"Climate science is now entering an arena that medical research has gone into in the past," said Blackstock at the European Geosciences Union's General Assembly in Vienna. "Medicine has informed consent - anyone want to collect seven billion forms?"
Public perception will control the types of research we can do, added Blackstock, before telling Jeff Pierce of Dalhousie University, who had just detailed the merits of his technique for injecting sulphate particles into the stratosphere, that he was portraying the idea of boiling sulphuric acid in the sky above children's schools.
Another key issue is who will regulate the development and use of geoengineering technology. When you consider that the scientific community, private companies, private individuals, and many governments are all likely to be involved, the picture looks complicated. "'What would Sarah Palin do?', is a question I ask myself," said Blackstock, prompting cries of "That's pretty scary," from session chair Alan Robock of Rutgers University.
With that in mind, Blackstock proposes that nations planning geoengineering tests should make three commitments: all field testing should have "broad and legitimate" international approval before it begins; all research and technology should be in the public domain; and all research should incorporate international collaborators.
"National first movers will set a strong precedent," said Blackstock, adding that the UK has made a strong start and the US is catching up.
Parallels between geoengineering and medicine have also struck Daniel Rosenfeld of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "Geoengineering is our symptom cure to lower the fever whereas we need antibiotics to eradicate the root of the problem," he told environmentalresearchweb earlier in the day. "Sometimes the fever will kill you. The best medicine is preventative but now we are in the situation where we don't want to see the doctor at all."
The "antibiotics" to fight climate change in this case would involve transforming energy markets, something that appears unlikely whilst the world's governments are in denial.
"Nobody wants it [geoengineering] to happen but given the present paralysis in the international political arena, we are getting closer and closer to a climate emergency situation," said Rosenfeld.
Regulation and public perception concerns also came to the fore at the Alisomar meeting on geoengineering in California earlier this year. One scientist who attended believes that research into all forms of geoengineering could be stifled, even those that are potentially less risky. Injecting particles high into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space would affect the whole globe and could suppress the Asian monsoon, potentially threatening water supplies for many people. What's more, the particles would remain in the atmosphere for more than a year and it would be close to impossible to test the technology on a small scale.
Cooling the Earth by increasing the area of marine stratocumulus clouds, on the other hand, would require the introduction of particles lower in the atmosphere, where they would remain for only a few days. The technique could be trialled and implemented on a much more local basis and would also be cheaper. That said, most of the talks at the EGU geoengineering session concerned stratospheric techniques.
Those meeting at Alisomar were mainly scientists; the UK's Royal Society is now looking to bring social scientists and non-governmental organizations into the governance debate. The organization, which released a report on geoengineering in September last year, has teamed up with TWAS (The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World), and the Environmental Defense Fund to form the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative. Following workshops throughout the year, the group will stage a conference in November to present its recommendations for governance; the aim is to set up a global dialogue. Interested parties are encouraged to get in touch with Andrew Parker at the Royal Society.