Does it make sense to release greenhouse gases to counter the cooling that Milankovitch is imposing on us? [Alan]
Since the dominant gas causing the problem is currently carbon dioxide released from fossil fuel combustion, presumably this would be the gas we’d focus on emitting to counter the cooling. There are two (at least) concerns:
- Planning such a geoengineering feat assumes that we know exactly how much cooling is likely to occur from Milankovitch, and exactly how much GHG to emit to counter that cooling. We’d then need some global regulatory agency to allocate emissions allowances around the world and then ensure that such an emissions patterns is not exceeded.
- Since a substantial proportion of the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere is dissolved in the ocean, inducing acidification, we’d have to infer that our oceans would become even more acid compromising (destroying?) coral reefs, marine systems, and our fisheries.
