WHY DON'T YOU LEAVE THE PLAYING GOD to GOD and You go PLAY SOMETHING ELSE?
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Galatians 1:6
"For some it might sound like science-fiction, and for others a way to counteract what they regard as fake science. Yet many countries in the world have come to see “geoengineering,” also known as “climate engineering,” as a solution to the impact climate change may have on their nations.
Catholic layman Gary Gardner is a senior consultant to Green Faith, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that looks at sustainability from a multi-faith perspective.
Climate engineering, he argued, “is an emerging global ethical issue that requires the world’s attention soon.”
Speaking with Crux in Rome last week after attending a study session ahead of October’s Synod of Bishops on the Amazon region, Gardner said that geoengineering is a “complicated topic” not only technically but also ethically.
“The one clear ethical principle is that our highest priority should be emissions reductions,” Gardner said, and he’s “preaching” on the issue together with colleagues and over 1,000 scientists who work with the United Nations, because, he said, the world’s population needs to come together, and he sees the role of religion as key.
Crux: Can we actually engineer the climate?
Gardner: That’s exactly what’s being planned, but it’s complicated.....The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) came out with this report and it basically said that we need to cut emissions fast. This means, 45 percent by 2030.
Which can also be translated into “playing God with the climate” …
That’s why our last report was called, “Playing God?”
How science fiction is it? We’ll throw something into the sky and it’s going to rain?
It’s not quite that direct in terms of rain and snow. But there are two strategies they’re talking about.
There are more than a dozen ways to engineer the climate, but they’re divided into two buckets.
---One is taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, “Carbon Dioxide Removal.” We put too much of it out there, so we’re going to suck it out. A tree does that naturally. If we reforest parts of Brazil that have been de-forested, that would help. The problem is that, those green solutions are slow and they require huge areas. For the re-forestation to work, we need to find lands the size of India.
---Another way to engineer the climate is “Solar Radiation Management,” which implies blocking some of the rays of the sun, deflecting them back to space. The problem with this is that there are many risks we don’t know about quite yet. .... But if we continue to release carbon too and then, for some reason, we stopped throwing sulfur into the atmosphere, the temperature would shoot up very quickly depending on how much carbon had accumulated. You would have lots of ecological problems because animals and plants wouldn’t be able to adapt to that rapid change.
What can religions do?
The biggest thing they can do is insist we take emissions reduction seriously. That’s the only option that has no ecological cost, only benefits, and it’s the groundwork for sustainable development.
The reason I’m preaching about this is because one of the scientists at Harvard who wants to reflect away the solar rays is starting tests this year. He’s doing some preliminary tests to determine what he needs. It’s beginning.
Another of the disadvantages of reflecting away solar rays is that it’s successful at keeping the temperature down, but it changes the rainfall patterns, including in the Amazon for what the models tell us. But as Pope Francis says, the Amazon is one of the lungs of the world."
CRUX
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Galatians 1:6
"For some it might sound like science-fiction, and for others a way to counteract what they regard as fake science. Yet many countries in the world have come to see “geoengineering,” also known as “climate engineering,” as a solution to the impact climate change may have on their nations.
Catholic layman Gary Gardner is a senior consultant to Green Faith, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that looks at sustainability from a multi-faith perspective.
Climate engineering, he argued, “is an emerging global ethical issue that requires the world’s attention soon.”
Speaking with Crux in Rome last week after attending a study session ahead of October’s Synod of Bishops on the Amazon region, Gardner said that geoengineering is a “complicated topic” not only technically but also ethically.
“The one clear ethical principle is that our highest priority should be emissions reductions,” Gardner said, and he’s “preaching” on the issue together with colleagues and over 1,000 scientists who work with the United Nations, because, he said, the world’s population needs to come together, and he sees the role of religion as key.
Crux: Can we actually engineer the climate?
Gardner: That’s exactly what’s being planned, but it’s complicated.....The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) came out with this report and it basically said that we need to cut emissions fast. This means, 45 percent by 2030.
Which can also be translated into “playing God with the climate” …
That’s why our last report was called, “Playing God?”
How science fiction is it? We’ll throw something into the sky and it’s going to rain?
It’s not quite that direct in terms of rain and snow. But there are two strategies they’re talking about.
There are more than a dozen ways to engineer the climate, but they’re divided into two buckets.
---One is taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, “Carbon Dioxide Removal.” We put too much of it out there, so we’re going to suck it out. A tree does that naturally. If we reforest parts of Brazil that have been de-forested, that would help. The problem is that, those green solutions are slow and they require huge areas. For the re-forestation to work, we need to find lands the size of India.
---Another way to engineer the climate is “Solar Radiation Management,” which implies blocking some of the rays of the sun, deflecting them back to space. The problem with this is that there are many risks we don’t know about quite yet. .... But if we continue to release carbon too and then, for some reason, we stopped throwing sulfur into the atmosphere, the temperature would shoot up very quickly depending on how much carbon had accumulated. You would have lots of ecological problems because animals and plants wouldn’t be able to adapt to that rapid change.
What can religions do?
The biggest thing they can do is insist we take emissions reduction seriously. That’s the only option that has no ecological cost, only benefits, and it’s the groundwork for sustainable development.
The reason I’m preaching about this is because one of the scientists at Harvard who wants to reflect away the solar rays is starting tests this year. He’s doing some preliminary tests to determine what he needs. It’s beginning.
Another of the disadvantages of reflecting away solar rays is that it’s successful at keeping the temperature down, but it changes the rainfall patterns, including in the Amazon for what the models tell us. But as Pope Francis says, the Amazon is one of the lungs of the world."
CRUX
