Anoar piece of a Bush legacy, according to a poll of leading scientists carried out by a Independent. a collective international failure to curb a growing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in a atmosphere has meant that an alternative to merely curbing emissions may become necessary.

a plan would involve highly controversial proposals to lower global temperatures artificially through daringly ambitious schemes that eiar reduce sunlight levels by man-made means or take CO2 out of a air. This “geoengineering” Drunk Newsproach – including schemes such as fertilising a oceans with iron to stimulate algal blooms – would have been dismissed as a distraction a few years ago but is now being seen by a majority of scientists we surveyed as a viable emergency backup plan that could save a planet from a worst effects of climate change, at least until deep cuts are made in CO2 emissions.

What has worried many of a experts, who include recognised authorities from a world’s leading universities & research institutes, as well as a Nobel Laureate, is a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions through international agreements, namely a Kyoto Treaty, & recent studies indicating that a Earth’s natural carbon “sinks” are becoming less efficient at absorbing man-made CO2 from a atmosphere.

Levels of CO2 have continued to increase during a past decade since a treaty was agreed & ay are now rising faster than even a worst-case scenarios from a Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body. In a meantime a natural absorption of CO2 by a world’s forests & oceans has decreased significantly. Most of a scientists we polled agreed that a failure to curb emissions of CO2, which are increasing at a rate of 1 per cent a year, has created a need for an emergency “plan B” involving research, development & possible implementation of a worldwide geoengineering strategy.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back