An Engineering Experiment to Cool the Earth

from The New York Times I'm Katherine. benold this is the. [Music]. daily after failing for decades to cut. carbon emissions enough to stop the. planet from dangerously overheating. scientists are increasingly looking at. backup measures some that would fight. the warming by intervening in the. climate itself today my colleague. Christopher Fel on the efforts to. engineer are a way out of the climate.

[Music]. [Applause]. [Music]. crisis it's Friday April. [Music]. 5th so Chris you've been covering. climate change for a while but recently. you've been focused on a very special. project tell us about this yeah two. things have been happening in climate.

change recently that are really. important number one records have been. falling at alarming rates last year was. again the hottest year on record much. the world surpassed this sort of. important threshold of 1.5 degrees C. above pre-industrial levels so the world. is getting warmer at an alarming rate at. the same time emissions aren't falling. right the sort of the message of the. last generation has been we need need to.

cut emissions really to almost zero by. the end of the century and in fact the. reverse is happening emissions are. continuing to rise at the same time the. number and characteristics of weather. disasters have become really alarming so. the effects of that warming have become. really clear and it's clear that the. world is struggling to adapt to those. effects so the other thing that's. happening is sort of a high level.

is there's more research and more. consideration of okay what if we can't. cut emissions fast enough what if we're. going to have this really severe degree. of warming can we do something else. maybe temporarily to sort of buffer. those effects and that's led to this. question of What kinds of changes can we. make deliberately to the atmosphere to. the environment that will maybe produce. some sort of artificial Cooling in the. meantime.

so earlier this week I was able to watch. as scientists did the first outdoor. tests in the US on a technology that. will aim to do just that it's called. Marine Cloud. brightening so what is this idea of. brightening the clouds where did it. originally come from so everyone I. talked to pointed back to one really. important moment in 1990 when a British.

physicist named John leam was taking a. hike in Wales with his young son and. they were looking out at the clouds over. the Irish sea and as Dr leam later told. it his son asked him hey why are clouds. bright and Dam said well because they. reflect Sun back in the sky and his son. said so they're like soggy mirrors and. Dr leam went on to write a letter in.

1990 that was published in the journal. Nature saying you know what if we can. deliberately manipulate these clouds. maybe we can make them more reflective. and actually counteract the effects of. global warming that was sort of the. Inception point for this idea and it led. to Decades of research culminating in. this week's test so the idea is if you. can make clouds more reflective you can.

reflect more of the sun's heat back into. space so it won't get trapped in the. Earth's atmosphere in the first place. exactly that's what they're trying to. do that's a very simple and at the same. time a very powerful idea I I love. actually that they were hiking in Wales. um that's where I am right now and we. sure have a lot of clouds here rain. clouds but tell me more about what you. saw at the testing side so this Tuesday.

a little after 7 in the morning I pulled. up in a parking lot on a dock at the. edge of alam I'm standing at the gang. plank to the USS Hornet a decommissioned. aircraft carrier in San Francisco Bay. I'm here for the first test in the US of. a machine that was designed to try to. brighten clouds a way of.

maybe temporarily cooling the Earth and. I made my way up one of the massive gang. planks and came in to find a cluster of. some of the top atmospheric scientists. in the world chis Sarah how do you. do how are you looking really excited. and they accompanied me out to the. flight deck here we are of this aircraft.

carrier oh man pretty epic it is pretty. great which was a bit like a party. they'd set up you know a little table on. the side with some coffee and some. sandwiches and people were chatting and. saying hi to each other and I asked them. why they were excited so I know a. thousandth of what you know and I still. find this exciting are you guys like. walk me through is this like a big day. for you or just like one more test no. this is a big day for me and they said.

this is actually a huge day in their. research just looking at it going yeah. this is culmination of years of work. right yeah not wow and tell me about. what exactly they were so excited about. and what they were doing on the ship. yeah the thing everyone was excited. about was this machine set up at the far. end of the flight deck of this aircraft. carrier it's blue it's shiny it looks a. bit like a snowmaker or maybe like a. spot lights this machine is a sprayer.

what it does is it sprays really really. really small aerosol particles in this. case smashed up sea salt a long distance. at just the right size and just the. right volume because in theory at some. point you could use this machine to. change the size and number of the. droplets in the clouds you can make them. brighter conceptually it's possible the. question is.

technologically can we do it yeah the. particles are coming out and super. concentrated there right so whatever's. coming out of that Circle there is. basically going to be huge by the time. it you know gets to the cloud okay so. and so the goal with this test was they. spent years building this sprayer that. can use really high pressured air to. sort of Smash salt particles into super. small bits about 1700 the size of a. human hair wow what they didn't know.

until this week and they're trying to. find out right now once you spray it do. those aerosols that are so finely tuned. stay that size in theory they should. what they don't know is things like wind. and humidity and temperature could. potentially cause them to coagulate to. regroup which would throw the whole. thing off if the aerosols you're. shooting into clouds are too big you can. backfire the whole purpose you can wreck. what you're trying to do because you. make clouds less reflective not more.

reflective so the whole goal this. experiment is okay can they make the. spray just so so that even in outdoor. conditions the aerosols that are so. finally sized Remain the size you want. them to be and that's what they're. trying to find out and you watched the. actual test of this what did you see. what happened those instruments are. emitting a slate. hum so operating the sprayer is not. straightforward.

and they are filling the tanks with the. salt water that be used to produce the. Mist there was somebody crouched on the. control deck the panel of instruments. the at the side of the sprayer so I I. went over and tried to sit next to him. and watch him as he turned a series of. knobs in careful sequence okay yeah. everybody we're going to we're going to. run some air so the M we need 2 minutes. here just to have power on the and after.

a series of tests to make sure the. valves were clear okay your protection. please finally the moment. came and he got an all clear over his. walki talkie and he turned on the. water water on copy over and the. [Applause]. air since the sound of the compressor.

it pushes pressurized air through the. sprayer it's making a sort of a dull. throbbing sensation you can feel it a. little bit through the deck of the. ship we all had ear protectors and even. with the ear protectors it was really. loud and then you could almost feel this. spray bursting out of this machine and. watch it travel really hundreds of feet. down the deck of the aircraft. carrier okay water off and off good.

job awesome guys you're done thank you. excellent first test is. done my first signal that things had. gone well was I looked up when the spray. machine was turned off and saw some. scientists high-fiving down the. deck what' you. think it's. beautiful is it what you thought it. would be it's. better and.

I'm optimistic that it will tell us a. lot. about what these things. do this is made me really. optimistic and the idea is to. dos and everyone seemed really excited. that this thing they' worked on for. years was finally happening in this. really important outdoor test okay so it. sounds like this test was a success. right yeah they stress that they need a. lot of time to really go over the.

results they'll be doing this test again. and again in different weather. conditions but the initial reaction. seemed positive they seemed to think. that the numbers they were getting were. what they were hoping to see and so now. the goal is can they maintain the right. siiz aerosols even in different. conditions down the deck of this. aircraft carrier that'll give them some. confidence that if they decided one day. to try and do this on the open ocean to. actually brighten clouds they'd have the. ability to do.

so Chris if all of this works how and. when do these researchers anticipate. that this would actually be. used well here's a great example in the. month of February a version of this. testing was also happening in Australia. off the coast of Australia where. researchers were testing whether Marine. Cloud brightening could be used to cool. the ocean just a little bit around the. Great Barrier Reef really high ocean. temperatures are causing bleaching of. that Coral Reef the idea was could they.

use Marine Cloud brightening to save. some of those reefs from dying and. that's probably a good idea of the sort. of Fairly localized situation where you. could in theory if you do it right have. a fairly quick degree of cooling that. could maybe try to avert or mitigate. something pretty acute like a heat wave. or or a stretch of warm weather that. would kill Coral but the science is. probably too knew at this point to sort.

of talk about the right. situations to use it those conversations. are all down the road as researchers. look at these and other ideas for what. they could do if things get really. [Music]. bad we'll be right. [Music]. back.

[Music]. so Chris when I think about solutions to. climate change you know it usually. involves these very hard things we need. to do like you know change the way we. live the way we drive what we eat we. need these International treaties we. need carbon taxes regulation there's. lots of hard stuff and we haven't gotten. that far but here you've just told me.

about this technology that if it ends up. working could actually help cool the. planet without anyone needing to do any. of these hard things it sounds. great it does sound great now we got to. say first of all that whenever anybody. working on this stuff talks about it the. first thing they say is this is not an. alternative to reducing emissions this. is looking for ways to buy time as we. try to cut emissions there's no way to.

really deal with climate change that. doesn't entail burning less fossil fuel. and quickly but yes in addition to. brightening clouds there's other ways of. try to bounce more sunlight back into. space and other ideas my colleague David. gallis wrote the first piece in our. series looking the idea of removing. carbon dioxide directly from the air. sort of reversing our past emissions. other ideas include finding ways to suck.

up more of the CO2 in the oceans there. even ideas that my colleague car Buckley. covered of could we build a sort of a. giant parasol way out in space that. would reflect or scatter more of the. sunlight and prevent some of that. sunlight from even reaching the Earth in. the first place wow so there's there's a. huge number of ideas that until very. recently seemed just so bizarre and or.

so expensive and or so dangerous that. they were hardly worth pursuing. seriously and what's changed really. quickly in the last really year or two. is all of a sudden those ideas have. switched from being too wild to spend. much time on to being so important. because situation is so dire that we. can't not look at them and that's the. pivot that my team has has been trying. to cover and what characterizes all.

these initiatives is that rather than. reducing our own emissions we're now. trying to intervene in the climate in a. proactive way engineering the climate in. a way yes and you hear the phrase. geoengineering to describe these ideas. sort of collectively and what people who. research this will stress is we're. already geoengineering right for more. than a century we've been geoengineering. in the sense of. putting climate changing pollution into.

the atmosphere that's caused the planet. to change by trapping more heat in the. atmosphere so the question is do we want. to deliberately geoengineer in a way. that will ease that pressure rather than. just making it worse of course there's. some controversy attached to this and. there there are some pretty valid. concerns about what the consequences. might be if we keep on pursuing these.

ideas and why are they controversial. well the first concern that you hear is. this idea of moral hazard that if people. come to think that there are ways of. addressing climate change that don't. require them to change their lifestyle. or sacrifice conveniences or change the. kinds of cars they drive or how their. their powers generated that they will. lose interest in those tough changes and. the sort of momentum such as it is.

towards cutting emissions will fade even. more but we don't know yet whether. politicians or governments or companies. or just people will sort of misuse these. ideas to try to Sherk the harder work of. reducing the amount of greenhouse gases. we emit another really important. argument you hear is okay side effects. do we really know what would happen if. we try these things Marine Cloud.

brightening is one of those situations. where there are known unknowns and. unknown unknowns as they say the known. unknowns are well what would happen to. things like ocean circulation what would. happen to precipitation what would. happen to the effect on the amount of. energy reaching the ocean what would. happen to the Fisheries industry we. don't really know and research are. trying to find out what those effects. might be then there are the unknown.

unknowns if you start deliberately. changing the cloud system well what else. might happen that we haven't anticipated. do you move the location of where. rainfall happens do you perhaps upset. the monsoon cycle in India do you change. the ability to grow food in parts of the. world so if you do this at a bigger. scale the consequences of those. potential side effects get more and more. severe and I talked to environmentalists. who said that's a real concern you just.

can't model those risks and you sort of. to a degree by pursuing this have to. accept that that risk is real and almost. roll the dice and I guess much like. climate change where you have a group of. countries that is most responsible for. CO2 emissions that have caused the. global warming and then a whole other. group of countries that are probably. suffering the worst consequences even. though they haven't contributed to those. emissions nearly as much you might see a. situation where this kind of.

interference with the climate at the. initiative of some countries presumably. the wealthy countries that have that. technology would then have unintended. consequences in countries that have no. control over this so that's tricky. that's right and that takes us to sort. of a third category of concerns which is. okay let's assume that things are bad. enough that collectively societies won't. take those risks of those side effects. well then who chooses like who decides. when we get that point is there even a.

mechanism that would allow you to get. sort of informed consent from everybody. who'd be affected and if these would. affect everybody it's hard to imagine. how you would build a governance. mechanism that would allow you to say. before we push the button are we sure. everybody's okay with this the only. counter to all of these concerns is. compared to what right and this is the. point that researchers make okay this is. dangerous okay it presents challenges. but compared to what their point is. don't compare it to a situation where.

everything's fine compare it to a. situation where we're actually in where. the trajectory of global warming is so. serious and isn't looking like it'll get. better anytime soon well compared to. those risks how do these risks compare. right and the question is would you. rather have a world of basically. uncontrolled warming and we have an idea. of what that brings wildfires and. drought and sea level rise and Stor. forms and diseases is that better than.

some of these more perhaps controlled. risks associated with deliberately. tinkering with the environment so it's. almost like pick your poison what sort. of threats do you want to embrace and. that's the overwhelming dilemma that we. face with this. technology in a way what it makes me. think is that these crazy initiatives. that we've been hearing about from you. are yes they're Testament to our failure. in a way to combat CL climate change so. far because you know there's such a last.

resort really such a sort of an act of. desperation but at the same time it. seems like this urgency has actually. Unleashed a lot of energy and money to. tackle the problem yeah and and there's. good news in this the good news is the. research we're talking about. demonstrates the really amazing capacity. of scientists to come up with new ideas. develop new technologies test them. quickly and at least build some options. right so like there's any if there's any.

raise of Hope around climate change it's. that Humanity's capacity to innovate and. find new ideas is almost endless so the. question is not are we sort of pursuing. the wrong research ideas and question is. can we find good ideas fast enough to. revert the really serious consequences. of climate change that we're already. facing Chris I just remember that.

scientist we heard in the tape from your. visit and she was so excited and she. said that she was really. optimistic I wonder how are you. feeling I I think the frustration that. you'll hear among climate reporters when. I'm in this group is. that most people seem not to appreciate. the severity of the situation that we're. in there seems to be a view that we're.

dealing with this you know people are. buying electric cars and we're getting. more solar power and wind power and. things are going the right way and this. will be okay things are not going the. right way not only are we on the wrong. trajectory in terms of missions we are. so far away from being on the right. trajectory for Missions that it's hard. to imagine us cutting emissions globally. at a rate anywhere near fast enough to. avoid. almost unbearable consequences of global.

warming so that's the. downside here here's the good news. though I do think and this again I think. is a view among other climate reporters. the. capacity of scientists and of companies. to change track and to find new products. and apply new ideas is really impressive. right it just doesn't feel like there's. a connection yet between the the urgency. of the situation and the way people and.

companies and governments are. [Music]. responding and so I guess if the. question is how I feel about this I I am. constantly amazed at the Ingenuity of. the researchers I come across in my job. every day what I don't yet know about is. whether or not Society will move fast. enough to adopt and apply those ideas. before the conditions that we Face from.

climate change become almost. [Music]. unbearable well quis on this cautiously. optimistic note thank you very much. thank. you. [Music].

we'll be right. back here's what else you need to know. today in a tense phone call with. Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu on. Thursday President Biden called the air. strikes that killed seven Aid workers. this week unacceptable and threatened to. condition future support for Israel on. how it addresses concerns about civilian. casualties and the humanitarian crisis. in Gaza. it was the first time that Biden.

explicitly sought to leverage American. Aid to influence Israel's conduct of the. war against Hamas but the White House. stopped short of saying directly that. the president would halt arm supplies or. impose conditions on their use as some. fellow Democrats have urged him to do. and a Centrist group called No Labels. has abandoned its plans to run a. presidential ticket in this year's. election after failing to recruit a. candidate the group which last year said.

it raised $60 million had planned to put. forward what it called a bipartisan. Unity ticket in the event of a rematch. between President Biden and former. president Trump but in recent months. suffered a string of rejections from. prominent Republicans and Democrats who. declined to run on its. ticket today's episode was produced by. Michael Simon Johnson Eric krup. Luke Vander pluk and relle Banja it was.

edited by Patricia willins contains. original music by Rowan Nimo Alicia by. and Marian Lozano and was engineered by. Chris Wood our theme music is by Jim. brunberg and Ben lansberg of. Wy the daily is made by Rachel quer. Lindsay Garrison Claire tennis Kutter. Paige cowt Michael Simon Johnson. Brad fiser Chris Wood Jessica Chang.

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benold see you. [Music]. Monday.