In spite of the coordinated attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will proceed as scheduled on Nov. 30 to Dec. 11, 2015. One of the proposals to combat climate change comes from the University of Washington's Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) which believes that climate engineering techniques can be humanity's weapon against the continuing increase in temperature and extreme weather worldwide.
More specifically, JISAO scientists believe that misting the clouds with saltwater, a cloud reflectivity modification technique would help in brightening up the clouds and aid it with reflecting sunlight back to lessen amount of heat that will enter through the atmosphere.
"If you can reflect away some of that radiation... you will cool the planet," Tom Ackerman, an atmospheric scientist at JISAO said. Ackerman directs this specific research on climate change at JISAO.
"People have this sort of innate response that somehow we're tinkering with Mother Nature, and we shouldn't be doing that," Ackerman said, explaining why there have been oppositions to such plans. However, he also said that humans already emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere due to fossil fuel use.
Clive Hamilton, an Australian ethicist, argued against using Geoengineering as a remedy to climate problems. He believes that the humanity's attitude is what needs to be changed in order to reach a long term solution.
"Technofixes-technical solutions to social problems-are appealing when we are unwilling to change ourselves and our social institutions... There is a long history of technological interventions entrenching the behaviors that created the problem," he wrote in an article in March.
The Geoengineering techniques for climate change will be discussed in the Paris Climate Change Conference as a Plan B, with Plan A involving agreements to reduce carbon emissions in developing countries.
