflect more sunlight, as a counter to the greenhouse effect. (The aim is not to block out the Earth’s life source, as some more excitable corners of the internet seem to imagine.)

Similarly, earlier this month, we learned of a £3million scheme, based in Weymouth and funded by Whitehall, to strip seawater of the carbon it absorbs from the atmosphere. This is just one of 15 pilot projects in the UK that aim to develop technologies to capture and store greenhouse gases. Labour energy minister Kerry McCarthy described the schemes as ‘essential’ to helping Britain decarbonise.

Interestingly, this support for geoengineering marks a sharp turn in official attitudes. Typically, it has been roundly dismissed and denounced by the green lobby. As Guardian environment editor Damian Carrington wrote last week, there is a strong fear that ‘starting to develop geoengineering could reduce the drive to tackle the root cause of the climate emergency – the burning of fossil fuels’. Climate zealots Michael Mann and Raymond Pierrehumbert went further, attacking solar geoengineering as ‘extremely dangerous’ and an attempt to ‘fix’ the climate system ‘by breaking a very different part of it’.

In other words, geoengineering would essentially allow humanity to carry on as usual – burning fossil fuels, traveling by car and by air, consuming animal products and generally leaving our footprint on the Earth. It would make redundant the need for the various miserable lifestyle adjustments that the Net Zero crowd are so desperately trying to impose on us.

In fact, geoengineering is probably the biggest footprint that humans could possibly leave on the planet, literally shaping our environment to better suit our needs. As such, suggestions of geoengineering have generally been accompanied by predictions of doom from environmentalists. As far back as 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said of such projects that ‘little is known about effectiveness, costs or potential side effects of the options’. Later that year, the Observer published a sceptical assessment of geoengineering technologies. In London, a Greenpeace demonstration demanded a ban on using phytoplankton to sequester carbon in the oceans.

So why the turnaround from the Labour government today? Above all, it seems to be a tacit admission that Net Zero isn’t working. It is becoming increasingly obvious that drastic reductions in emissions are impossible without bankrupting the UK and making life significantly worse for millions of people. Leading energy analyst Daniel Yergin now says that a transition to renewables is unachievable and is politically unsustainable. Growing worries about energy security and growing opposition from populists like Reform UK and Donald Trump have thrown much of the Net Zero project into doubt. Some trade-union chiefs have also started to push back against Net Zero, citing the threat it poses to working-class jobs. Altogether, Labour’s hell-for-leather plans to abandon fossil fuels, potentially ridding the UK of heavy industry, are looking increasingly shaky.

Yet we should never underestimate the tenacity of the green blob – and their fellow geoengineering sceptics on the conspiratorial right. In the UK, a petition against geoengineering has surpassed 100,000 signatures, meaning that parliament must now debate it. The petition demands that Labour ‘make all forms of “geoengineering” affecting the environment illegal’.

That’s typically nonsensical. ‘All forms’ of geoengineering will, by their nature, affect the environment – that’s what geoengineering means. But the petition doubles down: ‘We do not want any use of technologies to intervene in the Earth’s natural systems.’ By this logic, we can wave goodbye to flood defences, farming, airplanes, cars and much besides – for all these technologies interfere with nature to mankind’s benefit. Of course, many eco-activists are opposed to these technologies, too.

We should, of course, debate the merits and risks of any geoengineering project. But deliberately altering the climate in this way is infinitely preferable to Net Zero. The latter means austerity and energy rationing for British households, plus the end of the line for UK engineering and industry. However, low-cost trials of different geoengineering solutions, rationally regulated, could bring results. Even if they don’t, they could prove scientifically worthwhile all the same. Experimentation is what drives human progress, after all.

Many people believe that technology now advances so fast that society and the law cannot keep up. But with geoengineering, the reverse would appear to be the case. These technologies have been bad-mouthed for years, yet very few have ever been tried out in practice, and even fewer at scale.

It is far too early to write off geoengineering. We do not need to impoverish ourselves to cope with a changing climate. Human ingenuity is by far our best bet.

James Woudhuysen is visiting professor of forecasting and innovation at London South Bank University. He tweets at @jameswoudhuysen