The Big Question

Is geo-engineering really what our planet needs to help combat the climate crisis?

When the word geo-engineering was first applied to our small coastal community – we didn’t know what it meant, let alone have an opinion on it.

But in the years since, many of us have become sceptical about the grand claims made for its potential. And worried about its impact – not just on ecosystems but on the whole way we think about our planet and the climate crisis.

Should we bet on geo-engineering?

What would our world look like right now if geo-engineering wasn’t on the table? Would policy makers be pushing for faster emissions reductions and legislating for systemic change. Would big companies be making radical cuts to their emissions? Would the fossil fuel industry be challenged more about their endless quest for expansion?

Does dangling these geo-engineering techno fixes mean that government and business don’t take the need for rapid emissions reductions seriously? It gives the perfect excuse for inaction, because geo-engineering will simply mop up all the problems we don’t grapple with now. This seems like a dangerous bet. None of these technologies have a track record and when deployed at scale they could have catastrophic consequences.

Meanwhile money and energy and attention pour into geo-engineering projects and there are no proper regulations. Are we reaching the point where there is so much momentum behind these technologies that there will be no way of stopping or even regulating it?

Testing

In St.Ives Bay, we believed that the small test carried out by Planetary Technologies was about many things – including setting a precedent, increasing momentum for scaling up and proving to big business that this technology was worth investing in. The community weren’t given any indication that there was an alternative to continued testing and scaling up in St.Ives Bay.

Testing on a small scale does not necessarily reflect what will happen if done on a much larger scale, and testing on a large scale is de facto geo-engineering.

Scale

To have any meaningful impact on the climate crisis – geoengineering would have to be carried out at enormous scale. Planetary Technologies robustly defended their aim of removing 1GT of C02 per year by 2035 This would mean billions of tonnes of alkalinity being added to the ocean at thousands of sites around the world. In other geoengineering technologies – for example in direct carbon capture – the amount of electricity required –is massive. Even if using renewable energy, this would mean diverting vast amounts of renewable capacity to geo engineering. Other geo-engineering techniques require huge amounts of land and increasingly ocean. How will these incredibly large material / energy / transport / biomass demands fit in with a world needing to grow food, create energy and preserve ecosystems?

Finance

We were amazed to find out that Planetary Technologies had sold carbon credits to Shopify on the basis of the experiment they secretly conducted in St.Ives Bay. It seemed bizarre that a Canadian Company could choose a piece of Cornwall thousands of miles away and monetise it without anyone in the local community being aware of this. Other sources of finance for Planetary Technologies include Elon Musk – taking millions of dollars from a tech billionaire intent on trampling over democratic norms and climate treaties is not a great look. Equally seeking investment from massive companies who are emitting ever more carbon seems unethical. The Carbon Credit market which backs geo-engineering is rife with problems Governments are also increasingly financing geo-engineering schemes – often by backing private companies.