Opposition to geo-engineering climate experiment grows

Researchers in the United Kingdom have delayed conducting a geo-engineering experiment designed for climate cooling that was due to be launched in early October in the county of Norfolk.

An Ottawa-based group known as ETC Group spearheaded a global campaign opposed to the exercise, which would have seen scientists pump water a kilometre up into the atmosphere by a hose.

The plan is for the piping system to eventually be at an altitude of 20 kilometres supported by a hydrogen balloon, with the idea that it could emit sulphur dioxide to cool the earth.

Called the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE), the aerosol project is being organized by the U.K. Government and involves four universities, research councils and government departments, as well as Marshall Aerospace.  It is inspired partly by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, whose volcanic emissions of sulphate cooled the earth by 0.5 degrees Celsius for 18 months.

ETC, which stands for Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration, nicknamed the geoengineering project a “Trojan Horse.” ETC said that the tests are irresponsible, and “could have devastating consequences, including large changes in weather patterns such as deadly droughts.”

Scientific American magazine reported that a Rutgers University meteorologist shared these concerns. Alan Robock fears that sulphate clouds might weaken the Asian and African summer monsoons. He called for more modelling studies before such an experiment was done.

The European Parliament also has concerns and at a meeting in September it adopted a resolution expressing “opposition to proposals for large scale geo-engineering.”

ETC describes itself as a group that supports socially responsible technologies. It works primarily at the global, continental and sub-continental levels.

Click here for information about the SPICE experiment:

Click here  for ETC campaign letter.