Ozone layer depletion is old news, but not really. The knowledge of its existence over our heads, in the upper atmosphere, leaves it as an environmental risk that should be tackled until nearly or completely repaired. The ozone layer is a space containing gases whose reactions, protects us from harmful Ultra Violet (UV) rays from the sun.
Depletion in the ozone layer was noticed around four decades ago, and the world moved in an international agreement circa 1987, to ban gases responsible for it. The ozone layer, presently, is on a path to recovery, posited for conclusion by the second half of this century. Ozone layer depletion is still a headache, but not as weighty as the dark, the world is with finding a path to addressing the global warming sick headache.
Geoengineering, a process to deliberately manipulate the climate is courted to come in, as a quick-fix for climate change until the flutter of having an international agreement – like for ozone layer repair – is stopped, and the agreement is globally adopted.
Geoengineering involves several technologies, all or most of which have serious governance and policy concerns that are put before most of the – still — imperfect technologies for the science. Appropriate answers to these concerns are needed, because of the motility of this present world. Geoengineering will be a bigger problem, according to some, but this placing won’t matter if the concerns are largely addressed.
Addressing these concerns and the right direction is sought by geoengineering backers through research, studies, meetings and articles. Their efforts are flagellating some of the worries, growing believe and possibility in the subject. They’re also inviting more people to join in the conversation, and are taking their meetings to new locations.
Geoengineering technologies are divided into two, Solar Radiation Management (SRM) and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR). Technologies under the former are directed at increasing the reflective power of the earth’s surface or atmosphere while those under the latter are directed at reducing the amount of carbon dioxide entering/in the atmosphere.
SRM and CDR are geoengineering solutions for global warming, but there is a developing research work pointed at repairing the ozone layer called Ozone layer geoengineering (OLG). OLG is a process directed at increasing the amounts of oxygen, a useful gas in protection reactions in the ozone layer, by transporting it as liquid from here using unmanned aircraft, and discharging as gas under high pressure to depleted parts of the ozone layer, to join in reactions that protects us, in the ozone layer.
Possibilities with the research and its ability to desirably repair are well-off. OLG is coming, like other geoengineering procedures as insurance, should in case things get out of hand, up there, and natural repair hopes cannot shoulder the emergency.
OLG and the peculiarities of the ozone layer, does not leave much room for bothering policy and governance issues. Deployment of the OLG also is different from some of the space-based SRM, and risks generally feared for geoengineering are answered with adjustments and ‘safe range’ the OLG will be deployed.
Pushing the OLG forward in this geoengineering debate, and answering policy and governance questions with it, will pave the way for SRM and CDR. Including OLG in the conversation and spilling the knowledge that there is no urgency with it will boost geoengineering overall. One of the specialties of the OLG that can be used to answer geoengineering policy questions is about its formation.
A large percentage of ozone is formed over the equator where sunshine (heat) amount are preeminent. It is transported by moving air towards the South Pole and North Pole. At high latitudes, very high amounts of ozone are found in the upper atmosphere, its thickness is subject to change with season and geography.
This automatically makes the OLG a global than singular project, to involve every nation, lowering policy concerns related to unilateral deployment. Risk fears for excesses do not count because incoming oxygen will stay within a containable volume and get distributed with existing processes there.
There is still enough time, we opine, for the world to settle for geoengineering to fix the climate, but the choices that exist to be included in the debate and in the solution generally, should not be ignored. As the world begins to understand ozone layer geoengineering, its possibilities and solutions, it will become clearer that it is a major answer to various policy questions sorted for geoengineering at present.