Pumpjacks are obscured by heat as they operate and a flare burns in Midland.
This chart, produced by the nonprofit research organization Climate Central and based on data from NOAA, shows that Houston's average daily low temperatures between June and August have warmed by 5.5 degrees since 1970.
CPS Energy Calaveras Power Station in San Antonio.
A drilling rig in the Eagle Ford Shale.
Imagine a world where we can burn all the coal, oil and natural gas we desire without worrying about climate change, but with one significant trade-off: No living thing will see a blue sky again.
Entrepreneurs and scientists are launching a burgeoning industry called solar radiation management that would do just that. They say our refusal to reduce carbon emissions will force us to spray reflective particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight and avoid overheating the planet.
So-called geoengineering will appeal to victims of climate change-induced extreme weather, such as last week’s flooding in Houston, who will demand quicker fixes than the fossil fuel industry wants to deliver.
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Meanwhile, petrochemical companies see a reasonable way to maintain their profitability by spraying sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, a product they already make in large quantities.
The most frightening fact about geoengineering is there is no law to stop a West Texas billionaire, a petrostate dictator or an international corporation from unilaterally attempting to cool the planet down. It’s already happening.
Humans are causing climate change by burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. These gases trap the sun's heat from returning to space. If we can’t stop releasing those gases, some say we must reflect the sun’s rays away from Earth.
Nature provides a template every time a giant volcano erupts and spews tiny droplets of sulfuric acid high into the air. Past eruptions, such as Indonesia’s Mount Tambora in 1815, turned 1816 into the “year without a summer,” causing crop failures and famine in Europe and North America.
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A company called Making Sunsets is already using weather balloons to release sulfur particles into the highest parts of the atmosphere. The Mexican company is run by an American, Luke Iseman, a 41-year-old serial entrepreneur and climate provocateur.
"I think we need to do solar geoengineering – hard stop – because the world is too hot. We need to cool it off," Iseman told National Public Radio. "I wouldn't say we should only do that after we start dropping global greenhouse (gas) emissions. 'Cause, frankly, I don't know when we're gonna do that."
Humanity’s track record in slowing global warming is dismal. Global greenhouse gas emissions are rising, especially carbon dioxide from less-wealthy countries. Texas officials are suing the federal government to block regulations that would reduce relatively easy-to-control gases such as methane, which are far more destructive than CO2.
We are on track to avoid warming the planet by more than 3 degrees Celsius by 2100, a date young people today will live to see. But we are far from limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, the point at which severe and lasting damage takes place.
An Israeli-U.S. company called Stardust Solutions has raised $15 million to perfect a technique for dispersing particles at 60,000 feet to reflect sunlight, the Wall Street Journal recently reported. The company is already conducting experiments but declined to disclose the makeup of its proprietary particles.
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Janos Pasztor, a high-profile Swiss climate scientist and diplomat, has started consulting as an ethics adviser to Stardust, which raised money from Israel's Ministry of Defense.
"Societies and their governments need to decide whether they wish to ban such activities; allow them to continue, but within guardrails; or do nothing, and let these different actors do what they want!" Pasztor told the Axios news service in an email.
While volcanic eruptions have reduced global temperatures for as many as three years, environmentalists object to human intervention. Reducing solar energy would harm plant and animal life, not to mention the efficiency of solar panels. The sulfuric acid also eventually falls back to earth.
Lastly, consider the irony of injecting more gases into the atmosphere to correct a problem created by us releasing other gases into the atmosphere. Many corporations might get excited by the chance to create a new line of business, but it makes more economic sense to simply stop releasing greenhouse gases.
We humans don’t like change, and we especially don’t like expensive or inconvenient change. How many of us would trade gray skies to avoid using public transit or electric vehicles? How many would rather continue eating inexpensive meat than see the stars clearly at night?
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Most of us would reject those trade-offs. But what worries me is that we won’t have a choice. A dictator will act unilaterally to ensure their oil remains profitable, or global warming will become so severe that we have no other choice.
Then, blue skies will never smile on any of us again.
Award-winning opinion writer Chris Tomlinson writes commentary about money, politics and life in Texas. Sign up for his “Tomlinson’s Take” newsletter at houstonhchronicle.com/tomlinsonnewsletter or expressnews.com/tomlinsonnewsletter.
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