Universidad Nacional de Moreno

Departamento Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología INGLÉS III

Licenciatura en Gestión Ambiental- Licenciatura en Biotecnología Prof. Garabito María

Florencia

Assignment 4: Geoengineering
Video time:
Watch this short video of CIA director John O Brennan about geoengineering
and write true or false:
https://youtu.be/WBG81dXgM0Q

1. Geoengineering could potentially help reverse the damage of climate

change.
2. SAI (stratospheric aerosol injection ) will remove all the gases from the
atmosphere.
3. On the geopolitical side, this could bring opposition within nations since
it could benefit some at the expense of others.
4. There are already existing standards for the regulation and control of
SAI.
Reading:
1. Look at the text (title, caption, pictures) and write down your reading
hypothesis.
2. Skim the text to corroborate or refute your hypothesis.
3. Scan the text and prepare a lexical chain of at least 10 words.
4. Read the text and answer these questions in Spanish:
a) What does geoengineering consist of?
b) What is the difference between Obama and Trump´s administration
over geoengineering?
c) What are the arguments for and against it?
d) What is Silvia Ribeiro´s view on this topic?
e) What is the objective of researchers in carrying out the experiments
on geoengineering?

1
 Universidad Nacional de Moreno

Departamento Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología INGLÉS III

Licenciatura en Gestión Ambiental- Licenciatura en Biotecnología Prof. Garabito María

Florencia

Trump presidency 'opens door' to planet-

hacking geoengineer experiments
As geoengineer advocates enter Trump administration, plans advance
to spray sun-reflecting chemicals into atmosphere

A ring around the sun, is seen over Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Friday, May 17, 2002. The
halo is a rare effect on the sun caused by a layer of ice crystals in the atmosphere
refracting light from the sun.
Photograph: Lou Toman/AP Last modified on Monday 27 March 2017 08.40 BST

10 Harvard engineers who launched the world’s biggest solar

geoengineering research program may get a dangerous boost from
Donald Trump, environmental organizations are warning.

Under the Trump administration, enthusiasm appears to be growing

for the controversial technology of solar geo-engineering, which aims
15 to spray sulphate particles into the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s
radiation back to space and decrease the temperature of Earth.

Sometime in 2018, Harvard engineers David Keith and Frank Keutsch

hope to test spraying from a high-altitude balloon over Arizona, in
order to assess the risks and benefits of deployment on a larger scale.

20 Keith cancelled a similar planned experiment in New Mexico in 2012,

but announced he was ready for field testing at a geoengineering forum
in Washington on Friday.

“The context for discussing solar geoengineering research has changed

substantially since we planned and funded this forum nearly one year
25 ago,” a forum briefing paper noted.

2
 Universidad Nacional de Moreno

Departamento Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología INGLÉS III

Licenciatura en Gestión Ambiental- Licenciatura en Biotecnología Prof. Garabito María

Florencia

While geoengineering received little favour under Obama, high-level

officials within the Trump administration have been long-time
advocates for planetary-scale manipulation of Earth systems.

David Schnare, an architect of Trump’s Environmental Protection

30 Agency transition, has lobbied the US government and testified to
Senate in favour of federal support for geoengineering.

He has called for a multi-phase plan to fund research and conduct real-
world testing within 18 months, deploy massive stratospheric spraying
three years after, and continue spraying for a century, a duration
35 geoengineers believe would be necessary to dial back the planet’s
temperature.

Geoengineers argue that such methods would be an inexpensive way to

reduce global warming, but scientists have warned it could have
catastrophic consequences for the Earth’s weather systems.

40 Scientific modelling has shown that stratospheric spraying could

drastically curtail rainfall throughout Asia, Africa and South America,
causing severe droughts and threatening food supply for billions of
people.

“Clearly parts of the Trump administration are very willing to open the
45 door to reckless schemes like David Keith’s, and may well have quietly
given the nod to open-air experiments,” said Silvia Riberio, with
technology watchdog ETC Group. “Worryingly, geoengineering may
emerge as this administration’s preferred approach to global warming.
In their view, building a big beautiful wall of sulphate in the sky could
50 be a perfect excuse to allow uncontrolled fossil fuel extraction. We need
to be focussing on radical emissions cuts, not dangerous and unjust
technofixes.”

A White House report on climate change research submitted to

Congress in January called for the first time ever for research into
55 geoengineering.

3
 Universidad Nacional de Moreno

Departamento Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología INGLÉS III

Licenciatura en Gestión Ambiental- Licenciatura en Biotecnología Prof. Garabito María

Florencia

Within Republican ranks, former House speaker and Trump confidant

Newt Gingrich was one of the first to start publicly advocating for
geoengineering.

“Geoengineering holds forth the promise of addressing global warming

60 concerns for just a few billion dollars a year,” he said in 2008, before
helping launch a geoengineering unit while he ran the right-wing think
tank American Economic Enterprise. “We would have an option to
address global warming by rewarding scientific innovation. Bring on
American ingenuity. Stop the green pig.”

65 US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has also appeared to support

geoengineering, describing climate change as an “engineering
problem.” ExxonMobil’s funding of the climate denial industry is
under investigation by attorney generals in the United States, but it’s
less well known that ExxonMobil scientists under Tillerson’s reign as
70 CEO were leading developers of geo-engineering technologies like
carbon dioxide removal.

Asked about solutions to climate change at an ExxonMobil shareholder

meeting in 2015, Tillerson said that a “plan B has always been
grounded in our beliefs around the continued evolution of technology
75 and engineered solutions.”

“We are not unalterably committed to doing the experiment,” said

David Keith on Friday. “We’re headed down the road of doing that, but
depending on what an advisory committee says and what we learn
technically we’re certainly willing to stop. Our long term goal is to build
80 a sustainable effort in solar geoengineering research that allows us to
say more about ways it might actually provide public benefit.”

Critics like Riberio point out that those who don’t believe in human-
induced climate change may still support geoengineering, which can be
presented as a method to deal with the consequences of a warming
85 planet without stopping the burning of fossil fuels.

The Harvard experiment may fly in the face of a moratorium on

geoengineering adopted in 2010 by the United Nations Convention on

4
 Universidad Nacional de Moreno

Departamento Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología INGLÉS III

Licenciatura en Gestión Ambiental- Licenciatura en Biotecnología Prof. Garabito María

Florencia

Biological Diversity, which was reaffirmed in December in Mexico. The

United States is one of the few countries to not ratify the UN
90 convention, creating a potential loophole for experiments.

The experiment’s site in Tucson, Arizona may also invoke issues of

jurisdictional controversy with Mexico – stratospheric winds can blow
up to 200 miles per hour, and the border is only 75 miles away.

Other geoengineering experiments like cloud whitening may go ahead

95 in the United States, as well as experiments supported by the
governments of China and Russia, though both are signatories to the
UN moratorium.

5
Universidad Nacional de Moreno

Departamento Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología INGLÉS III

Licenciatura en Gestión Ambiental- Licenciatura en Biotecnología Prof. Garabito María

Florencia

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/mar/27/trump-presidency-opens-door-to-planet-
hacking-geoengineer-experiments

Language Work:

A) Reference

WHO (line 10)

WHICH (line 14)
WE (line 24)
THEIR (line 49)
WE (line 50)
B) Find in the text examples of:

A. Non-defining relative clause

B. A defining relative clause
C. Possessive Case
D. Modal verb expressing possibility
E. Modal verb expressing remote possibility
F. A superlative adjective
G. A hyphenated-word (Noun)
H. A word with a negative prefix
I. Connector expressing purpose
J. A comparative adjective
k. a sentence in passive voice

C) Report the following ideas:

“Geoengineering holds forth the promise of addressing global warming
concerns for just a few billion dollars a year,” he said.
__________________________________________________
______________________________________
“Clearly parts of the Trump administration are very willing to open the
door to reckless schemes like David Keith’s, and may well have quietly
given the nod to open-air experiments,” said Silvia Riberio.
__________________________________________________
______________________________________

6
Universidad Nacional de Moreno

Departamento Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología INGLÉS III

Licenciatura en Gestión Ambiental- Licenciatura en Biotecnología Prof. Garabito María

Florencia

D) Tenses:
Identify the tense and explain its use:
Examples Tense Use
environmental organizations are
warning…

The context for discussing solar

geoengineering research has
changed substantially…

ExxonMobil scientists under

Tillerson’s reign as CEO were leading
developers of geo-engineering
technologies like carbon dioxide
removal.
E) Academic Texts.
Explain the content of this “abstract” in Spanish:

Geoengineering the Climate: An Overview

]ABSTRACT: Although geoengineering refers to numerous methods of offsetting

climate change, including the removal of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the
atmosphere, it is most commonly applied to an approach known as shortwave radiation
management (SRM). Advocates for geoengineering make no claims to its being a
comprehensive solution toward climate change, forestalling criticism that it is merely a
way to avoid reducing fossil fuel dependence. Instead, they present it as a means by
which to slow warming and prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference, while
exploring the commercial potential of low-carbon energy alternatives, or as an option to
turn to in case of a climate emergency, such as a catastrophically rapid rise in sea
levels resulting from the unforeseen breakdown of an ice sheet. SRM is accepted as
the least expensive method of manipulating the climate after reforestation. It also
avoids the land-use issues of reforestation. Furthermore, implementation of SRM could
be fairly quick, and could be conducted in a way that rapidly reduces global mean
temperature (as opposed to even the fastest conceivable system of emissions
reductions). Nevertheless, options for SRM have given rise to a variety of questions
regarding morals, technology, and governance, discussed in this article.
Article · Mar 2012 · Atmospheric Science Letters

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230544723_Geoengineering