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Record droughts sear the Midwest, while the Atlantic seaboard prepares for the onslaught of hurricane season. Households on the western coastline check their earthquake supplies, while Colorado recovers from a series of catastrophic wildfires. We don’t want to encourage needless paranoia. Nevertheless, summer seems as good a time as any to look over your home insurance policies—or at least buy a fire extinguisher. Scope out these ten infographics for data that apply to the regions nearest you.

Deadliest Natural Disasters for Homeowners: How to protect your property from catastrophe.

Natural Disasters with the Worst Economic Impact: If you live in an earthquake-prone zone, watch out.

The post 10 Infographics on Natural Disasters appeared first on EcoSalon.

Though the it’s-too-late set seems to be growing, most scientists agree that when it comes to human-induced climate change, there are solutions. Most of these solutions are ambitious. Some, in fact, might be too ambitious – and perhaps too dangerous on a number of fronts.

Geoengineering is exactly what it says it is – engineering our geo. If you want to get a little more technical, here’s a definition from the National Academy of Sciences:  “Options that would involve large-scale engineering of our environment in order to combat or counteract the effects of changes in atmospheric chemistry.”

This example has recently been discussed quite a bit: When the Philippines’ Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it released about 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide and decreased world temperatures by an average of half a degree. That’s a big drop and the kind of climate change that, as a global population, we might be very interested in. So here’s the geoengineering news: We now have the technology to get the same job done – without a volcano – using airplanes or blimps to inject sulfur dioxide directly into the stratosphere.

But wait, there’s more. If playing Volcano God doesn’t do it for you, how about:

• Spraying massive amounts of seawater mist at low-lying clouds to reflect sunlight.
• Launching sunlight-reflecting mirrors into the Earth’s orbit.
• Seeding the ocean with iron to boost phytoplankton growth. (“Plankton release a chemical called dimethyl sulphide into the atmosphere which helps cloud droplets form. More droplets mean whiter clouds that bounce more solar energy away from Earth,” says New Scientist.)

In fact, there are all kinds of ways we can take the reins of our climate situation. Are they good ways to combat global warming? Maybe, but hey, perhaps it’s a good idea to set up some rules here.

Ever since the concept of geoengineering came on the scene, excitement around the scientific possibilities has been tempered by political and ethical (perhaps even more than practical) considerations at every turn. For example, with the potentially global impact of any effort, who gets to play? Anyone who wants to (read: has an interest and can afford to)? What would prevent the abuse of such high-impact, “planet-hacking” technologies? Say an arid country would like to wet its whistle a bit? What’s to stop it from doing a little more than praying for rain? Of course, there’s also the little problem of a hostile nation wanting to flood or dry out an adversary.

Enter the United Nations. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recently closed its 10th biennial meeting in Nagoya, Japan, with the implementation of “a de facto moratorium on geoengineering projects and experiments.”

This makes sense – making sure that geoengineering science is explored in the global light of day, with science and ethics awareness checks as research moves forward. Good intentions aside, the weaponization potential alone requires every effort to make sure the wrong people don’t get their ill-willed fingers on any climate triggers. As one astute writer at the guardian.co.uk recently put it, the current world of geoengineering “is eerily reminiscent of the race to develop nuclear weapons in the 1940s.”

But let’s look at one more angle on this debate. Are these scientifically grand and impressive approaches to global warming just easy (for rocket scientists, anyway) answers to a complicated problem? Might “the promise” of geoengineering encourage a form of laziness, giving us the illusion that we’re relieved of the burden we must ultimately carry if we’re going to better manage how we manage our world?

If we’re going to take on human-induced climate change, we’re going to have to do some heavy lifting. We’re going to have to make some fundamental changes to how we view, consume and burn energy. We’re going to have to quickly evolve our thinking regarding sustainability and obsolescence and resource usage. We going to have reinvent our relationship with the Earth and no amount of New Big Science is going to end-run this fact.

Image: ewen and donabel

The post The Rise of Geoengineering: Smart? Safe? Too Easy? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Northern Europe’s air traffic is at a near-total standstill after windblown ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano spread across Scandinavia and the north of the U.K. While posing little environmental threat in the long term, this silica-rich ash could melt into liquid glass inside aircraft engines, clogging and even stopping them in mid-air.

Pity the U.K’s commercial airline services, set to lose tens of millions a day while disruptions last and if Eyjafjallajökull repeats its performance of 1821, that could be a very long time indeed.

“We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.” – Ursula K. Le Guin

“Don’t dance on a volcano” – French Proverb

Further reading:

“How do volcanoes affect world climate?” – Karen Harpp, Scientific American

” ‘Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans’ – not even close…” – Grist

“Harness volcano power, energy experts say” – Daily Telegraph

“Erupting Volcanoes From Earth As Seen From Space” – Betsy Mason, Wired

Editor’s note: Join us every Friday for our environmental photo essay with Mike Sowden.

Images: rachel thecat and NASA

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