uncontrolled

Geoengineering – deliberate interventions to alter the climate and curb climate change – is a controversial topic, to say the least. Once practically considered taboo even to discuss, there in increasing interest in at least exploring various ideas about how to halt or reverse climate change through direct actions that impact global temperatures.

Putting aside the very real concerns about the risks and dangers associated with such action, there is also the issue that climate interventions may create dramatically different effects across the globe, benefitting some areas and adversely affecting others.

A recent study by scientists at Rutgers University tackled this very issue. Published in the journal Nature Food, it described the results of computer models simulating the impacts of stratospheric aerosol intervention (SAI), which is spraying sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, where it would partially shield the Earth from the Sun, lowering temperatures.

The study looked at 11 different SAI scenarios and found that none of them benefitted everyone. Uncontrolled global warming favors crop production in cold, high-latitude areas such as Canada, Russia, Scandinavia, and our northern border states. Moderate amounts of SAI favors food production in the mid-latitudes (such as in the US and Europe.) Large amounts of intervention favors agricultural production in the tropics.

Even if geoengineering might not have dire consequences – which is by no means certain – it would create winners and losers. Nations may have different ideas of what constitutes an optimal global temperature. So, who gets to decide where to set the global thermostat? The prospects for conflict loom large.

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Climate Intervention Technologies May Create Winners and Losers in World Food Supply

Photo, posted November 18, 2021, courtesy of Conall via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

People in the Northeast have been dealing with unhealthy air quality in recent times because of smoke from hundreds of wildfires in Canada. Canada has experienced a much higher than average incidence of blazes this year with nearly 500 fires burning uncontrolled at times.

It turns out that states far away from Canada aren’t necessarily free from the impact of the fires. Early in October, smoke from a wildfire burning in Quebec made its way south all the way down to Florida and created unhealthy air quality and reduced visibility across much of the state. Smoke from the same fire had created hazy air in Boston, New York City, and parts of Connecticut before heading south.

It took a rather unusual set of atmospheric conditions to make this happen. The smoke drifted from Canada into the western Atlantic. From there, it got trapped behind a cold front and was then pushed south along the east coast until it finally moved inland across Florida.

Wildfires produce a variety of particles and gases from the burning of vegetation such as organic carbon, black carbon, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and hazardous air pollutants. The mixture of particles and gases in wildfire smoke is associated with respiratory symptoms like shortness of breath and reduced lung function, as well as dangerous cardiovascular effects.

Smoke from increasingly frequent and increasingly large fires has started to undo decades of gains in air quality brought about by air pollution policies. According to researchers, wildfires in the United States in recent years have undone about 25% of past progress in cleaning up air pollution in states from coast to coast.

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Wildfire Smoke From Canada Creates Unhealthy Air Quality in Florida

Photo, posted June 8, 2023, courtesy of Anthony Quintano via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Geoengineering could create winners and losers

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Wildfires And Air Quality | Earth Wise

People in the Northeast have been dealing with unhealthy air quality in recent times because of smoke from hundreds of wildfires in Canada. Canada has experienced a much higher than average incidence of blazes this year with nearly 500 fires burning uncontrolled at times.

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