If the Earth were a version of software, would Earth 1.0 predate the Industrial Revolution and Earth 2.0 be the present? Earth 2.0 has not been a great software version. Earth 2.0 is filled with coding errors. The software’s execution has created a changing environment that, over the long term, because of rising energy demand and our inability to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, is unsustainable.
To carry the software metaphor further, think about the many misfires of Microsoft over the years. Do you remember MS-DOS 4 in 1988, Windows Me in 2000, Vista in 2006, and Windows 8.0 in 2012? Fortunately, Microsoft quickly recognized they had produced duds and quickly made revisions. And unlike creating a planetwide catastrophe, Microsoft’s errant software operating systems didn’t produce the consequences the current Earth 2.0 human operating system is creating.
My biggest future concern is that fixes proposed by many technology doyens could further destabilize the changing environment, compounding the problems the planet is now and beyond.
A Geoengineered Earth 3.0
A common theme in the 21st Century Tech Blog describes climate change and how it will impact the future. The list of things broken includes:
- growing extreme weather events, heat domes, droughts, storms, and wind
- polar ice cap and mountain glacier melts,
- erratic changes to rivers and lakes,
- changes to ocean currents,
- sea level rise and submerged coastlines and coastal cities,
- expanded desertification and growing deforestation,
- growing agricultural and food insecurity,
- disruption to industry and commerce,
- growing disease, pandemics, mental health, human migration,
- water, resources, and boundary wars,
- profound changes to nations as we know them and the way they are governed,
- a disrupted world economy.
In other words, a precarious world in need of a “software” fix. That’s why Earth 3.0 is needed.
We have evidence of the current pieces of bad code and can see where the broken commands have created consequences, some foreseen and others not. Our overreliance on fossil fuels is the malware responsible for the symptoms found in Earth 2.0 software. Yet, we continue to execute its code, receiving the same error message repeatedly: GLOBAL WARMING!!!
If Earth were an operating system or computer program, we would have hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete by now.
An Errant Earth 2.0
If Earth 2.0 is problematic, it is because of errant coders, software designers and those executing the program. Unfortunately, those responsible for the mess remain in charge, leading to the next software fix, Earth 3.0. Some of these same coders are suggesting radical alterations. Four of these are listed below. They fall under a common paradigm: Solar Radiation Modification (SRM).
Rethinking and Redesigning Clouds
The coders want to alter tropospheric dynamics by changing the reflectivity of clouds, making thin clouds thicker and brighter. One method would have ships at sea equipped with high-powered spraying equipment sending saltwater droplets into low marine clouds to make them brighter and more reflective. Another would be land-based.
Altering the Stratosphere
The changes proposed in this technology involve changing the composition of the stratosphere through injecting massive amounts of aerosols at high altitudes where they would persist for months and block the amount of sunlight reaching the lower atmosphere and surface. The effect would be to cool the troposphere beneath. How would you do it? You would need a fleet of aircraft, balloons and even rockets constantly seeding the atmosphere. The contrails the aircraft and rockets produce would conceivably enhance the cooling.
Blocking Sunlight
Imagine putting a constellation of satellites into orbit around Earth to act as planetary sunshades. Think of a Starlink network equivalent with a sole purpose of blocking sunlight. Besides the cost of deployment and maintenance, wouldn’t it be easier to modify human behaviour than spend trillions of dollars on this bizarre SRM solution?
Altering Earth’s Orbit
Moving Earth’s orbit further away from the Sun was proposed by a U.S. Member of Congress a few years ago. Without understanding the technological challenge represented in altering our planet’s position as it travels around the Sun, this is the most reckless SRM idea. In theory, if Earth were to be moved further from the Sun, there would be less solar energy striking the Earth. In the Solar System’s Goldilocks Zone, only Earth fits the bill. Mars is too far away, and its lower mass makes holding on to a thick atmosphere difficult. Closer in, Venus has experienced a runaway greenhouse effect that has made it hell-like.
What Earth 3.0 Needs to Be
The solutions for Earth 3.0 are staring us in the face. We need to decarbonize and electrify. We need to reduce GHGs which means reducing fossil fuel combustion to a level that Earth’s natural and technological carbon capture and sequestration take care of the rest.
The technology of Earth 3.0 is clean electricity using renewable, hydroelectric and geothermal energy production sources. It means:
- technologies that keep GHGs in natural balance;
- better and more sustainable building design and materials;
- efficiencies in lifestyle requiring less energy for people to be comfortable;
- and reducing high-emission personal activities and making sustainable personal choices.
Doing all of this, particularly the personal, is harder in an Earth 3.0 release because of the level of granularity required. The most effective way to achieve Earth 3.0 would involve the personal by providing incentives to encourage behavioural changes that drive low-carbon decision-making.
Since personal decision-making is hard to program, if Earth 3.0 were software, it would need human engineering encoded rather than geoengineering, like the ideas raised in this blog post.
