No arguments against geoengineering
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Veli Albert Kallio
Oct 30, 2009, 10:10:44 AM10/30/09
to Geoengineering FIPC, Indianice FIPC, Matti Lappalainen, Risto Isomaki
It seems me that the only possible argument against geoengineering is the inaction. (Just like inaction to adapt, inaction to mitigate, inaction to cut emissions..)
Just to Alan's excellent reply, there is no predictable arbitrary jumps so that at just after 2°C everything goes berserk and we are alright upto then. Everything is on probabilistic ranges of many possible outcomes. It is important to recall the event like the Amazon draughts 2005-2007 where one more year of drought would have killed 40% of the forest. In 2007 there was no guarantees that the following 12 months had to be rainy once again.
Please note also the Amazon region in the UK Meteorological Office projections to warm up.
If the Amazon forest becomes a "dead-forest-in-standing" then the likelihood of it burning is ten-fold to the living trees and forest. At the World Water Week, Stockholm, August 2007, I presented a paper "Preparing the Amazon Ecosystems for the Changing Climate". One of our more severe actions was to clear fell all dead trees and bushes and heap in piles and rows, with sufficient fire breaks created in between them, to prevent the dead trees and bushes from burning and so preventing the release of upto 95 gigatonnes of CO2 back to the atmosphere if the dead vegetation is left to burn on its own.
If 95 gigatonnes of CO2 is ever allowed to enter the athmosphere from the Amazon, then we might forego all emission cut efforts and be prepared to many further runaway emissions as drying would couple with the Congo forests on the other side of the ocean.
Events like the Amazon drought has a potential to disrupt suddenly the removal of carbon dioxide and also include prospect of large positive CO2 feedbacks if inadequate action to combat forest fires and cut down died forests remain due to human inaction.
UK Meteorological Office organised the Exeter Conference where the terms Type 1 Climate Change (= gradual climate change) and the Type 2 Climate Change (= abrupt climate change) were coined. These in recognition to the tipping points which are hard, at times, all but impossible to predict as the breaking-point chance events constantly increase.
With 2°C limit it is important to recognise that this is not inclusive of any Type 2 Climate Change incidents that suddenly pours in positive feedback emissions to couple with human CO2 output. In my view in next half a century some Type 2 events will have to occur. How large, these should be compensated by the excess anthropogenic cuts to retain the projections for 2°C. But no one seems to be doing this. The mis-steps by nature, droughts, forest fires and methane releases from the permafrost will occur, but all seems to be hell-bent and focusing exclusively drinking forever the baby milk, what man is putting into air.
So far we have experienced the impacts of Type 1 (= gradual climate change), none of those of Type 2 (=abrupt climate change) and just like Alan points out, even these produce many noticeable and worrying impacts in the ecosystems. Once Type 2 Climate Change impacts become commonplace the probability of complex teleconnections interplay becomes a serious risk and the more chaotic system is harder to predict and understand.
Even Type 1 Climate Change events open up the Pandora's Box, let alone the Type 2 Climate Change. There is too little discussion about how to minimise the size of the X-Factor Box (= unforeseen or little understood climate change effects that are not foreseen or adequately recognised). There could be myriads of these coming to join the interplay.
One of my "baby" is the United Nations General Assembly investigation request UNGA 101292. The closing plenary request of the World Indigenous Nations Summit in joint session statement with the 45th United Nations' General Assembly that the warmed and wet ice sheets of the past did not melt into oblivion, but the melt water accumulated under and within ice and the sheets lost their footing on elevated grounds causing "ice sheet thrust" and sudden ice avalanche into sea causing sudden sea level jumps and the large volume on discharged ice then on the sea resulting in the severe "Dryas" coolings. 270 indigenous nations insist of having seen the sudden and permanent sea level jumps, they call "the Floods". We may think what we want about such old recollections from time immemorial and disregard these concerns entirely, but they have world wide support among the indigenous peoples some recalling sea level jumps, others seeming to recall sliding ice.
Whatever excuses there are against geoengineering all these are of very poor arguments counting the combined risks from Type 1 Climate Change (gradual climate change), Type 2 Climate Change (abrupt climate change) and X-Factor Box (unknown and little understood climatic changes) which all do exist in varying degrees and threaten the Holocene stabilities and climate driven equilibriums.
We just need trumpeting against all the alien zombies in denial of climate change risks...
Kind regards,
Albert
> Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:42:35 -0400
> From: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
> To: dan.w...@gmail.com
> CC: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [geo] Re: Arguments against geoengineering
>
> Dear Dan,
>
> "Dangerous anthropogenic inteference" is now commonly defined as 2°C
> about preindustrial global average temperatures (about 1°C above current
> levels). Certainly it is not a step function, and impacts increase with
> temperature change, and we are already experiencing some. So we need a
> lot of adaptation, too.
>
> Alan
>
> Alan Robock, Professor II
> Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program
> Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction
> Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9800 x6222
> Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
> 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
> New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
>
>
> On Fri, 30 Oct 2009, Dan Whaley wrote:
>
> >
> > Alan,
> >
> > I agree that 450 or 500 are theoretically achievable with emissions
> > reductions-- clearly. (Though either would effectively require
> > immediate and aggressive reductions from everyone, now).
> >
> > But if we're already seeing impacts we don't like, and we know the
> > impacts considerably lag the forcing, what leads us to believe these
> > are "acceptable" levels?
> >
> > Dan
> >
> > On Oct 29, 7:18 pm, Alan Robock <rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> >> Dan,
> >>
> >> Where do you think we need to be? And when? If it is 350 ppm soon, of
> >> course not. That would take massive carbon capture from the atmosphere
> >> and very rapid reductions in emissions. But if you want to stop
> >> somewhere between 450 and 500 ppm, adapt, and then gradually reduce the
> >> concentration with carbon capture, I think we can do that with carbon
> >> capture from the stacks of coal-fired plants, and rapid transition to an
> >> electric economy with solar and wind generation. It would need a
> >> substantial and regular increase in the price of carbon emissions. Not
> >> being a political scientist, I cannot predict how likely this is, not
> >> that political scientists can either, but it is certainly possible.
> >>
> >> If climate change is the greatest threat to world security, the
> >> resources now being spent on the military (and half of the scientists
> >> and the engineers in the US working for them) can certainly be
> >> redirected to this goal. We need not accept the status quo as a
> >> predictor of the future.
> >>
> >> Alan
> >>
> >> Alan Robock, Professor II
> >> Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program
> >> Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction
> >> Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9800 x6222
> >> Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
> >> 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
> >> New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
> >>
> >> On Thu, 29 Oct 2009, Dan Whaley wrote:
> >>
> >>> While I'll take the wager, I do find it extraordinary, Alan, that your
> >>> statement essentially implies that emissions reductions will get us
> >>> where we need to be. Can you explain your math?
> >>
> >>> Dan
> >>
> >>> On Oct 29, 3:14 pm, Alan Robock <rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> >>>> Dear Ken,
> >>
> >>>> I would like to accept your wager. And I would like to point out that
> >>>> claims that mitigation will be unsuccessful can be used as arguments by
> >>>> those who favor geoengineering, for whatever reason, just like claims
> >>>> that geoengineering would be a good idea lessen the push toward
> >>>> mitigation.
> >>
> >>>> I am confident that President Obama will lead the US and the planet into
> >>>> a world with incentives for the development of new technologies for
> >>>> using energy more efficiently and using less fossil fuels. My personal
> >>>> carbon footprint is already going down, thanks to incentives from the
> >>>> state of New Jersey, which helped pay for the solar cells on my roof and
> >>>> require the electric company to buy renewable energy certificates from
> >>>> me, and my Prius, which I try not to drive. New Jersey is leading the
> >>>> country in such steps, including the first US offshore wind farm,
> >>>> because of lack of leadership in Washington, but that has all changed
> >>>> now.
> >>
> >>>> I know mitigation can work, and support Obama's efforts. That is why I
> >>>> do not predict that he will fail and I do not claim that we will soon
> >>>> need geoengineering. Predicting mitigation will be slow helps to slow
> >>>> it down.
> >>
> >>>> I think you will be surprised how fast China and the US start to use
> >>>> solar and wind power, following Europe's lead. And I don't think that
> >>>> is irrational.
> >>
> >>>> Alan
> >>
> >>>> Alan Robock, Professor II
> >>>> Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program
> >>>> Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction
> >>>> Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9800 x6222
> >>>> Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
> >>>> 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
> >>>> New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
> >>
> >>>> On Thu, 29 Oct 2009, Ken Caldeira wrote:
> >>>>> The "wager" was intended to be rhetorical ... but the point is made ...
> >>
> >>>>> Most people, even those who work hard to move the planet towards lower CO2
> >>>>> emissions, have a rational expectation that these emissions will go up in
> >>>>> the future.
> >>
> >>>>> Perhaps others would like to go on record here as predicting that global
> >>>>> anthropogenic CO2 emissions will diminish over the next decade. We may all
> >>>>> want this to happen, but I reckon few are as optimistic as Dan is.
> >>
> >>>>> ___________________________________________________
> >>>>> Ken Caldeira
> >>
> >>>>> Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology
> >>>>> 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
> >>
> >>>>> kcalde...@ciw.edu; kcalde...@stanford.edu
> >>>>> http://dge.stanford.edu/DGE/CIWDGE/labs/caldeiralab
> >>>>> +1 650 704 7212; fax: +1 650 462 5968
> > >
> >
>
Just to Alan's excellent reply, there is no predictable arbitrary jumps so that at just after 2°C everything goes berserk and we are alright upto then. Everything is on probabilistic ranges of many possible outcomes. It is important to recall the event like the Amazon draughts 2005-2007 where one more year of drought would have killed 40% of the forest. In 2007 there was no guarantees that the following 12 months had to be rainy once again.
Please note also the Amazon region in the UK Meteorological Office projections to warm up.
If the Amazon forest becomes a "dead-forest-in-standing" then the likelihood of it burning is ten-fold to the living trees and forest. At the World Water Week, Stockholm, August 2007, I presented a paper "Preparing the Amazon Ecosystems for the Changing Climate". One of our more severe actions was to clear fell all dead trees and bushes and heap in piles and rows, with sufficient fire breaks created in between them, to prevent the dead trees and bushes from burning and so preventing the release of upto 95 gigatonnes of CO2 back to the atmosphere if the dead vegetation is left to burn on its own.
If 95 gigatonnes of CO2 is ever allowed to enter the athmosphere from the Amazon, then we might forego all emission cut efforts and be prepared to many further runaway emissions as drying would couple with the Congo forests on the other side of the ocean.
Events like the Amazon drought has a potential to disrupt suddenly the removal of carbon dioxide and also include prospect of large positive CO2 feedbacks if inadequate action to combat forest fires and cut down died forests remain due to human inaction.
UK Meteorological Office organised the Exeter Conference where the terms Type 1 Climate Change (= gradual climate change) and the Type 2 Climate Change (= abrupt climate change) were coined. These in recognition to the tipping points which are hard, at times, all but impossible to predict as the breaking-point chance events constantly increase.
With 2°C limit it is important to recognise that this is not inclusive of any Type 2 Climate Change incidents that suddenly pours in positive feedback emissions to couple with human CO2 output. In my view in next half a century some Type 2 events will have to occur. How large, these should be compensated by the excess anthropogenic cuts to retain the projections for 2°C. But no one seems to be doing this. The mis-steps by nature, droughts, forest fires and methane releases from the permafrost will occur, but all seems to be hell-bent and focusing exclusively drinking forever the baby milk, what man is putting into air.
So far we have experienced the impacts of Type 1 (= gradual climate change), none of those of Type 2 (=abrupt climate change) and just like Alan points out, even these produce many noticeable and worrying impacts in the ecosystems. Once Type 2 Climate Change impacts become commonplace the probability of complex teleconnections interplay becomes a serious risk and the more chaotic system is harder to predict and understand.
Even Type 1 Climate Change events open up the Pandora's Box, let alone the Type 2 Climate Change. There is too little discussion about how to minimise the size of the X-Factor Box (= unforeseen or little understood climate change effects that are not foreseen or adequately recognised). There could be myriads of these coming to join the interplay.
One of my "baby" is the United Nations General Assembly investigation request UNGA 101292. The closing plenary request of the World Indigenous Nations Summit in joint session statement with the 45th United Nations' General Assembly that the warmed and wet ice sheets of the past did not melt into oblivion, but the melt water accumulated under and within ice and the sheets lost their footing on elevated grounds causing "ice sheet thrust" and sudden ice avalanche into sea causing sudden sea level jumps and the large volume on discharged ice then on the sea resulting in the severe "Dryas" coolings. 270 indigenous nations insist of having seen the sudden and permanent sea level jumps, they call "the Floods". We may think what we want about such old recollections from time immemorial and disregard these concerns entirely, but they have world wide support among the indigenous peoples some recalling sea level jumps, others seeming to recall sliding ice.
Whatever excuses there are against geoengineering all these are of very poor arguments counting the combined risks from Type 1 Climate Change (gradual climate change), Type 2 Climate Change (abrupt climate change) and X-Factor Box (unknown and little understood climatic changes) which all do exist in varying degrees and threaten the Holocene stabilities and climate driven equilibriums.
We just need trumpeting against all the alien zombies in denial of climate change risks...
Kind regards,
Albert
> Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:42:35 -0400
> From: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
> To: dan.w...@gmail.com
> CC: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [geo] Re: Arguments against geoengineering
>
> Dear Dan,
>
> "Dangerous anthropogenic inteference" is now commonly defined as 2°C
> about preindustrial global average temperatures (about 1°C above current
> levels). Certainly it is not a step function, and impacts increase with
> temperature change, and we are already experiencing some. So we need a
> lot of adaptation, too.
>
> Alan
>
> Alan Robock, Professor II
> Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program
> Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction
> Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9800 x6222
> Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
> 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
> New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
>
>
> On Fri, 30 Oct 2009, Dan Whaley wrote:
>
> >
> > Alan,
> >
> > I agree that 450 or 500 are theoretically achievable with emissions
> > reductions-- clearly. (Though either would effectively require
> > immediate and aggressive reductions from everyone, now).
> >
> > But if we're already seeing impacts we don't like, and we know the
> > impacts considerably lag the forcing, what leads us to believe these
> > are "acceptable" levels?
> >
> > Dan
> >
> > On Oct 29, 7:18 pm, Alan Robock <rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> >> Dan,
> >>
> >> Where do you think we need to be? And when? If it is 350 ppm soon, of
> >> course not. That would take massive carbon capture from the atmosphere
> >> and very rapid reductions in emissions. But if you want to stop
> >> somewhere between 450 and 500 ppm, adapt, and then gradually reduce the
> >> concentration with carbon capture, I think we can do that with carbon
> >> capture from the stacks of coal-fired plants, and rapid transition to an
> >> electric economy with solar and wind generation. It would need a
> >> substantial and regular increase in the price of carbon emissions. Not
> >> being a political scientist, I cannot predict how likely this is, not
> >> that political scientists can either, but it is certainly possible.
> >>
> >> If climate change is the greatest threat to world security, the
> >> resources now being spent on the military (and half of the scientists
> >> and the engineers in the US working for them) can certainly be
> >> redirected to this goal. We need not accept the status quo as a
> >> predictor of the future.
> >>
> >> Alan
> >>
> >> Alan Robock, Professor II
> >> Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program
> >> Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction
> >> Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9800 x6222
> >> Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
> >> 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
> >> New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
> >>
> >> On Thu, 29 Oct 2009, Dan Whaley wrote:
> >>
> >>> While I'll take the wager, I do find it extraordinary, Alan, that your
> >>> statement essentially implies that emissions reductions will get us
> >>> where we need to be. Can you explain your math?
> >>
> >>> Dan
> >>
> >>> On Oct 29, 3:14 pm, Alan Robock <rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> >>>> Dear Ken,
> >>
> >>>> I would like to accept your wager. And I would like to point out that
> >>>> claims that mitigation will be unsuccessful can be used as arguments by
> >>>> those who favor geoengineering, for whatever reason, just like claims
> >>>> that geoengineering would be a good idea lessen the push toward
> >>>> mitigation.
> >>
> >>>> I am confident that President Obama will lead the US and the planet into
> >>>> a world with incentives for the development of new technologies for
> >>>> using energy more efficiently and using less fossil fuels. My personal
> >>>> carbon footprint is already going down, thanks to incentives from the
> >>>> state of New Jersey, which helped pay for the solar cells on my roof and
> >>>> require the electric company to buy renewable energy certificates from
> >>>> me, and my Prius, which I try not to drive. New Jersey is leading the
> >>>> country in such steps, including the first US offshore wind farm,
> >>>> because of lack of leadership in Washington, but that has all changed
> >>>> now.
> >>
> >>>> I know mitigation can work, and support Obama's efforts. That is why I
> >>>> do not predict that he will fail and I do not claim that we will soon
> >>>> need geoengineering. Predicting mitigation will be slow helps to slow
> >>>> it down.
> >>
> >>>> I think you will be surprised how fast China and the US start to use
> >>>> solar and wind power, following Europe's lead. And I don't think that
> >>>> is irrational.
> >>
> >>>> Alan
> >>
> >>>> Alan Robock, Professor II
> >>>> Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program
> >>>> Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction
> >>>> Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9800 x6222
> >>>> Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
> >>>> 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
> >>>> New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
> >>
> >>>> On Thu, 29 Oct 2009, Ken Caldeira wrote:
> >>>>> The "wager" was intended to be rhetorical ... but the point is made ...
> >>
> >>>>> Most people, even those who work hard to move the planet towards lower CO2
> >>>>> emissions, have a rational expectation that these emissions will go up in
> >>>>> the future.
> >>
> >>>>> Perhaps others would like to go on record here as predicting that global
> >>>>> anthropogenic CO2 emissions will diminish over the next decade. We may all
> >>>>> want this to happen, but I reckon few are as optimistic as Dan is.
> >>
> >>>>> ___________________________________________________
> >>>>> Ken Caldeira
> >>
> >>>>> Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology
> >>>>> 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
> >>
> >>>>> kcalde...@ciw.edu; kcalde...@stanford.edu
> >>>>> http://dge.stanford.edu/DGE/CIWDGE/labs/caldeiralab
> >>>>> +1 650 704 7212; fax: +1 650 462 5968
> > >
> >
>
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