Scientists Desperately Studying How to Hack Climate

These projects are out of science fiction.

Climate Boogaloo

We are at the throw-the-kitchen-sink stage of our climate change crisis as researchers, backed by big money, are increasingly researching drastic, large-scale geoengineering methods that were once considered taboo because they involve tinkering with natural processes and their consequences are largely unknown, The Wall Street Journal reports.

One project that is kicking off this summer tackles the problem of oceanic acidity. The more carbon dioxide our seas absorb, the more acidic our ocean becomes, which is really bad for marine life.

In response, a $10 million project at Massachusetts' Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) involves researchers basically dumping thousands of gallons of an alkaline liquid solution — sodium hydroxide — into the sea near Martha’s Vineyard.

"When you have heartburn, you eat a Tums that dissolves and makes the liquid in your stomach less acidic," WHOI associate scientist and project leader Adam Subhas told the WSJ. "By analogy, we’re adding this alkaline material to seawater, and it is letting the ocean take up more CO2 without provoking more ocean acidification. Everything that we’re seeing so far is that it is environmentally safe."

End of the Line

Another project, which has raised $15 million, is in Israel and involves shooting tiny particles into the atmosphere so they could reflect solar radiation, the newspaper reports. Stardust Solutions, the startup behind this project, plans to perform outdoor tests of this process sometime this year.

A third project in Australia is also meant to deflect solar radiation — this time in the Great Barrier Reef area, and by shooting ocean water into the air to brighten cloud cover and hence increase shade.

Scientists and decision makers in public and private sectors are seriously contemplating these geoegineering projects because current methods to arrest climate change and global warming haven't worked.

With forest fires wreaking havoc everywhere from California to Europe, and our planet experiencing its hottest year ever last year, the writing is clearly on the wall.

In fact, the pace has accelerated, according to scientists interviewed by The Washington Post in December.

"There won’t be any argument [by] late next spring, we’ll be way off the trend line," Columbia University climate scientists James E. Hansen told WaPo.

And that's why these projects are attracting big dollars and serious attention, despite serious questions about how they might impact the environment.

More on climate change: Scientists Say the Atlantic Current Appears to Be on the Verge of Collapse