The Experiments of the United Kingdom funds as the global controversy grows
Critics say that the United Kingdom’s investment in research on climate refrigeration interventions, such as sea ice and bright clouds, distracts from the need to reduce planet heating emissions
An aerial view of an ice lid near CCGS Amundsen, a Canadian research ice breaker that sails near an ice cover along Devon Island, in the high Canadian Arctic on September 27, 2015. The British government is financing a project to rebuild the melted marine ice.
Clement Sabourin/AFP through Getty Images
Climatewire | As temperatures fall and sunlight decreases this winter, scientists will meet in the Canadian Arctic with exercises and pumps in tow. Its mission: to freeze the melted sea ice of the region.
Known as reflecting on the arctic sea ice, or Rasi, the project aims to pump sea water from the ocean and sprinkle it on the upper ice sizes, where cold air will freeze it solid. Researchers expect the process to create a thicker layer of sea ice, which helps undo part of the damage caused by the increase in world temperatures.
For now, it’s just an experiment, and relatively small in that. During the next three winter seasons, the researcher plans to freeze areas as large as 1 square kilometer, or 0.38 square miles. On the way, they will evaluate how the project affects local ecology and the movement of sea ice, and how long it takes to melt again in the summer.
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The project is one of a handful or experiences of geoingeniery founded by the British government. The Advanced Research and Invention Agency of the United Kingdom (ARIA) announced on Wednesday that it would invest a total of approximately $ 60 million in climate refrigeration research, distributed among 21 projects.
Aria was established in 2023 to support a variety of fields of research, from artificial intelligence to genetic engineering, but its investment in geo -en -studies tells how among its most controversial projects. The speech has only become more polarized as a new research pushes technocuturist solutions once in the field of possibility.
Research defenders argue that the world is not reducing greenhouse gases quick enough to meet the global climatic objectives of the Paris Agreement. To argue that cutting carbon emissions remains the most important way to address climate change, but as the planet heated, they argue, scientists must understand the possible pros and cons of climatic refrigeration technology.
But critics care that too much emphasis on geoyngineering can distract world leaders from their efforts to eliminate fossil fuel elimination and reduce emissions.
Meanwhile, other recent geoingenier experiments have ended in the midst of public criticism, including the Scopex experiment of Harvard University, a cloud scratch experiment from the University of Washon and a marine ice recreation project conducted by an organization known as the Potricsatiation. An unauthorized experiment in 2022 by the startup plays in Sol in Baja California, Mexico, which results in a prohibition of solar geoyngeniery of the Mexican government.
Meanwhile, the world’s largest geoengineering conference, the Global Degrees forum, will begin in Cabo Cabo, South Africa, next week.
Most of the new ARIA projects involve computer modeling, climate monitoring or social questions related to governance and ethics surrounding geoyngeniery. Only five projects require real -life outdoor experiments, but they are easily the most expectations of all research categories, for a total of around $ 32 million in winning funds. Rasi received the highest financing from all projects, at $ 13 million in the next 42 months.
Other experiments in the list include three projects aimed at illuminating clouds to reflect more sunlight away from Earth. A FIFFH experiment focuses on stratospheric aerosol injection, a strategy that would spray reflective particles in the atmosphere to directly transmit sunlight to space. The project would carry children’s dust or minerals varied in weather balloons to prove how they interact with the air at large altitudes without liberating them directly to heaven.
All outdoor experiments will undergo legal and environmental evaluations in advance, said Mark Symes, director of the Aria program, in an email. And none of them will release toxic or deliberate materials proposed to cool the weather, he said.
The announcement obtained Conern and the support of the organizations involved in global conversations about geoyngeniery.
“The United Kingdom Government runs the risk of triggering a expensive, dangerous and distracting career to develop technologies that should never be used,” said Mary Church, geo -protein campaign manager of the non -profit center of International Environmental Law, in a statement. “Even experimenting with these technologies could further destabilize a geopolitical context already tense.”
Instead, the country should focus on eliminating the elimination of fossil fuels, he added, suggesting that even small -scale experiments could become a “slippery slope” on the road to larger geo -generating implementations.
But Kelly Wanser, executive director of the non -profit organization Silverling, said in a statement that “heart was seeing our friends in Aria and the government in the United Kingdom recognizes the need for a responsible scientific investigation on the potentials in the earthquake.” Silverling Defenders of Geo -Eyeingenier Research.
Symes emphasized that cutting carbon emissions should continue to be the priority of the world when it comes to addressing climate change. Even so, he added, more research is “essential” for global decision making about possible climatic interventions.
“The Aria program focuses on generating fundamental evidence of evidence on whether any proprietary cooling approach could be safe or feasible, or that must be completely ruled out,” he said in an email.
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