Climate research into cloud barriers or Arctic refreezing is worth funding
Given current emission projections, it is likely that the world will reach 2C of warming. The only potential tool we have to reduce temperatures on a short timescale is solar geoengineering. It is necessary to reduce emissions, but once we reach net zero, global temperatures only stabilise, and the melting of glaciers and sea level rise will continue. While it is possible to remove carbon from the atmosphere, it remains slow and expensive for now.
Solar geoengineering research is important because it is possible that the climate will react more strongly to greenhouse gases than expected, and even 2C of warming might have devastating impacts.
It is undeniable that solar geoengineering has physical and political risks, and I share many of the concerns the authors raise. However, a warmer world that would increasingly become uninhabitable is also risky. Hence the risks of solar geoengineering must be balanced with the risks from the warming that would be attenuated.
Climate model evidence suggests that some important hazards linked to climate change could be limited with a judicious deployment of solar geoengineering. However, climate models contain many uncertainties that well‑governed, small-scale outdoor experiments may enable us to reduce. While more research and higher‑quality information on solar geoengineering are not sufficient to guarantee good decision-making about it in the future, they are certainly a prerequisite. I welcome the UK government's investment in solar geoengineering research.Dr Matthew HenryPostdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Exeter
Your article is misjudged. Yes we must transform fossil fuel use and deploy carbon capture. But humans are losing the battle and we can't afford an either/or argument. Just as low-dose aspirin use may protect against cancer, low-dose prevention of heat using sulphur, manufactured clouds, Arctic refreezing or aiding flow of crucial ocean currents may be able to aid climate control. In fact, it might be the only chance we have. So please, UK, spend £57m and more on geoengineering research now.Prof Stuart HaszeldineSchool of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh
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Metro
4 days ago
- Metro
The woolly mammoth and a 30ft sea cow could all soon be back from the dead
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But earlier this year, Colossal researchers helped bring the dire wolf, a giant, extinct species made famous by Game of Thrones, back from the dead. Kind of. Scientists salvaged DNA from the fossils of dire wolves and edited 20 of their genes into their closest living relatives, grey wolves. (Think Jurassic Park just without the maniacal computer-network engineer.) After creating embryos and implanting them in surrogates, three pups were born: Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi. The pups, with their dense, pale coats, were the first successful case of de-extinction, Colossal said. SOUND ON. You're hearing the first howl of a dire wolf in over 10,000 years. Meet Romulus and Remus—the world's first de-extinct animals, born on October 1, dire wolf has been extinct for over 10,000 years. These two wolves were brought back from extinction using… — Colossal Biosciences® (@colossal) April 7, 2025 Now, Colossal wants to revive the woolly mammoth by giving elephants dense hair and thick fat, and reintroducing them to the Siberian tundra. Lamm said that his team are also 'exclusively focused' on two other extinct creatures: the Tasmanian tiger and the 12-foot-tall bird called Moa, though they haven't cracked how to insert edited genes into eggs yet. 'I'd personally love to bring back the Steller's sea cow,' Lamm said, referring to the extinct, 30-foot-long relative of the manatee, 'but there is nothing to gestate it in until we have artificial wombs working.' Inventing an undo button for extinction sounds like a sci-fi film, but Lamm's reasons for doing it are very much real. Many of the de-extinction candidates were eradicated by humans: The dodo was, well, as dead as a dodo by 1662 after people colonised Mauritius. The Tasmanian tiger was similarly wiped out after European settlers relentlessly hunted the striped marsupials in the 1800s, while the sea cow was wiped out by humans within 27 years of its discovery. Climate change threatens to make even more species vanish, and wildlife populations have already plummeted by 70%. 'Habitats around the planet are changing at a pace that is faster than evolution by natural selection can keep up,' explained Lamm. 'For many species, there is not enough time.' We're launching the Colossal Species Reintroduction Fund: $250K annually to help return missing and at-risk species to the wild. Rewilding restores ecosystems and helps prevent extinctions. This is one more step toward making extinction a thing of the past. — Colossal Biosciences® (@colossal) August 5, 2025 Is de-exctinction, with the power of pipettes and computers, possible? Experts told Metro they aren't so sure. 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'I think there's still habitat for it to survive, as long as people don't kill it… That said, my hopes for seeing a Tasmanian tiger come back from extinction and not just a kangaroo with some stripes are rather low.' Lamm understands where his critics are coming from, too. Which animals Colossal hopes to de-extinct take into account whether they'd have a positive impact on the environment or help conservation efforts. 'If bringing back the species can also inspire the next generation,' he added, 'then that is just another bonus.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: I went inside the Navy's secret battlespace barely anyone knows about MORE: I discovered the murky world of 'minor attracted people' – it's even more disturbing than you think MORE: Moment huge black bear is chased out of home by tiny Pomeranian dog
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Telegraph
Robot crab ‘killed' by rivals in mating rituals
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The Herald Scotland
05-08-2025
- The Herald Scotland
Microplastics. Not just bottles. Here's what we should fret about
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Microplastic concentrations are rising in Scotland's seas Marine Scotland data, obtained in a freedom of information request by the Ferret last year, revealed that the highest concentration of microplastics found in Scotland was in a sample taken from the Solway Firth, where surface water was estimated to contain 210,891 microplastics per square kilometre. It was also nearly two and a half times higher than the largest sample taken previously in the firth in 2016. Large concentrations of microplastics in waters were also found south of Tiree (106,453 microplastics per square kilometre), off the East Lothian coast near Dunbar, (81,982 per square kilometre) and in the North Sea oil and gas area of Long Forties (36,304 microplastics in a sample). Winds of Change on microplastics (Image: Derek McArthur) 6. 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If the results are more widely representative, that would mean that as much as six to 13 percent of incoming waste may be being turned into microplastics.
