I think most people have had their doubts, but now we have a group of scientists weighing in on the matter. Turns out that trying to geoengineer our way out of the climate crisis could potentially have some rather damaging consequences, especially when it comes to the amount of rainfall we receive.
Reuters reports that after studying a series of computer simulations, a team of scientists from Germany, Norway, France and the United Kingdom are now warning that large-scale geoengineering projects could reduce global rainfall by between 5 and 20 percent. The studies are based around higher CO2 levels we could be seeing by the end of the century and those seemingly small percentages could have drastic implications, especially for drought-stricken continents already struggling with a lack of rain.
The study showed that if these type of projects were implemented, global average rainfall would fall by 5 percent while North America and Europe would see a drop by about 15 percent. The region near the Amazon rainforest could see a decrease in excess of 20 percent.
“Climate engineering cannot be seen as a substitute for a policy pathway of mitigating climate change through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,” it was stated in the study.
Geoengineering, also known as climate engineering, is the idea that we humans can combat climate change by making changes to our environment through scientific and engineering methods. Ideas ranging from the possible (carbon sequestration) to the seemingly far-out (space-based sun shades) are being discussed, but no large-scale projects have been started up as of now.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has deemed most geoengineering ideas as unproven and prohibitively expensive.
The general population isn’t normally too keen on messing with Mother Nature, but that won’t stop some researchers from searching for geoengineered answers to global warming. After all, opposition hasn’t stopped the rapid expansion and availability of genetically-modified food in our grocery stores, so we shouldn’t expect anything different when it comes to the exploration of scientific means to alter the climate. Let’s just hope that whatever they come up with as a possible solution doesn’t have the opposite effect and make our climate situation even more dire.
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