Artificial cooling tricky topic for climate panel

The Boston Globe ^ | April 10, 2014 | By KARL RITTER

[Oldeconomybuyer]

BERLIN — It’s Plan B in the fight against climate change: cooling the planet by sucking heat-trapping CO2 from the air or reflecting sunlight back into space.

Called geoengineering, it’s considered mad science by opponents. Supporters say it would be foolish to ignore it, since plan A — slashing carbon emissions from fossil fuels — is moving so slowly.

The U.N.’s expert panel on climate change is under pressure from both sides this week as it considers whether geoengineering should be part of the tool-kit that governments use to keep global warming in check.

[catnipman]

“The idea is to grow crops that absorb CO2 from the atmosphere then burn them in a power station to generate energy. The resulting CO2 emissions are captured at the plant and then stored deep underground”

Would it take more energy to do this than was generated by burning the “crops” to start with? Oh, and what would we eat if much of our arable land was devoted to burning “crops”: Soylent Green perhaps?

[icwhatudo]