Giving Compass' Take:

• Eden Stiffman explains how Ice911 plans to use geoengineering to restore melting Arctic ice to fight climate change. 

• Are the risks of geoengineering worth the potential payoff? How can funders help to determine which efforts are worthwhile? 

• Learn more about the possible risks and rewards of geoengineering. 

When it comes to addressing the climate crisis, loss of sea ice is one of the most pressing problems. Without sea ice, the ocean absorbs more heat, and ice that regrows disappears more quickly than what used to be there. Climate scientists estimate that the loss of Arctic sea ice contributes a quarter to a third of annual global temperature rise. What started out as an impact from climate change has now become a lever for even further climate-change effects.

“Bright reflective ice in the Arctic has been like having that area of the Earth wearing a bright white T-shirt in the hot summer sun,” says Leslie Field, an engineer and inventor. “We don’t have that anymore.”

Field is determined to reverse this. In 2014, she founded Ice911, a nonprofit that aims to restore and preserve ice by sowing glass microspheres over strategic locations to reflect sunlight and heat.

After more than a decade of testing materials to see what worked best to keep ice cool, Field identified the potential of the tiny silica spheres, each about the size of a fine grain of sand. Ecotoxicological testing found that the materials were not harmful to representative species of fish and birds.

Her team adapted an agricultural drop spreader for use with a snowmobile to test the materials in Alaska. They’re now seeking funding and Environmental Protection Agency permits to test on sea ice.

Full scale application might cost as much as $4 billion per year. Ice911 currently raises most of its funding from foundations and individuals.

Expense is not the only concern. Solutions from geoengineering—intentionally altering the Earth’s atmosphere using a variety of emerging technologies in an attempt to offset some of the impact of climate change—are risky and raise ethical qualms about environmental manipulation.

Read the full article about an effort to restore melting Arctic ice by Eden Stiffman at Stanford Social Innovation Review.