ThinkLONG
The Oxford Martin School Blog
Topic: Geoengineering
Latest
Planetary boundaries as millenarian prophesies
The idea that we are collectively on the brink of overstepping “planetary boundaries” that will render civilization unsustainable has been prominently propounded by a group of scholars around Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resil... Read More »
Climate control
As a lad poring over his ‘Boys’ Book of Science', Professor Steve Rayner, Co-Director of the Oxford Geoengineering Programme, was thrilled by the technological optimism which gave rise to visions of futuristic looking cities under ... Read More »
Walk the line
Imagine a world where we could correct climate change with a scientific procedure; we could fight cancer using nanoparticles to target malignant cells; we could comfortably feed our growing population with disease and drought resistant crops; we c... Read More »
The price of carbon
Democrats and Republicans seem to be re-enacting the scene in “Rebel Without a Cause” in which the protagonists race their cars towards a cliff in a game of chicken. The fiscal cliff is speeding towards them and failure to reach a deal... Read More »
The right amount of hope
As the latest instalment of climate negotiations gets under way in Doha it is important to ask just how far we need to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. A recent UNEP report indicates that there is a substantial gap between the commitments ... Read More »
Geoengineering Research: Walking on thin ice
Calls for geoengineering research in the open environment must be resisted until we have adequate governance in place. We are walking on thin ice – physically and metaphorically. This year the extent of arctic sea ice minimum has been sh... Read More »
Why study geoengineering? Thinking about moral questions
Blog author Clare Heyward is a James Martin Fellow at the Oxford Geoengineering Programme. She is currently studying the ethics and governance of geoengineering and has a background in climate justice research, looking at the moral and political i... Read More »
Experimenting with our climate
Communications officer, Julia Banfield, outlines her ‘take-aways’ from the panel discussion, The hopes and hazards of climate intervention technologies. Here’s the situation: Our huge dependence on fossil fuels for energy has... Read More »
Red mud disaster brings carbon capture clue
An environmental disaster that occurred in Hungary in 2010 could lead to a new way of removing carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere. Phil Renforth, James Martin Fellow at the Oxford Geoengineering Programme, explained how it works to Pete ... Read More »
How much Carbon can we (and the land) handle?
What’s the problem? As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere soar towards levels defined by scientists as ‘dangerous’ it has become apparent that traditional mitigation approaches might not be enough to ensure a stable clim... Read More »
Much to learn about ocean fertilisation
The oceans store a huge amount of carbon compared with the Earth’s atmosphere. This fact has led some scientists and institutions to ask the question of whether human intervention might be used to cause an increase in oceanic uptake of... Read More »
Russian Roulette with four chambers loaded
In 2009, at Copenhagen, the climate summit ended in a debacle. But one thing emerged from that meeting and that was a commitment to ensure that rises in global mean temperatures would be held to 2C. But there was no binding framework as to how thi... Read More »
Geoengineering - the last thing we need
Tim Kruger is the James Martin Fellow responsible for managing the Oxford Geoengineering Programme. Geoengineering is the deliberate, large-scale intervention in the Earth’s natural systems to address climate change. A year into ... Read More »
- Adam Stones
- Alexander Leveringhaus
- Alison Stibbe
- Andrew Pontzen
- Caspar Henderson
- Clare Heywood
- David Rodin
- Devi Sridhar
- Eric Beinhocker
- Gilles Giacca
- Gillian Petrokofsky
- Guy Houlsby
- Hein de Haas
- Hugo Slim
- Ian Goldin
- James Marrow
- Javier Lezaun
- Jennifer Welsh
- Julia Banfield
- Julian Savulescu
- Justin Bishop
- Kazem Rahimi
- Lucy Crittenden
- Maria Villares Varela
- Marian Dawkins
- Mathias Czaika
- Megan Lynagh
- Myles Allen
- Natalie Day
- Nigel Moore
- Oliver Bakewell
- Peter Taylor
- Phil Renforth
- Quentin Sattentau
- Rafaela Hillerbrand
- Richard Branson
- Richard Reschen
- Richard Willden
- Serena Sharma
- Sophie Hackford
- Steve Rayner
- Stuart Armstrong
- Sunetra Gupta
- Susan Curran
- Takafumi Nishino
- Tim Kruger
- Toby Ord
- Tom Aubrey-Fletcher