Aaaaaaaaaand Here We Go: Royal Society Floats First Draft Geoengineering Framework [View all]

[hatrack]

The Royal Society of London, the world's oldest scientific publisher, has unveiled a proposal to create the first serious framework for future geoengineering experiments. It's a sign that what are still considered drastic and risky measures to combat climate change, like artificially injecting tiny particles into the Earth's atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, are drifting further into the purview of mainstream science. The august scientific body has issued a call to create "an open and transparent review process that ensures such experiments have the necessary social license to operate."

Professor Steve Rayner, the co-director of the Oxford Geoengineering Programme, released what's been christened the 'Berlin Declaration', at the world's first major climate engineering conference currently underway in Germany. Rayner issued a call for amendments from the conference's attendees, which includes top climate scientists, policymakers, and geoengineering scholars.

The draft, in its current iteration, states that "New technologies have the potential to provide significant benefits to society, but they can also be controversial. Indeed the controversies surrounding new technologies have often led to a backlash against their development, as has been seen in the fields of genetically modified organisms and nuclear power." You can read the full draft here—it was distributed at the Climate Engineering Conference in Berlin, where I'll be reporting from all week.

It's specifically focused on a subset of geoengineering projects called solar radiation management, which also includes proposals to brighten clouds over the ocean and to send tiny mirrors into orbit to deflect sunlight. The grander geoengineering projects, which fall into this category, have inspired comparisons to schemes befitting Dr. Evil.

EDIT

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-royal-society-of-london-proposes-framework-for-geoengineering-climate-engineering