To gain some insight into the political process, see:

http://science.edgeboss.net/wmedia/science/scitech09/110509.wvx

Linked to from page:
http://science.house.gov/Publications/hearings_markups_details.aspx?N...

----------------

On another note, you may want to see Eli Kintisch's blog on the upcoming
Asilomar conference:

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/11/march-geoengine.html

November 6, 2009 March Geoengineering Confab Draws Praise, Criticism
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by Eli Kintisch

Scientists and policy experts will meet in March next year for a 5 day
meeting to hash out rules for conducting field experiments on the
controversial topic of geoengineering, *Science*Insider has learned. Styled
after the landmark 1975 Asilomar
*conference<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asilomar_Conference_on_Recombinant_DNA>
* on recombinant DNA, the conference has drawn support from top climate
scientists and environmental groups. But it also faces questions and
criticism about its openness and the backgrounds of some of the organizers.

Yesterday’s hearing<http://science.house.gov/Publications/hearings_markups_details.aspx?N...>by
the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee—the
first
by Congress on the topic—underscores the accelerating interest in
geoengineering, the deliberate tinkering with the environment to reverse
global warming. The March meeting aims to be a forum for “scientists with
expertise in climate engineering together with experts on risk management,
governance, and ethics," said marine biologist Margaret
Leinen,<http://www.oceanstewardship.com/bios/Margaret%20Leinen.pdf>president
of the Climate
Response Fund <http://climateresponsefund.org/>, a new nonprofit set up to
support geoengineering research. The Response Fund has partnered with Nobel
Prize-winning biologist Paul Berg, who organized the 1975 event at the
Asilomar conference center grounds in northern California, where the March
event will also be held.

Many scientists believe that small or medium scale field trials may be
needed to understand the risks of large-scale geoengineering projects.
"There's a very legitimate concern about whether there would be risks
associated with the research itself," said Leinen. Starting on 22 March, she
hopes to convene 150 experts to examine the risks of a variety of different
geoengineering methods, ranging from growing algae blooms at sea to sucking
carbon dioxide or dimming the sun with particles sprayed into the upper
atmosphere.

Michael MacCracken, of the Climate Institute <http://www.climate.org/> in
Washington, D.C., is leading the meeting’s independent scientific organizing
committee, which will craft a final document after the meeting. Other
organizers include ecologist Thomas Lovejoy of the Heinz
Center<http://www.heinzctr.org/index.shtml>and Steve Hamburg of the
Environmental
Defense Fund <http://www.edf.org/home.cfm> in New York City, who called the
Asilomar meeting “an important and thoughtful conversation about an urgent
issue.”

MacCracken wants federal agencies to support field experiments on various
questions. "I'd like to have a sort of checklist to be sure that best
practices are being followed," he said. "We need to have this kind of
discussion right now, while it's early." The international London
Convention<http://www.imo.org/home.asp?topic_id=1488>antidumping
treaty is working on specific rules for ocean fertilization
techniques.

Critics of the Response Fund and its conference worry about its ties to
Climos, a geoengineering startup company started in 2005 by entrepreneur Dan
Whaley <http://www.linkedin.com/in/danwhaley>, Leinen’s son. With Leinen as
its chief scientific officer, Climos
sought<http://www.climos.com/imo/Climos/Climos_Commercial_Rationale.pdf>to
perform ocean iron
fertilization<http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/03/debate-do-gobbl-1....>experiments
and sell carbon credits it could show it earned.

Facing international opposition to the idea of selling credits for the
controversial technique, the firm decided last year to morph into an ocean
logistics company, with scientists doing the ocean experiments funded by
charity, presumably through Leinen’s nonprofit, or other means. Whaley said
he helped conceive of and launch the nonprofit, introducing Leinen to its
fundraiser, Danielle Guttman. “Since then I’ve had no role,” he said of the
Response Fund. Leinen said she no longer had “any financial interest” in the
company, and Whaley agreed.

Since geoengineering involves techniques that could have global
repercussions, say experts, it’s particularly important that any discussions
about regulating the new technologies avoid the appearance of possible
commercial interests or conflicts. These issues are particularly
acute<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7262/full/461347a.html>with
commercial ocean fertilization.

"It would be better for people with less of an appearance of a conflict of
interest [to] play this role," said Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution
for Science in Stanford, California, when discussing the Response Fund’s
role. "There's a perception that you've got a fox in the henhouse—for-profit
companies or their nonprofit surrogates looking at governance of
geoengineering." Physicist David Keith of the University of Calgary in
Canada  "welcomes" the effort but called Leinen’s nonprofit “nontransparent
and appears to be closely tied to Climos, which was conceived to do ocean
fertilization for profit. While I am happy to see profit-driven startups
drive innovation, I think tying ocean fertilization to carbon credits was a
sterling example of how not to govern climate engineering.” Read Keith's
full statement here<http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/full-comment-by.html>.

___________________________________________________
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