Hi David, Hi all,

I'd appreciate some feedback on this draft text, aimed primarily at
general readers but potentially also scientists or policymakers from
across disciplines:

Suggestions for academic references would be particularly helpful.

TITLE:

"Geonurturing - a tentative definition and classification"

ABSRACT:

James Lovelock has talked about the earth having a fever. By analogy
with a sick patient, a classification of "geonurturing" is defined.

ARTICLE:

The term Geonurturing was first coined, to the best of my knowledge,
by David Schnare. My own working definition is "taking steps to
protect, restore and replenish a planet, its bio-geochemical and its
physical systems and to protect its biodiversity, including human
beings". (OK with you, David?)

THE BACKGROUND:

I will assume that the climate situation is beyond critical, as
suggested by James Lovelock  in this Guardian article:

www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.cli...

Lovelock suggests that a rapid decrease in petrochemicals use,
especially diesel, could be dangerous because while carbon remains in
the atmosphere, particulate levels emitted alongside CO2 by diesel
engines may also decrease rapidly, reducing global dimming. Global
dimming is the effect of these particulates from diesel engines and
forest fires and general pollution. By reducing the amount of the
sun's light reaching the surface of the planet, these particles have
shielded us from the full force of greenhouse warming. A sudden
reduction in these particulates could lead to very rapid warming. He
also believes that many of the earth's biogeochemical systems are now
in positive feedback, meaning that it is too late to prevent rapid and
dangerous warming by emissions reductions alone.

THE ANALOGY - A CHILD WITH FEVER

This definition of geonurturing assumes that the earth's bio-
geochemical systems are in positive feedback, and that we can usefully
draw an analogy with a human child who has a high and rising fever:

A fever can be caused by different bacteria and viruses. The ideal
intervention is early killing of the bacteria / viruses by the child's
own immune system. If this is delayed for any reason, the patient's
fever rises. If the fever rises too high, the child can start to have
fits which can cause permanent brain damage. Treatment with
antibiotics at a late stage (i.e. treating the cause) may cause a
temporary acceleration in the fever as virus / bacteria / immune
particles are released into the bloodstream. For this reason, and in
order to prevent fits / brain damage, it makes sense to treat the
symptom ie. reduce the fever by other means than treating the cause.
This can be done with (eg) paracetamol. If fits and brain damage are
prevented in this way, it is termed secondary prevention. (Primary
prevention is preventing the infection in the first place. Secondary
prevention is essentially preventing new damage arising from the
original pathology.)

So, like the child with fever:

- the temperature of the planet is already rising

- if we treat the cause too aggressively, we may accelerate the
temperature rise and cause abrupt climate change

- if we do nothing, the temperature may rise to a level where there is
major permanent damage

In terms of care/treatment/nurture:

(1) there may be things we can do to gently bring down the temperature

(2) we may be able to replenish some essential natural resources eg
water

(3) we should treat the cause carefully

(4) we need to stop doing the things that weakened the planet in the
first place and ensure balanced, sustainable living

(5) we need to remember the illness and recovery is a part of life and
that both children and planets pass through different phases

(6) while doing all this nurturing we shouldn't forget to prevent
external threats

From the above we can derive a 6-part classification of geonurturing:

GEONURTURING (1) - PLANETARY FIRST AID AND SECONDARY PREVENTION

Slow down and stop temperature increase by the most gentle means
possible eg:

        - increase albedo (reflectivity) of urban areas and roads

        - restore natural cloud-making forests and wetlands in the tropics

        - augment cloud cover over oceans (Salter / Latham proposal)

        - consider other options if needed (except sulphate to increase
dimming and other radical strategies)

        - urgent emissions reductions, including a separate agreement on
HFC23

        - capture and use or capture and store the most potent greenhouse
gases

GEONURTURING (2) - PROTECT AND REPLENISH NATURAL RESOURCES

Support those parts of the ecosystem that have a key role in
temperature and biogeochemical regulation:

        - stop tropical deforestation and draining of wetlands

        - restore degraded tropical forests, wetlands etc

        - in agriculture and forestry, imitate natural ecosystems
        as far as possible (Agro-forestry, permaculture etc)

        - ensure that marine ecosystems with important roles
        in climate regulation are not compromised by pollution

GEONURTURING (3) TREATING THE CAUSE(S):

Reverse full range of underlying causes:

        -  greenhouse gas emissions reductions

        - land use change with land-atmosphere impact

        - population growth

        - air capture of CO2 and steps to prevent and reverse ocean
acidification

GEONURTURING (4) - SHIFTING TO BALANCED, SUSTAINABLE LIVING

In the longer term, approaches like Permaculture, localised food
production and low-carbon transport systems along with intelligent
technology choices will be needed to sustain a population of perhaps 7
billion humans, and conscious strategies to gradually reduce
population to perhaps 2 billion would be helpful.

GEONURTURING (5) - LEARNIUNG TO ACCEPT CLIMATE CYCLES

In the very long term, we will need to get used to the idea that the
earth passes through warm periods and periods of glaciation. Even in
the most severe ice ages, there is  not complete ice cover - the
tropics remains suitable for human habitation.

Two web pages explaining extremely low risk of whole earth glaciation:

www.snowballearth.org/could.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth

While we might be able to prevent an ice age using geoengineering,
we'd be forgetting that advancing ice sheets perform valuable roles
such as restoring minerals to the landscape. This raises the prospect
that at some point in the future we may need to voluntarily reduce our
population and shift the human population entirely to the tropics.

GEONURTURING (6) - PREVENTING EXTERNAL THREATS

Another much more sudden change in climate could be caused by a comet
impact or a super-volcano. We do not yet have public global
contingency plans to deal with these kinds of climate emergency.

A really good immune system includes intelligent avoidance of hazards
and reduction of risk.

Ray Taylor
Land-Atmosphere Resilience Initiative

This sounds like a treatment for acne, not out of control Type II diabetes
which is the better analogy.  Note that acne, however disconcerting and
potentially disfiguring is not a fatal condition, whereas diabetes is.
Also, there is no plan or projection for a "rapid decrease in petrochemical
use" and the primary man-made source of the offset for CO2 forcing today is
tropospheric sulfate aerosols which come not just from burning of
transportation fuel but also from coal.  Soot is a contributor, but not the
main one.  The projections suggest a gradual decrease in this offset, around
5% per year, so it will be decades before this really becomes an issue,
whether or not petroleum is replaced by biofuels or hydrogen or electricity.

Increasing urban albedo may have some localized beneficial impacts on
reduced ozone and lower AC use, but at best can offset perhaps 1-3% of
present day CO2 forcing when applied maximally, something that even its
proponents state will take several decades to implement.  Of course, since
we don't seem particularly interested in repairing the old potholed filled
roads and streets in the US of today,  I have my doubts about when we would
get around to making them more reflective.  There are days when I have to
play Formula One driver to get to the post office, dodging asphalt moulins
and their little brethren.

Long term changes in how we live, use energy and produce food are needed,
but climate change isn't going to wait for them.

Reduce the human population to 2 billion?  Are you serious?  What do you
propose, a lottery?  We could simply nuke India and China right now, that's
about one third of "the problem."  Or how about inviting bin Laden to finish
the job he started in New York, since we in the US use about 25% of the
energy?

As far as keeping the interglacial going, I'm all for it.  Everything we
have that is anything has been obtained in the last 10,000 years.  Moving
people to the tropics 5000 years from now so the Laurentide Ice Sheet can
"restore minerals to the landscape" ignores the fact that during ice sheet
maxima, droughts are common in the tropics.  Your 2 billion survivors may
have to make some difficult decisions.  If the interglacial was scheduled to
end 5000 years from now and we have postponed it by 300 years because of CO2
which we will likely have removed from the air within the next 100-200
years, then I see no reason why we can't keep postponing it indefinitely
through climate geoengineering.  Advances in minerals exploration and mining
over the next several centuries means we really don't need to go through
another ice age.  Most of our building materials and other structural
components will likely be some sort of carbon composite anyway.  Face it.
We own this place.  It doesn't own us.

...

read more »

Hi Alvia

I wasn't so much trying to advocate specific geoengineering
strategies over others, but reframe the debate/concept so
that it's less attractive to techies and more palatable to a
wider range of thinkers (eg people who have experience of
febrile illnesses or are involved health care).

I can see that talking about population and ice ages has
introduced unnecessary material that provokes unhelpful
responses well off my main intended themes, so in that
respect I am grateful for your time and your response.

Thank you.

over 1-3 centuries, yes

and check out this article on how it will actually happen (probably)
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Africa/Africa.html
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population.html
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/WEAP/WEAP.html

Alvia this is offensive and beneath you.
If meant to be a joke, it's both unfunny
and unclear that you intend humour.

Ray