Back in 2010, before I started working professionally in a climate-adjacent field, I went to a talk about geoengineering. I came away with a lot to think about. I wrote in my journal at the time, referring to the idea of using sulphur dioxide in the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight,
“Beyond the obvious risks of unintended consequences with trying something like this on a global scale – and such risks are large – there’s a question in my mind of what nation, or group of nations, could possibly claim to have the moral or legal authority to actually do it.”
Since then there has been a lot of serious discussion of geoengineering of various sorts, including this, and I’m not here to pronounce on whether or not it’s a good idea – those far more expert than me have well publicised views. But… at the time I wrote the above, I had assumed that it would be a nation, or a group of nations… now it appears to be a bunch of techbros doing it on their own initiative.
That’s hugely problematic, for a lot of reasons, most of which are explained in the linked article. But there’s something they haven’t picked up on in the article, which relates to the way it’s funded. The company who is doing this is saying “Each gram of SO2 we release will counteract the effect of n kg of CO2 this year.” And on the back of this, they are selling carbon credits for those n kg of CO2. That’s their “business model” for what some would say is simply pollution.
But carbon offsets are normally a one-off payment. I release a kg of CO2, and I buy an offset for it. The SO2 release is something that will need to happen every year!* So something doesn’t line up…
For those who haven’t seen it, this problem of treating the symptom (heat), and not the cause (greenhouse gas), was wonderfully satirised by Futurama back in 2002:
*(maybe not every year. That’s aribtrary. But the dwell time of SO2 in the atmopshere is less than that of CO2, so it’ll need renewing)