Welcome to Bjørn Lomborg Month at Cambridge University Press! We’re excited to launch this interactive website, where you can find out all about one of the most controversial figures in the climate change debate today (and save 20% on your orders!).
Above all, though, we to hear what YOU think about the climate change debate!
Each week, we’ll be hosting either discussions on our blog or Twitter contests, and all participants are automatically entered to win in our weekly book giveaway. For the last week, our grand prize winner will win not only a copy of Smart Solutions to Climate Change, but also 2 movie tickets to see Cool It, the new highly anticipated documentary coming out this fall.**
Discuss: Climate Engineering
One of the key short term strategies that Bjørn Lomborg advocates is investing in climate engineering, which essentially works by either removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or reflecting solar energy back out into space in order to lower global temperatures. Some possibilities include:
- Pumping sulphur into the atmosphere, thus mimicking the cooling effect of volcanic emissions
- Building “synthetic trees” with special absorbents that scrub carbon dioxide from moving air
- Launching space mirrors into orbit around the planet
However, as Lomborg himself says, studies have not yet proven that such methods work, and some science organizations have officially come out against climate engineering.
What do you think—are these solutions the future of the battle against climate change? Do you agree that climate engineering is both an environmental and cost-effective solution, or do you think it will only worsen global warming? Post your response by midnight EST on October 11 for a chance to win a copy of the book!
Each week, we’ll be hosting either discussions on our blog or Twitter contests, and all participants are automatically entered to win in our weekly book giveaway. For the last week, our grand prize winner will win not only a copy of Smart Solutions to Climate Change, but also 2 movie tickets to see Cool It, the new highly anticipated documentary coming out this fall. **
**Movie tickets will be available in New York, Los Angeles, and other select cities to be announced.
There is little need for the power plant sector to worry about implementing carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).
If the current energy policy priorities are retained, then even with ambitious climate protection targets, this expensive and untried technology is unnecessary.
A study, “Comparison of Renewable Energy Technologies with Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS): An Update” by the Wuppertal Institute, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment supports this view.
Three points:
• the technology is not expected to become available on a large scale before 2025
• if renewable energies and combined heat and power are expanded further and energy productivity is enhanced, there is likely to be only a limited demand for CCS power plants
• new life cycle assessments for CCS in the power plant sector indicate that the greenhouse gas emissions from one kwh of electricity generated by first-generation CCS power plants could only be reduced by 68 to 87%.
A major reason is that electricity generating costs of renewable energies are approaching those of CCS power plants.
Therefore, by 2020, several renewable technologies may well be in a position to offer electricity at a cheaper rate than CCS power plants.
CCS *could* constitute an important climate protection technology in large coal-consuming countries such as China, India and the USA, however, in order to meet their climate protection targets. IF – big if – it can be shown to work cost-effectively.
In response to:
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However, as Lomborg himself says, studies have not yet proven that [climate engineering] methods work, and some science organizations have officially come out against climate engineering.
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Studies haven’t even proven that man’s activities are a relevant factor in climate change.
And, seriously, “synthetic trees with special absorbents that scrub CO2 from the air.?” What the hell kind of grade school biology class to you have over there? Use REAL TREES. Ever heard of the Calvin cycle? You must have, Calvin won a Nobel Prize in 1961 and did post-doctoral work at down at Manchester. One of the only things we can PROVE regarding climate change is that man HAS significantly increased the amount of carbon incorporated into plant matter per year since we started burning fossil fuels, liberating subterranean carbon.
In general to answer the question, I do think it’s a dangerous idea to tinker with climate using fancy space toys, but for economic reasons. Governments are sucking money out of the private economy that could be spent on clean water, curing cancer, or beer and bikinis.
Compare climate engineering strategies to our American Apache helicopter crews gunning down journalists in Iraq because they have “AK-47s” that our soldiers knew damn well were video cameras. They just must’ve had a boring day and what’s the point of multi-million dollar war equipment if you can’t shoot people or blow some shit up?
At the very least, though probably foolish, the money would be better spent on deterring a killer asteroid.