our duckies, how can we possibly gun them down? So explain how we could increase the number of clouds to reflect sunlight back into space using those automated boats that fire mist into the air, or whatever the devil they shoot up there, and then explain why it’ll cost a fortune. Be creative. Also, knock down that kook’s ideas for sending thousands of mirrors into space to reflect the sun. That really will cost billions and basically hand China the keys to the treasury.” They nodded. “Oh, wait, we’ve already done that, haven’t we?” She hee-hawed.
“You, you, and you.” Higgens polished off the last of her sandwich and licked her fingertips before turning to three Ph.D.s in chemical engineering. “I want y’all to get an update on that report you did six months ago on blowing up sulfates in the stratosphere.” She liked this idea a lot. Kind of like setting off volcanoes in the sky to cloud the Earth, block the sun, and reduce temperatures in a hurry. Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head …
Sulfates were salts that contained a charged group of sulfur and oxygen atoms, SO4, the basic constituent of sulfuric acid. Using sulfates as aerosols could cool the climate in two basic ways: by having the sulfates attach to particles of solid matter, such as dust, or by having them attach to existing aerosol particles, such as clouds. However, this cooling would not neatly cancel out the effects of greenhouse warming. As Higgens knew, it could actually make the situation more complex, because the cooling and greenhouse effects would likely occur in different—and not always desirable—places. For instance, the aerosol impacts would be focused mostly over industrialized areas of the Northern Hemisphere, while the warming impacts would be greatest over the subtropical oceans and deserts—where island nations like the Maldives were facing complete submersion into the ocean. That would mean the loss of all the life-forms and ecosystems that made those lands their home. The result? The world would see dramatic changes in regional weather patterns in the future, not just increases in temperature. Ouch!
And if sulfates cooled the planet too much or too fast, there might be an ice age. Big ouch.
On the plus side, firing up sulfates would mean partnering with the Department of Defense to put thousands of rockets to good use, instead of letting them molder in their silos. USEI and DOD always made a powerful one-two punch. But much as Higgens relished the prospect of calling her friends at missile maker Lockheed Martin, her enthusiasm for turning sulfur particles into fireworks was purely provisional: She knew better than to expect a White House buy-in for bombs in any first-stage effort.
“Now, Turtles,” Higgens’s moniker for an unfortunate-looking older Pakistani man whose elongated head appeared ready to dip into his torso at the slightest hint of danger, “here’s your chance to move up the food chain. Show me how sweet it is.” A credible Jackie Gleason that meant nothing to Turtles, who’d grown up in Lahore, or to most of the people left at the table, who were too young to have ever bothered with The Honeymooners. “You get to present the option of fertilizing the ocean with iron oxide.” Iron oxide in seawater helped absorb CO2 by facilitating the growth of algae. “Go hard on cost, which is low, and light on risk, which some of our critics might claim is high. Besides, plankton everywhere will thank us. When do I want this report, Turtles?”
“Friday.”
“The rest of you,” Higgens threw them a wicked grin, “are going to keep working on that special project on the Maldives. Is the tanker on the move?”
“Yes, right on schedule,” answered a red-haired sprite who looked sixteen, but was on her third year of working toward a doctorate in international relations and, surprisingly, had taken leadership on this issue from her two older male compatriots.
Higgens hadn’t mentioned to the White House task force that USEI already had launched a private geoengineering project with the cooperation of the highest echelons of the Maldivian government: What was the point in appearing presumptuous? But with the White House now moving forward, it was hard to see how anyone could raise objections that might have been hurled at the institute even a week ago. Hell’s bells, there wasn’t even a single international law preventing a nation from dumping half a million tons of iron oxide into the sea. They could make an algae bloom big as Australia, if they wanted to.