Tiresome nomenclature squabbles

[Andrew Lockley]

Hi Geo/CDR lists, 

I say very little personally - but I feel it's time to confront a problem, which has been building up for a while. 

I'm noticing increasingly ill-tempered nomenclature egg-throwing in this community. It's affecting my work - and it's probably harming other people's work, too. I'm therefore cross-posting, in an attempt to get the problem under control.

Most particularly, the eggs are being thrown by a few select CDR folk, who refuse to cooperate with people/projects describing the field as geoengineering (or related terms). Sorry if that's blunt, but them's the facts. I'm declining to name names - but I have the receipts, if anyone needs them.

Before addressing the core argument being (incorrectly) made, here's some background on my scicomm work. This context is relevant, as the scicomm reaches broadly across this field (2k twitter followers, 10k podcast downloads, ~3k email readers).

I've always worked on SRM and CDR, in both academic publications and scicomm.

As a matter of historical fact, the CDR list (which I don't moderate) was spun out from the geoengineering Google group (which I do moderate), and as a matter of convenience the residual list focussed on SRM. This was done to manage comms in a practical way, not as some ideological schism. Plenty of people cross both lists, and I've seen no reason to rebrand.

The other information services I operate (@geoengineering1 twitter, Reviewer 2 Does Geoengineering podcast) use the same generic geoengineering branding, and have done for a decade or more. This is partly as a matter of historic consistency, and partly because the word is being used correctly - as I'll explain below. I don't therefore feel that this wording choice is any justification for people to attack me or my work.

How bad has it got? Well, I'm reliably informed that I've had my CV binned for at least 1 job because I use the word "geoengineering" to describe the field. I've recently had several people (without exception CDR types) refuse to cooperate with my scicomm work - because I use the word "geoengineering" as a convenient, dictionary-accurate, and historically-relevant way to describe my work. That's denying their work an audience, based on a squabble over historic branding. Coca-Cola doesn't even have cocaine in anymore, but people don't argue with bar staff about it. So why argue with me, when my work is much more accurately described?

People are free to use whatever words they like to describe what they do; my beef isn't with the string of related terms for the same things (geoengineering vs climate intervention; solar radiation modification vs solar radiation management; carbon removal vs CDR vs GGR; etc.). The problem I have is with the petty personal sniping and factionalism that's increasingly creeping in to the discipline, as a result.

For the avoidance of doubt: I'm not rebranding everything I do just because a few CDR fans won't play nicely with their SRM counterparts. And I'm not going to jump into a silo, just because other people think I should. 

Notwithstanding the objectionable pettiness of this behaviour, I don't believe the core argument bears any real scrutiny. So let's get to that. 

With a quick Google I have found both present and historical references to the term "geoengineering" (relatedly climate engineering/intervention) being used to encompass CDR. 

Here's the OED 

https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095848469;jsessionid=8F01D3B289E2BB2911C69F51B5050E01#:~:text=Geoengineering%20is%20the%20intentional%20large,of%20reducing%20undesired%20climatic%20...

NASEM

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/18805/climate-intervention-carbon-dioxide-removal-and-reliable-sequestration

Wikipedia 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering

Royal Society

https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/publications/2009/geoengineering-climate/

Futurelearn / Adam Smith

https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/climate-change-and-public-policy/0/steps/291219

...I could go on. 

The issue here isn't the use of one word or another, it's the daftness of people shunning opportunities/people because of the utilisation of a standard (if not ubiquitous) term to describe the discipline. 

So please, let's not have wars over words reminiscent of the kids' book "Fatipuffs and Thinnifers" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fattypuffs_and_Thinifers 

...as even the kids reading that book knew it was stupid. We have all got much more to lose than to gain from such silly squabbles. Just because we might not like words that have been used for 15y or more doesn't mean it's a valid excuse to shun people and opportunities.

Thanks for listening. And best wishes to all my geoengineering friends - including both the SRM and CDR ones. 

Andrew 

[Robert Tulip]

Andrew

 

As you note, many advocates of CDR are totally opposed to SRM.  This is partly due to the widely held view among the general public that SRM is playing God, tinkering with nature, a dangerous intervention, whereas CDR is benign. 

 

As a result of this context, some CDR proponents tactically distance themselves from SRM and the associated terminology of geoengineering.  This is either because they really believe the anti-SRM ideology, or just in order to get investment and support and engagement. 

 

Some NGOs reportedly oppose SRM because their finance departments believe supporting it would be bad for their fundraising efforts, due to widespread opposition among their donor base.  They also believe that discussing SRM confuses their single message of the need to cut emissions.

 

This situation reflects the priority of politics over science in the formation of opinion.  It means the united front on climate action is seen as including CDR, in line with IPCC acceptance, but not SRM, which was given pariah status in the last IPCC Summary For Policymakers.  The confused moral hazard ideology is a main support for this political line.

 

This hostile attitude involves a refusal to see the earth as a single unified system, an inability to consider that earth system fragility and sensitivity can only be stabilised by brightening the planet. 

 

Greta Thunberg’s recent publication, The Climate Book, contains the assertion that “all geoengineering schemes are attempts to manipulate the Earth with the same domineering mindset that got us into the climate crisis in the first place.” This quasi-religious hostility to technology commands broad support among climate activists, producing a refusal to listen to reason, despite being a recipe for social and economic and ecological collapse.

 

The philosophical and psychological and political blockages to albedo enhancement as a primary climate objective lead to highly dubious arguments, such as that accelerated emission reduction and CDR could prevent tipping points without any action on albedo.

 

It is essential to defend the concept of geoengineering, since questioning it demonstrates an inability to understand the climate problem.

 

These concerns ought to be the subject of much more discussion and debate, as they are actually central to planetary security, with significant moral implications.  Thank you for highlighting the problem.

 

Robert Tulip  

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[Michael Hayes]

What is the value of this discussion to the subject of CDR? 

So far:

1) Someone reports getting their feelings hurt.

2) We've been presented with an odd ball list of largely unsupportable assumptions and rambling personal views about CDR supporters etc.

This is not the GE group nor an emotional support group. I don't mean to be insensitive to those in need of emotional support yet this is a STEM, policy, and economic space focused upon CDR. What has been presented has nothing to do with the STEM, policy, or the economics of CDR, that I can find.

Best regards 

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[Chris Neidl]

A third view not represented in the above: those who 1. see CDR and Geo-engineering as two distinct categories, technically, and therefore believe that they deserve two separate terms, for accuracy's sake, but who also 2. acknowledge that both are required, provided that proper guardrails and regulations are established around testing and deployment. I'm in that camp. Rejecting GE because it offends one's sensibilities about "nature" or humanity's proper place within it is indefensible and based more on aesthetic and, yes, quasi-religious value judgements, not an objective assessment of what's required to solve a big problem. 

And no surprise that Greta is wrong about this.

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[Andrew Lockley]

Michael, nobody is complaining about hurt feelings. This issue at hand is the practical problems created by an attempted redefinition of established terminology - apparently to precipitate a disciplinary schism (as others have pointed out). This situation has seemingly been manufactured by a small subset of CDR supporters - apparently to disassociate themselves from SRM, despite historical, definitional and personnel links between the two fields.

While I understand the politics perfectly well, it's absurd to try to redefine dictionary words to whitewash the politics of a discipline. I'm far from the only one affected by this, hence the desire to raise the issue in public - a rare personal message, on my part. 

Let's be clear: CDR *is* geoengineering - and always has been. It's literally in the dictionary. Just because CDR *isn't* SRM, doesn't mean that it is free of the same moral hazard issues - as the overshoot scenarios attest. Any attempt to invoke piety by shunning supposedly morally-impure colleagues (or their work) is uncivil, unwarranted, and ultimately unproductive. Let he who is without moral hazard cast the first stone! 😁

My original message had two purposes

A) to offer a full, citable explanation as to why I'm *not* planning on rebranding all my scicomm to suit anyone's doublespeak - any more than Coca-Cola will rebrand, now it's got no cocaine in

B) an appeal to stop the petty politics associated with these attempts to factionalise academia.

Whether you're working on CDR or SRM, shortwave or longwave, upwelling or downwelling radiation, we're all on the same team. 

Andrew 

[Michael Hayes]

[...] My original message had two purposes

A) to offer a full, citable explanation as to why I'm *not* planning on rebranding all my scicomm to suit anyone's doublespeak - any more than Coca-Cola will rebrand, now it's got no cocaine in

B) an appeal to stop the petty politics associated with these attempts to factionalise academia. [...]

MH] 

1) Your single person 'branding' ability over such discussions should be questioned. No single person should have 'branding' rights to such a large field of study.

2) Academia has already split largely due to the early GE discussion being 'branded' as only about SAI. Your single person 'branding' of the GE subject as only being about SAI as the GE group moderator triggered the formation of a seperate CDR group. Bombarding the stratosphere with sulfur loaded artillery rounds was your 'hobby horse' for years as the GE group moderator, and the totality of the early GE discussions within that GE had to revolve around your personal 'branding' desires. Years were wasted, IMO.

Channeling expert level discussions through your personal GE 'SAI biased branding' efforts within the old GE group has now been largely made moot, the petty personal politics at this expert level of discussion are now largely over. You're free to object to my historical account and insist upon your personal 'branding' rights over climate disruption mitigation and adaptation expert discussions. Please keep it within 3 short paragraphs.

[Chris Neidl]

Charles -  my intention was not to be snide. But no one, regardless of influence, media standing, or good intentions, should get a halo on their head. We have a real problem with designating saviors and messiahs in the climate space, and it's deeply damaging to our cause. It always has been. 

I admire Greta, but you must be aware that her influence, while certainly 'huge', has not been entirely 'positive'. She's human, after all, and has a particular view of the world, technology and political economy that is very distinct, but one that is not universally or even widely held outside of a certain end of the political spectrum. Regardless of what we think about these big matters, our interest is not well served when we anchor the climate emergency to a non-climate agenda that is unpopular or alien, to various degrees, to many of the constituencies who have to come on board for progress to be made. Building a movement on a 'nature is perfect, humans are bad, capitalism sucks' narrative will always attract a passionate core of protestors, university intellectuals, and metropolitan bloggers, but will alienate mostly everyone else. If you are an activist in the trenches trying to get specific policies enacted through legislative action, this will be all too obvious. 

I believe that the worldview I'm questioning here comes with massive blindspots that obscure the very things that we know historically actually deliver change. Critiques of "techno-fixes" and "techno-optimism" actively direct our attention away from the need for innovation, discovery and investment; engender suspicion and often assume conspiracy; and elevate vague notions that correcting moral failure alone will magically produce solutions to problems. This is a dangerous fallacy, and one that is baked into the cake of the environmental imagination. It should be challenged, and no one should be spared criticism for holding it, regardless of their charisma and intentions.

For context, I have been a fulltime renewable energy and now CDR activist and project developer for 20 years, working in both the Global North and Global South on policy campaigns and projects in both global cities and last mile rural communities in India and Africa. This experience is what informs the views I'm sharing. Surely I come with my own blindspots, as we all do, but my point of view on this comes from participation and practice, not twitter. I am not a "MAGA Republican" in any way, shape or form. The impulse to suggest that anyone who has issues with the Greta Thurnburgs of the world or their prescriptions must be one, is a big part of the problem. 

On Thu, Feb 2, 2023 at 1:12 AM Charles H. Greene <ch...@cornell.edu> wrote:

Hey Chris:

Greta Thunberg has a huge and positive influence on global climate policy; snide remarks about her are not helpful (leave that to MAGA Republicans). With regard to that quote from her book, it’s not ideal but also largely true. I would change one word in it to make it spot on: "all geoengineering schemes are attempts to manipulate the Earth with the same technological mindset that got us into the climate crisis in the first place.” Unfortunately, whether any of us like it or not, it is now necessary to embrace that technological mindset, at least CDR and possibly SRM. Your time would be better spent explaining this to 20-something idealists like Greta than taking cheap shots at them.

Chuck Greene

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[Adam Wolf]

I think there is a disparity between what we as individuals think words mean, and our personal associations with them, and the use of those same words by other people with other and perhaps opposite intentions.

"Fake news" was first used by a Democrat, before it was used extensively by Republicans.

"Pepe the Frog" was first an innocuous cartoon before it became a noxious meme of white supremacists

"Woke" was a term used by some progressives about a desired set of beliefs before it was used by conservatives to disparage progressive beliefs generally 

In other words just because we as individuals coin a word doesn't mean it can't escape our control and be used in ways we don't like. I can't say "fake news" without sounding hysterical or post a Pepe the Frog cartoon or talk about how woke I am for supporting DEI endeavors. 

I found out yesterday the Industrial Minerals Association of Europe rebranded as the Essential Minerals Association, presumably because people have negative connotations with the word "Industrial". Even my favorite beer changes its packaging every couple years.

I'm not dogmatic about any terminology related to CDR or GE etc, only to say there is a larger non-technical conversation about what constitutes "nature based" or "tech based", and it is mostly linked to feelings, not facts. I personally try to stay abreast of those currents so that I can speak persuasively to the audiences I'm trying to reach.

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[Andrew Lockley]

Michael, as always, I'm very keen to avoid entering an extended discussion with you - but I'm writing to correct your false statements:

*The geoengineering list was focussed specifically on SRM only after the CDR list was established. 

*As should be obvious, I'm talking only about the branding of the services I'm personally involved in branding: Reviewer 2, the geoengineering Google group and @geoengineering1. Plainly, I don't get naming rights beyond this.

As a note of caution, anyone using the geoengineering Google group to disparage individuals or make false statements about them can expect to be blocked or banned. 

I will not reply further, and I hope you will not either. 

Andrew Lockley 

[Ken Caldeira]

Carbon dioxide removal is an activity, or a tool, and can be fully described without reference to intent.

In contrast, geoengineering involves specific intention to alter Earth's climate.  CDR is a tool that is not typically applied to this intention, but could be.

If the intention of using CDR is to avoid climate change from concurrent CO2 emissions, the intent is to prevent the alteration of climate, not to alter climate.

If the intention of using CDR is to bring atmospheric CO2 levels down below pre-industrial levels, then that application of CDR technologies might be considered geoengineering.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/CAJ3C-0645PTGZBXu3amtFweG-ad7QW-EyvicvSUD_9n2nQMQ3Q%40mail.gmail.com.

[Michael Hayes]

Andrew, the only tiresome nomenclature squabbles between the two groups seems to be at your direction and under your direct leadership as the GE moderator. You seem to be complaining about something that you yourself are doing. Removing you from the GE moderators post would likely end this manufactured issue.

Best regards 

[Robert Tulip]

Dear Michael

 

I really am surprised that you claim to be unable to see the direct relevance of this topic to CDR policy. 

 

It is very clear that albedo enhancement is essential to prevent dangerous warming.  Many CDR proponents are in denial of this basic science.  This is a political problem delaying effective action on climate change. 

 

Conversation within CDR circles and more broadly can help improve understanding of the need to integrate direct climate cooling with the slower and indirect cooling methods provided by CDR and emission reduction.  Disparaging SRM should be discouraged and challenged when it occurs. 

 

It is understandable that these distorted beliefs against SRM have gained credence, given that much literature presents unbalanced and misinformed views criticising the moral case for geoengineering, ignoring cost benefit analysis and realistic scenarios. 

 

The scientific community has a responsibility to take an evidence based approach to these sensitive complex questions.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/CABjtO1fBGTWVNACZWfEiek0ecCz1ztPvPAkrkaBwwC1nVWefWw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Michael Hayes]

Robert, SRM is not CDR, as such, SRM posts do not belong in the CDR space. Supporting work outside of the CDR space is not a function of the CDR group. That does not disparage anything or any person, it simply helps keep the work focused on CDR.

You and Andrew have obviously planned this dust up for other reasons than what is needed in the CDR field or needed even in the SRM field. What is the political end game for you and Andrew in regards to the CDR list and this most recent spasm of very public whinning?

Best regards 

 

[Wil Burns]

Dear Ken,

 

I’m curious where you found a definition of “geoengineering” that establishes the criteria you set forth here. Here’s a couple of mainstream ones:

 

• Geoengineering is the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s natural systems to counteract climate change.

Oxford Geoengineering Programme

 

• Attempted large scale human control of either biogeochemical cycles or the climate itself.

Robert G. Watts,  Engineering Response to Global Climate Change (1997)

 

 

Under both of these definitions, I think CDR fits under this rubric:

 

1. Under the Oxford definition, CDR is: 1. A large-scale intervention (or certain can be in terms of the scales society now is contemplating), and 2. Seeks to counteract the impacts of climate change that are inevitable should atmospheric concentrations continue to rise;
2. Under the Watts definition: 1. Many CDR approaches will exert a profound impact on biogeochemical cycles (kind of the quintessential definition, for example of those that rely on photosynthesis to effectuate sequestration, see: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter06_FINAL.pdf;) and 2. CDR is intended to “control” the climate in terms of ensuring radiative forcing is mediated.
   
   

I get why CDR folks worry about the “g word,” but I don’t buy the distinction you’re making, Ken, based on credible definitions that have been promulgated to date.

 

wil

 

 

 

WIL BURNS Co-Director, Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy American University   Visiting Professor, Environmental Policy & Culture Program, Northwestern University   Email: wbu...@american.edu Mobile: 312.550.3079 https://www.american.edu/sis/centers/carbon-removal/   Want to schedule a call? Click on one of the following scheduling links:  60-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/phone-call 30-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30min 15-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/15min 60-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60-minute-conference-call 30-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-group 60-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60min 30-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-zoom-call   Follow us:

 

 

From: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Ken Caldeira
Sent: Thursday, February 2, 2023 11:05 AM
To: Andrew Lockley <andrew....@gmail.com>
Cc: Michael Hayes <electro...@gmail.com>; Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com <CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com> <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [CDR] Tiresome nomenclature squabbles

 

Carbon dioxide removal is an activity, or a tool, and can be fully described without reference to intent.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/CAKNUXC0-jt%2B41ORwCqD4ZEXfO2YLWiqPb5JD_kM%3Du3cMr2zemA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Seth Miller]

I will shill for a version of Ken’s distinction of geoengineering as an activity that requires an intent to change the earth’s climate. 

We scientists and engineers tend to define terms technically, and this is the right thing to do when we ask each other to make technical decisions. Which technology will have the largest impact for the least cost? It’s a technical question, and we try to estimate costs and impacts and risks quantitatively, and 

The public will tend to define things morally, which is probably the right thing to do for public policy. The public has an intuition - which is technically pretty sound - that meddling in complex systems often elicits large, unexpected results. They frame this in moral terms (“Playing God”) that don’t resonate with scientists, but honestly their inherent distrust of our ability to cleanly engineer complexity has merit.

In my view, CDR is seen as ‘morally acceptable’ because it is perceived as reversing processes with the minimum possible deviation from their original path. The good activity (CDR/CCS) isn’t exactly the opposite of the bad one (extracting and burning fossil fuels), but it’s pretty close. There is minimal ‘change’, the word I underlined in Ken’s definition, and the complexity of the intervention is low so the moral risks are small. By contrast, marine arctic brightening or OIF or aerosol injection have a longer distance from the original activity of burning carbon. Substantial change is required, the complexity is high, so the moral risks are perceived as high.

Technical definitions do a different job than moral ones, and we should not confuse the two simply because they both contain the word ‘definition’. It’s useful to call on the old saying that you can’t logic a person out of a belief that they didn’t logic themselves into! I am skeptical that we will ever move the public to embrace a technical definition as a replacement for a moral, in this or any other field. They are each aides to a different type of thinking.

To be clear, the public’s moral definition is failing them because the planet is faced with a unique situation where the default moral choice (inaction) is riskier than just about any action, and therefore should not be considered moral anymore. This is why I think Peter’s framing of ‘climate restoration’ as a public goal is genius. It re-defines morality at such a great distance from today that small, conservative steps should be seen as immoral. 

Seth

P.S. Back to Andrew’s original point: We scientists are logic-ing our way through this morass and should be more responsible about getting terms right. Instead, we often will sprinkle a little technical jargon in on top of a little moral jargon and see if that’s enough to position us for scarce funding. This is indeed bad, and my intuition is that this is the behavior that is rubbing Andrew wrong. 

I don’t have a good way to stop it any more than I have a good way to stop bullshitting in any endeavor. I’ll just offer my perspective that they problem is not that people are using logically wrong definitions, but that they are mixing the moral definitions with technical ones because this allows them to achieve communications ‘victory’, at the expense of communications clarity.

-------

Seth Miller, Ph.D.

www.linkedin.com/in/sethmiller2

Check my blog at: perspicacity.xyz

On Feb 3, 2023, at 1:10 AM, Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org> wrote:

Dear Ken,

 

I’m curious where you found a definition of “geoengineering” that establishes the criteria you set forth here. Here’s a couple of mainstream ones:

 

• Geoengineering is the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s natural systems to counteract climate change.

Oxford Geoengineering Programme

 

• Attempted large scale human control of either biogeochemical cycles or the climate itself.

Robert G. Watts,  Engineering Response to Global Climate Change (1997)

 

 

Under both of these definitions, I think CDR fits under this rubric:

 

1. Under the Oxford definition, CDR is: 1. A large-scale intervention (or certain can be in terms of the scales society now is contemplating), and 2. Seeks to counteract the impacts of climate change that are inevitable should atmospheric concentrations continue to rise;
2. Under the Watts definition: 1. Many CDR approaches will exert a profound impact on biogeochemical cycles (kind of the quintessential definition, for example of those that rely on photosynthesis to effectuate sequestration, see: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter06_FINAL.pdf;) and 2. CDR is intended to “control” the climate in terms of ensuring radiative forcing is mediated.
   
   

I get why CDR folks worry about the “g word,” but I don’t buy the distinction you’re making, Ken, based on credible definitions that have been promulgated to date. 

 

wil

 

 

 

<image001.jpg>

WIL BURNS Co-Director, Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy American University   Visiting Professor, Environmental Policy & Culture Program, Northwestern University   Email: wbu...@american.edu Mobile: 312.550.3079 https://www.american.edu/sis/centers/carbon-removal/   Want to schedule a call? Click on one of the following scheduling links:  60-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/phone-call 30-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30min 15-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/15min 60-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60-minute-conference-call 30-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-group 60-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60min 30-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-zoom-call

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[Michael Hayes]

Seagrass Meadow CDR v SAI, the Informal Fallacy of the GE/CDR Definition(s)

The current definitions likely represent an Informal Fallacy at this time due to our better understanding of the importance of context issues.

Seagrass meadows are an important marine environment and the total C sequestration ability directly associated with the plant is tiny compared with planetary C cycle, yet some prefer to focus upon that form of mCDR as it offers a broad overall benefit to the Ocean, and thus to us. Seagrass meadows CDR work clearly is not a form of GE itself, yet a large basket of other mCDR projects likely can reach GtC/y scale and mCDRs are relatively low risk. The context of mCDR work is rather broad.

Conversely, unlike all other form of mitigation and adaptation, SAI has the real ability to trigger hot wars, heat the polar regions, erode the O3 layer etc. Most agree it is a radical last ditch effort that should never be used, and thus the context of SAI is extremely narrow.

A new definition of GE that reflects the importance of context is likely needed. 

[Robert Chris]

Ken is clearly correct to state that CDR is a tool and can be described without reference to its intent.  In that respect it's much a gun, a cell phone, morphine, gasoline and any number of other tools that can be put to a range of different uses.  Whether a specific use is morally acceptable is a normative question.  Ken is wrong, however, to state that any tool can be fully described without reference to its intended use.

Perhaps the question for those moderating the CDR Google Group is whether they have any interest in considering the uses to which CDR is put.  In answering that question they might want to reflect on the moral obligations that scientists have to humanity.  That's an issue that the lawyers and philosophers in this group will be very familiar with.

I look forward to some clarity here.

Regards

Robert

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[Douglas MacMartin]

Count me as one of those who sees no value (or rather negative value) in any term that lumps CDR with SRM.  Though of course that’s what the geoengineering term originally did, and it seems too late to redefine it, so maybe better to just retire it completely.  “Solar geoengineering” is tolerable, but seems unnecessary cumbersome to have to modify a term that doesn’t need to exist, but “geoengineering” without a modifier serves no purpose.

 

But please, it’s ok to know nothing about a subject, but if you do, please don’t just make stuff up.

“SAI has the real ability to … heat the polar regions”

Sure, and seagrass explodes on contact and sprays everyone with boiling lava.  Seriously, I think we can manage a more informed discussion about the role of individual tools that might reduce some climate risks depending on how they get used.

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[Robert Chris]

I'm getting very confused.  Perhaps naively, I've always thought that the purpose (i.e. intent) of CDR, GGR and AE (albedo enhancement, my newly preferred term to SRM) was to head off a climate crisis caused by global warming caused by the Earth Energy Imbalance at the TOA.  That's why, as a bundle, they were originally grouped under the heading 'geoengineering'.  To the extent that any of them are delivered by tools whose intent is not to intervene in global warming, they are not geoengineering.  But to the extent that they are not geoengineering, they're of no interest to me because they can't intervene to help in averting the impending climate crisis.  For example, CDR solely for the purpose of EOR is of zero interest to me unless it's a test bed for scaling CDR to become climatically significant (and even then I'm being more than a little indulgent).

The problem here is that it seems increasingly that 'geoengineering' is identified with SRM and SRM has become almost synonymous with SAI and everyone loves to hate SAI and therefore, by extension, everyone loves to hate SRM and 'geoengineering'.  And because everyone hates geoengineering, everyone's worried that CDR/GGR will be harmed by any association with it.  When I say 'everyone', I'm referring to everyone who is not adequately versed in the science.  This is fundamentally a problem of communication between scientists and the rest.  And that is important for the following reason.

It is now almost certain that warming will exceed 2degC well before 2050, even if we got to net zero emissions next week.  There is no realistic possibility that emissions are going to fall dramatically anytime soon, indeed, it's not even clear when they'll peak.  Add to this, insights around the imminence of cascading tipping points and it becomes clear that given the scale of risk (extremely high negative impacts with reasonable likelihood) a prudent response requires short-term control of the temperature anomaly.  That cannot be delivered by any GHG-centred policy and necessitates AE at scale and urgently. (References to support this para are Hansen et al Warming in the Pipeline and Armstrong-McKay et al on the current assessment of where we're at with tipping points.  Tim Lenton's recent presentation to the NAS tipping point workshop is also worth the 23 minutes it lasts - it is based on the Armstrong-McKay paper of which he and Johan Rockstrom were co-authors.  These messages are reinforced by this posting from Carbon Brief from last September and Steffen et al from 2018.)

That does not mean that CDR/GGR are not also necessary.  It means that if we don't start very soon doing some serious cooling (albedo enhancement) to stop, and even reverse, the surface temperature rise, the younger of those amongst us, and our children and grandchildren will be lucky to be around to enjoy the benefits from the reduced GHGs.

So rather than devote our time to arguing about whether CDR and GGR should be associated with geoengineering, perhaps we should focus on how we bring the simple message in the previous paragraph to the wider world.

I'll leave it to the moderators of the CDR Google Group to work out how to position the group for the task ahead.

Regards

Robert

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[Robert Chris]

I hit the Send button a moment too soon.  I should have added that I would be delighted if those who know a lot more about the climate science than I do can convince me that I have seriously misinterpreted the messages from the sources I referred to.

Regards

Robert

[Wil Burns]

I think you’re absolutely correct, Robert, which is why I find Ken’s definition, which again, I don’t see in any of the mainstream literature, as strained. I don’t see the problem in acknowledging that CDR approaches are “geoengineering.” What I advocate is a case-by-case assessment of the effectiveness, and potential risk, of each approach. Have the courage to acknowledge that you believe that large-scale interventions to address climate change are necessary, and defend them. Don’t hide behind issues such as “intent;” it’s too cute by half. wil

[Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas]

Historically, our global culture has defined strategies that remove contaminants from the environment so we can be safe as pollution treatment. I don't get the association with geoengineering and do not support it for this and the other reasons of perception already stated.

Geeze, Austin is a mess. When you hear about climate change and this ice event, remember the stall. This event was not unprecedented, but as bad as anything in recent memory of our old timers. We had smaller events that created similar tree carnage in the area north of Austin in 1998, and south in 1996. Arctic amplification can create slower moving storms West to East, and this prolongs the enhanced weather extremes caused by warming. Not all systems are slowed, but catastrophes occur because of extremes and when systems slow the risks of catastrophe increases. But it doesn't take an Einstein to see that these events are happening more frequently. Harvey and Sandy were both stalls. The Winter Storm Uri ice bomb in Austin in 2021 was a stall.

B

Bruce Melton PE
Director, Climate Change Now Initiative, 501c3
President, Melton Engineering Services Austin
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[Wil Burns]

Smokestack scrubber technology is fundamentally different than many of the kind of interventions we’re talking about, including large-scale afforestation, which has been proven to potentially fundamentally alter regional hydrological regimes, dramatically changing alkalinity levels (including aragonite profiles) in the case of ocean enhanced alkalinity, or potentially exerting profound biogeochemical changes associated with ocean upwelling or downwelling. I think those are no less “interventionist” than many SRM approaches, and certainly not merely “ameliorative” in the way that we think of cleaning up a stream or scrubbing out some lead from effluents. We should admit as such, and defend the exigency of doing so. And these are, as Watson and Oxford’s definitions suggested, designed to have impacts on the world’s climate.

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[Jelle Bijma]

I tried to stay out of this and managed for a long time but this discussion is not very helpful for why we're all in this business in the first place.

I assume that all of us agree that with regard to CDR, we're talking about only 10% of the solution and that 90% is CO2 mitigation.

I have to believe that we will manage the latter, but

• how sure are we that CDR will be fast enough to do the job?
• will CDR be (fast) enough to stop permafrost & methane clathrates hitting the fan?
• what about the other tipping points in the Earth system? Do we actually know when they will be triggered?
  
• What will happen when the Thwaites glacier will collapse?
• I have learned that most anticipated changes go (much) faster than previously assumed.
• What about our responsibility towards those who are already suffering much more from climate change than us?
  

Therefore, is it so absurd to believe that we may need SRM to cool the planet directly, or at least for a transition period?

If so, it makes sense that we should at least be prepared and understand how it could help.....

--
all the best,
Jelle

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[Michael Hayes]

No one in the mitigation and adaptation field should have to spend a second on explaining why their work is different than Dr Keith's SAI GE concept. Using the word GE will trigger the need to do so as GE is now synonymous with SAI.

Andrew likely missed out on a job over the very real and dominate perception that SAI is what GE primarily is, and he likely was not given a second to explain that his offered services had nothing to do with SAI. Expand that to every CDR/MCB project and nothing gets done.

Hobbling such a broad context effort that CDR represents, and even MCB as an SRM, with SAI has little logic or value beyond having a brief tidy scale-based definition to reference to. The risk and reward ballance of linking any work to Dr Keith's work favors only Dr Keith's work. This issue is not about CDR being a form of GE or not, nor about issues with MCB as a SRM, this is not a CDR/SRM divide, it's about separation of all other works from the highly controversial, rather toxic subject matter, of Dr Keith's work. 

[Greg Rau]

Thanks all for your thoughts on this.  Clearly a nerve was struck. At the risk of making this even more "tiresome", my thoughts are that geoengineering is no longer a useful term, for reasons detailed by the NAS in their 2015 reports on "Climate Intevention" -  one for SRM and one of CDR.  If you really need an umbrella term, how about "Climate Intervention"? In any case, geoengineering is no long appropriate for classifying CDR, IMHO. This was one of the reasons Ken and I spun off the CDR list from the GE list. If the SRM/SAI/MCB crowd want to still use GE, that's their business. I'm still a member of that list, and while not a practitioner, I follow developments and support research in that area because we are likely going to need it. Above all, let's be respectful when commenting on/criticizing others' ideas for saving the world.

Thanks,

Greg

Moderator

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[David Hawkins]

I won't weigh in on the usefulness of the term "geo-engineering" or what its scope should be.  

But here is an interesting usage from a 1962 address to the AGU by LLoyd Berkner:

"Intimately related to the growth of basic geoscience and strongly interacting with it has been the development of applied geoscience, which might properly be called geo-engineering. I distinguish these since the science relates to the observation, classification, and generalization of natural phenomena into natural law in order to predict events in terms of precedent and definable causes; whereas engineering involves the employment of the knowledge of science for human benefit, welfare, and necessity. Originating from the studies of geology, geo-engineering first turned to the identification of commercially recoverable fuels, metals, and chemicals from the Earth. But as the geosciences developed, a hundred new applications emerged. Meteorological forecasting, exploration geophysics, radiowave transmission, atmospheric ballistics, sonic probing with sonar—a wide variety of applications of great human value have become essential to civilization."

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/TR043i002p00159

Perhaps Marchetti was thinking of this talk when he titled his 1977 paper "On geoengineering and the CO2 problem."

I wonder why Kellogg and Scheider did not use the term when discussing prospects for intentional modification of the climate in their 1974 paper "Climate Stabilization: For Better or for Worse," 

"As we mentioned above, certain aerosol

particles have a tendency to cool

the earth on the average, and when

they are injected into the stratosphere

they remain there for several years and

have a more prolonged cooling effect

at the surface. Thus, if we were concerned

about a general rise in temperature

due to carbon dioxide and thermal

pollution, why not inject enough of the

right kind of particles into the stratosphere

to counteract the warming? Perhaps

a fleet of supersonic transports

would help here, since they could create

a kind of "stratospheric smog" at about

the right level (6, 36)."

Science, vol. 186, No. 4170

(Steve Schneider attended the 2010 Asilomar Climate Engineering conference just months before his tragic death.) 

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[James Butler - NOAA Affiliate]

Nicely stated, Ken,

Jim

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[Wil Burns]

These distinctions that you attempt to make here appear to be an effort to liberate the CDR community from admitting that what its advocating may have, and is intended to have, profound biogeochemical and climatic impacts. Virtually all of these approaches, indeed, involve substantial “meddling” in the system that makes the distinction with SRM seem highly questionable. You admit so much in the context of OIF, which is a CDR option. However, it doesn’t stop there. Recent research also indicates that large-scale afforestation can fundamentally alter hydrological regimes at the regional level, which is hardly “minimal” intervention or one with “minimum” moral considerations. See: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=a01ee20d34deff361ae78b312c2a292bd62f4d9a, as well as recent research on the impacts of the “green wall” in Africa. Research on the potential impacts of enhancing alkalinity into ocean ecosystems could also profoundly alter biogeochemical cycles; indeed, again, it’s the INTENT of those who do so. Ocean upwelling, as Oschlies, et al., have pointed out, could pose the specter of a “termination effect” similar to what opponents of SRM often point to.

And seeking to “return” back to a previous era in ocean ecosystems that have adapted to different regimes, and evolved as such, is not necessarily benign, or “minor” as a form of intervention. If we believe in the necessity of CDR, let’s be willing to admit that its substantial intervention in the climatic system, and defend it as such. Again, I return to these definitions below and ask how one can plausibly argue that CDR doesn’t fit easily within each.

 

Geoengineering is the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s natural systems to counteract climate change.

Oxford Geoengineering Programme (2019)

 

Attempted large scale human control of either biogeochemical cycles or the climate itself.

Robert G. Watts,  Engineering Response to Global Climate Change (1997)

 

 

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From: Seth Miller <setha...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, February 3, 2023 4:01 AM
To: Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org>

[Seth Miller]

Will,

I don’t want to beat this into submission, but I thought it was worthwhile to respond to a couple points. You write:

These distinctions that you attempt to make here appear to be an effort to liberate the CDR community from admitting that what its advocating may have, and is intended to have, profound biogeochemical and climatic impacts.

I disagree!  I am not trying to deny that CDR has climatic impact. I am simply saying that the general public - which should be expanded to include many scientists who are not specifically researching global climate for a living - does not distinguish geoengineering this way when they are making practical decisions.

As an example, in the US the federal government and the state of California are both opening planning on giving billions of dollars in CDR tax credits to oil companies, a group of people who are not exactly known for their climate stewardship. Meanwhile, in Mexico a startup yahoo buys a balloon on Amazon and releases a couple of grams of combusted sulfur into the atmosphere and causes an international incident. 

Society had very different reactions to these activities, even though both fit your Oxford Geoengineering Program definition of geoengineering:[1]

Geoengineering is the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s natural systems to counteract climate change.

This is a climate scientist’s definition. It serves those whose job is to map how climate systems interact. By this definition, any intervention with the intent to scale to global climate impact should be fair game,[2], so that the scientists can study the potential implications ahead of the actual event. This definition allows scientists to do more comprehensive work, and for that use I totally support it.

But the public has more interest in geoengineering than studying it. Stuff is happening in real time, on the ground, and we have to figure out whether to fund these activities or slow walk them. And for that purpose, it does not help to lump CDR in with startup bros. The public needs a word that recognizes their similarities but distinguishes the two.

Scientists don’t have that word, so naturally the pubic appropriates the word that is available (geoengineering) and twists it to serve their own purposes. IMHO, the sis not a bad procedure. I’d like the public to be able to engage in these conversations, and I am not going to get mad at them when they try, even if they mess things up a bit.

A productive response to the public when they do this would not be “stop mucking with my words”, but instead, “what do you mean when you use the word ‘geoengineering’”? They probably honestly don’t know, but I can offer at least three logically consistent answers, none of which come from Oxford, but all of which have plausibly equal merit:

• An NGO or religious organization's definition. We are stewards of the earth. Activities that attempt to reverse climate damage by reversing the direct causes of that damage are not geoengineering, whereas activities that attempt to reverse climate damage by introducing a new mechanism are geoengineering. In this, CDR and afforestation are not geoengineering, whereas AI and liming the ocean are.
  
  
• An engineers definition: We implement. Activities that attempt to reverse climate change that can be turned off and/or reversed themselves in case of error are not geoengineering, whereas activities that release particles into the ocean, land, or atmosphere with no practical means for retrieval are geonengineering. Again CDR would be considered ’not geoengineering’, whereas AI would.
  
  
• A policymakers definition: We define subsidies and regulations. An activity that could be used to reverse climate change at the large scale does not become geoengineering until it reaches a scale that matters globally (say, 1% of deployment scale). By that logic, biochar is not geoengineering in its current market structure, but if we created a global program to convert crops to char, then biochar becomes geoengineering. 

This diversity interferes with communication among scientists, because now we have to be aware that others might use the same words as us and not mean the same thing. But look what we get in return! People care about the work!

We don’t want uniformity of perspective, a One Definition that Rules Them All. We want to engage the wild diversity of the planet on this, and that means listening to the ‘misuse’ of the term geoengineering to understand the perspective of the users. (It also means that some of those users will be engaging in bad faith. I don’t have a good solution there, much as I don’t have a good suggestion for handling sociopaths in any field.)

Bottom line: We can show some empathy here, “yes and” people instead of telling them “no but”, and we sometimes discover that they are not simply misunderstanding what is important, but instead have something constructive to offer from their own perspective.

Thanks for listening! I’ll sit back down now.

Best,

Seth

[1] Caveat: This assumes the aforementioned yahoo is to be taken seriously that he wants to scale aerosol injection. If he is just trying to raise investment dollars, he does not meet the Oxford definition because he lacks intent.

[2] In a previous email you said that intent should not be part of the definition, but the word “deliberate” from the Oxford definition belies this. I won’t go into this further here.

Virtually all of these approaches, indeed, involve substantial “meddling” in the system that makes the distinction with SRM seem highly questionable. You admit so much in the context of OIF, which is a CDR option. However, it doesn’t stop there. Recent research also indicates that large-scale afforestation can fundamentally alter hydrological regimes at the regional level, which is hardly “minimal” intervention or one with “minimum” moral considerations. See: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=a01ee20d34deff361ae78b312c2a292bd62f4d9a, as well as recent research on the impacts of the “green wall” in Africa. Research on the potential impacts of enhancing alkalinity into ocean ecosystems could also profoundly alter biogeochemical cycles; indeed, again, it’s the INTENT of those who do so. Ocean upwelling, as Oschlies, et al., have pointed out, could pose the specter of a “termination effect” similar to what opponents of SRM often point to.

And seeking to “return” back to a previous era in ocean ecosystems that have adapted to different regimes, and evolved as such, is not necessarily benign, or “minor” as a form of intervention. If we believe in the necessity of CDR, let’s be willing to admit that its substantial intervention in the climatic system, and defend it as such. Again, I return to these definitions below and ask how one can plausibly argue that CDR doesn’t fit easily within each.

 

Geoengineering is the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s natural systems to counteract climate change.

Oxford Geoengineering Programme (2019)

 

Attempted large scale human control of either biogeochemical cycles or the climate itself.

Robert G. Watts,  Engineering Response to Global Climate Change (1997)

 

 

<image001.jpg>

I will shill for a version of Ken’s distinction of geoengineering as an activity that requires an intent to changethe earth’s climate. 

[Oliver Morton]

Late to this, but as I am working on something which uses geoengineering to cover both solar and carbon geoengineering, a word to those eg Doug who see no value in doing so. 

For me there is value in a term which covers "action that changes the climate impact of cumulative carbon dioxide emissions to date" and that is the crucial thing which solar and carbon geoengineering have in common. It is also why the moral hazard they pose is similar; by reducing the impact of cumulative emissions to date they produce something which looks like space for further emissions that was not there before. 

Ken's idea/definition is an interesting one, which I shall think about more. But it seems a little odd. Imagine a world with 2GtC emissions and 2GtC negative emissions.  Not a geoengineered world, if I read Ken right. But if emissions drop and negative emissions remain the same it becomes a geoengineered world; if it is not to be geoengineered the negative emissions have to be actively controlled so that they balance the positive. I am not saying that the idea that constant CDR *is* geoengineering but responsive CDR *is not* makes no sense, but it is a pretty subtle idea...

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Oliver Morton
Senior Editor, Essays, Briefings and Technology Quarterlies
The Economist

+44 20 7830 7041

My 2019 book, "The Moon: A History for the Future", was listed as a science book of the year by the London Times. You can read more about it here.

My previous book, "The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change The World" was longlisted for the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize and shortlisted for the 2016 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize. 

All my books are available from Amazon UK|US, and of course elsewhere

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[Wil Burns]

Thanks, I concur on all accords. Wil

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From: Oliver Morton <oliver...@economist.com>
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2023 8:29:29 AM
To: Seth Miller <setha...@gmail.com>
Cc: Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org>; Ken Caldeira <kcal...@carnegiescience.edu>; Andrew Lockley <andrew....@gmail.com>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com <CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com> <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Douglas MacMartin <dgm...@cornell.edu>

[Ken Caldeira]

I think the main problem is not with what words like "geoengineering" denote, but rather with what they connote.

The discussion of responses to climate challenges has a political component, and therefore people try to use words that produce an emotional response that suits their political perspective.

We see this with people using words like "renewable" and "green" to refer to any technology they like, while staunchly refusing to apply those words to technologies that they don't like but have similar properties.

(In other domains, we have seen this clearly in the United States when estate taxes were reframed as "death taxes" and the right to force someone to carry a pregnancy to birth was reframed as "right to life".)

The primary problem with the word "geoengineering" (in the climate context) is that it has historically been used pejoratively, with people arguing that the term "geoengineering" does not apply to technologies and approaches that they favor, but does apply to technologies and approaches that they disfavor.

Were I benevolent dictator of the universe, I would remove words that are often used primarily for their emotive content ("renewable", "green", "geoengineering") from the lexicon of technical discussion.

Given that I am not benevolent dictator of the universe, how do we move forward?

[Jim Baird]

We all would like to know the answer to the question of how we move forward is Ken.

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[Wil Burns]

Well, that’s a different consideration, but I don’t think you address that issue by advancing definitions that belie the reality of what we’re attempting to do in terms of large-scale deployment of CDR. In fact, one of the indictments that skeptics of CDR often level is that we’re trying to engage in manipulation by using different terms. I think it’s more honest to acknowledge that CDR is geoengineering, and distinguish it from SRM on axes e.g. reversibility, scope of impacts, ability to control, social license to operate. I look forward to seeing what Oliver comes up with! wil

 

 

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[Michael Hayes]

Ken, et al.

A 'Trans-GE' lexicon would seem to be the easiest transition from where the issue now stands. Subtracting CDR from GE is likely not possible, yet an easy distinction would likely help most concerns.

A Trans-GE method might recognize, among other things, the need for avoidance of political influences on the STEM, civil sociatal issues having peer standing with the STEM decisions, and a near-term need to employ as many internationally acceptable yet well coordinated STEM missions as possible.

All of the above is implied in most GE/CDR level discussions and definitions yet are not necessarily spelled out in most definitions or, as a whole, in most GE level discussions.

STEM options for large scale CDR/cooling operations, or trans discipline systems level efforts, are not in short supply, coordinated international policy and economic counsels needed to get projects deployed at scale are. A Trans-GE governance and economic protocol white paper can likely be worked out by the end of the month just within this (Trans-GE) CDR list.

Best regards 

[Hawkins, David]

It strikes me that large-scale human activity designed and intended to increase  biological carbon stocks fits pretty well in the ambit of geo-engineering (recognizing that some amount of this activity is intended to restore previously depleted stocks; preventing additional depletion is emission avoidance and not removal).  Practiced at scale, biological CDR will require massive human activities on the landscape to enhance and maintain the carbon uptake potential of the landscape (and the oceans).  

That said, the differences between CDR and SRM are so large and fundamental that it does seem to interfere with lay understanding of these topics to put them under one label in communications aimed at the general public.  Rather like labeling food as an "energy resource."

David

---

From: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org>
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2023 12:42 PM
To: Ken Caldeira <kcal...@carnegiescience.edu>

Cc: Oliver Morton <oliver...@economist.com>; Seth Miller <setha...@gmail.com>; Andrew Lockley <andrew....@gmail.com>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com <CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com> <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Douglas MacMartin <dgm...@cornell.edu>

Subject: RE: [CDR] Tiresome nomenclature squabbles

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/BL0PR04MB47056275C3D8D28799C24115A4DD9%40BL0PR04MB4705.namprd04.prod.outlook.com.

 

[Jim Baird]

Al, seeing  as  the Small Island Developing States, the canary in the climate coalmine, representing 32 small islands that control about 20 percent of the ocean’s surface, the SIDS opinion with respect to Geoengineering, Solar Radiation Management and/or Carbon Dioxide Removal would be highly instructive.

 

Thanks

 

From: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Wil Burns

Sent: February 13, 2023 9:42 AM
To: Ken Caldeira <kcal...@carnegiescience.edu>
Cc: Oliver Morton <oliver...@economist.com>; Seth Miller <setha...@gmail.com>; Andrew Lockley <andrew....@gmail.com>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com <CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com> <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Douglas MacMartin <dgm...@cornell.edu>

Subject: RE: [CDR] Tiresome nomenclature squabbles

 

Well, that’s a different consideration, but I don’t think you address that issue by advancing definitions that belie the reality of what we’re attempting to do in terms of large-scale deployment of CDR. In fact, one of the indictments that skeptics of CDR often level is that we’re trying to engage in manipulation by using different terms. I think it’s more honest to acknowledge that CDR is geoengineering, and distinguish it from SRM on axes e.g. reversibility, scope of impacts, ability to control, social license to operate. I look forward to seeing what Oliver comes up with! wil

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/BL0PR04MB47056275C3D8D28799C24115A4DD9%40BL0PR04MB4705.namprd04.prod.outlook.com.

[Greg Rau]

Will, Why is geoengineering preferred over climate intervention as the overarching clasification? To quote the NAS:

"The committee’s very different posture concerning the currently known risks of carbon dioxide removal as compared with albedo modification was a primary motivation for separating these climate engineering topics into two separate volumes.

Terminology is very important in discussing these topics. “Geoengineering” is associated with a broad range of activities beyond climate (e.g., geological engineering), and even “climate engineering” implies a greater level of precision and control than might be possible. The committee concluded that “climate intervention,” with its connotation of “an action intended to improve a situation,” most accurately describes the strategies covered in these two volumes. Furthermore, the committee chose to avoid the commonly used term of “solar radiation management” in favor of the more physically descriptive term “albedo modification” to describe a subset of such techniques that seek to enhance the reflectivity of the planet to cool the global temperature. Other related methods that modify the emission of infrared energy to space to cool the planet are also discussed in the second volume."
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/18988.

Greg

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/BL0PR04MB47056275C3D8D28799C24115A4DD9%40BL0PR04MB4705.namprd04.prod.outlook.com.

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Senior Research Scientist
Institute of Marine Sciences
Univer. California, Santa Cruz
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Greg_Rau
Co-founder and manager, the Carbon Dioxide Removal Google group
Co-founder and CTO, Planetary Technologies, Inc.
510 582 5578

510 363 1519 c

[Wil Burns]

I’m not sure why folks want to be associated with a term like “climate intervention,” which is touted here as a better term because it acknowledges that we might not be able to control said interventions, or do them very precisely, but OK 😊 wil

[Wil Burns]

I find the term “climate intervention” to be extremely expansive, so it tell us very little at the end of the day. Isn’t renewable energy a form of “climate intervention” at the end of the day, for example?

 

 

WIL BURNS Co-Director, Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy American University   Visiting Professor, Environmental Policy & Culture Program, Northwestern University   Email: wbu...@american.edu Mobile: 312.550.3079 https://www.american.edu/sis/centers/carbon-removal/   Want to schedule a call? Click on one of the following scheduling links: 60-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/phone-call 30-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30min 15-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/15min 60-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60-minute-conference-call 30-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-group 60-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60min 30-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-zoom-call   Follow us:

 

 

From: Greg Rau <gr...@ucsc.edu>

Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2023 4:24 PM

[Douglas MacMartin]

As I’ve pointed out before, I’m still baffled as to who came up with this strange idea that the term “engineering” implies greater precision than would be possible with SRM, for example.  Is that because people think if it’s engineering we’re supposed to know every last detail to the 10^th decimal point or something, or because they think we wouldn’t have the foggiest clue what might happen if, say, aerosols were released into the stratosphere?  Reality is of course somewhere in between those extremes, just as it is for anything engineered. 

 

So complain about the “geo” prefix because that means land and solid earth, or complain if you will that CDR and SRM don’t have much in common, but there’s no reason to complain about the “engineering” part.  I really fail to see the advantage in going from one term, with all its issues, that people are at least used to, in favour of another that isn’t any clearer as to what it means.  Figuring that a term has baggage and negative connotations isn’t a reason to change terminology; people will see through that in a heartbeat.  Or change to words that at least are crystal clear, like carbon dioxide removal and sunlight reflection methods.

 

d

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/BL0PR04MB47056B364054016DA6656EEAA4A29%40BL0PR04MB4705.namprd04.prod.outlook.com.

[Wil Burns]

Amen.

Get Outlook for iOS

---

From: Douglas MacMartin <dgm...@cornell.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2023 7:06:26 PM
To: Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org>; Greg Rau <gr...@ucsc.edu>

[Dan Miller]

How about “Climate Protection”?  Conveys a clear, simple, positive message.

"What are you working on?”

“Climate protection technologies”

Dan

On Feb 14, 2023, at 7:51 PM, Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org> wrote:

Amen.

Get Outlook for iOS

---

From: Douglas MacMartin <dgm...@cornell.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2023 7:06:26 PM
To: Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org>; Greg Rau <gr...@ucsc.edu>
Cc: Ken Caldeira <kcal...@carnegiescience.edu>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com <CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com> <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: [CDR] Tiresome nomenclature squabbles

 

As I’ve pointed out before, I’m still baffled as to who came up with this strange idea that the term “engineering” implies greater precision than would be possible with SRM, for example.  Is that because people think if it’s engineering we’re supposed to know every last detail to the 10^th decimal point or something, or because they think we wouldn’t have the foggiest clue what might happen if, say, aerosols were released into the stratosphere?  Reality is of course somewhere in between those extremes, just as it is for anything engineered. 

 

So complain about the “geo” prefix because that means land and solid earth, or complain if you will that CDR and SRM don’t have much in common, but there’s no reason to complain about the “engineering” part.  I really fail to see the advantage in going from one term, with all its issues, that people are at least used to, in favour of another that isn’t any clearer as to what it means.  Figuring that a term has baggage and negative connotations isn’t a reason to change terminology; people will see through that in a heartbeat.  Or change to words that at least are crystal clear, like carbon dioxide removal and sunlight reflection methods.

 

d

 

From: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Wil Burns
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2023 2:27 PM
To: Greg Rau <gr...@ucsc.edu>
Cc: Ken Caldeira <kcal...@carnegiescience.edu>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com <CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com> <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: [CDR] Tiresome nomenclature squabbles

 

I’m not sure why folks want to be associated with a term like “climate intervention,” which is touted here as a better term because it acknowledges that we might not be able to control said interventions, or do them very precisely, but OK 😊 wil

 

 

WIL BURNS Co-Director, Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy American University   Visiting Professor, Environmental Policy & Culture Program, Northwestern University   Email: wbu...@american.edu Mobile: 312.550.3079 https://www.american.edu/sis/centers/carbon-removal/   Want to schedule a call? Click on one of the following scheduling links: 60-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/phone-call 30-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30min 15-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/15min 60-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60-minute-conference-call 30-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-group 60-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60min 30-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-zoom-call

Follow us:

 

 

From: Greg Rau <gr...@ucsc.edu> 
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2023 4:24 PM
To: Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org>
Cc: Ken Caldeira <kcal...@carnegiescience.edu>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com <CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com> <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [CDR] Tiresome nomenclature squabbles

 

Will, Why is geoengineering preferred over climate intervention as the overarching clasification? To quote the NAS:

"The committee’s very different posture concerning the currently known risks of carbon dioxide removal as compared with albedo modification was a primary motivation for separating these climate engineering topics into two separate volumes.

Terminology is very important in discussing these topics. “Geoengineering” is associated with a broad range of activities beyond climate (e.g., geological engineering), and even “climate engineering” implies a greater level of precision and control than might be possible. The committee concluded that “climate intervention,” with its connotation of “an action intended to improve a situation,” most accurately describes the strategies covered in these two volumes. Furthermore, the committee chose to avoid the commonly used term of “solar radiation management” in favor of the more physically descriptive term “albedo modification” to describe a subset of such techniques that seek to enhance the reflectivity of the planet to cool the global temperature. Other related methods that modify the emission of infrared energy to space to cool the planet are also discussed in the second volume."

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2015. Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.https://doi.org/10.17226/18988.

 

Greg

 

On Mon, Feb 13, 2023 at 9:42 AM Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org> wrote:

Well, that’s a different consideration, but I don’t think you address that issue by advancing definitions that belie the reality of what we’re attempting to do in terms of large-scale deployment of CDR. In fact, one of the indictments that skeptics of CDR often level is that we’re trying to engage in manipulation by using different terms. I think it’s more honest to acknowledge that CDR is geoengineering, and distinguish it from SRM on axes e.g. reversibility, scope of impacts, ability to control, social license to operate. I look forward to seeing what Oliver comes up with! wil

 

 

WIL BURNS Co-Director, Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy American University   Visiting Professor, Environmental Policy & Culture Program, Northwestern University   Email: wbu...@american.edu Mobile: 312.550.3079 https://www.american.edu/sis/centers/carbon-removal/   Want to schedule a call? Click on one of the following scheduling links: 60-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/phone-call 30-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30min 15-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/15min 60-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60-minute-conference-call 30-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-group 60-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60min 30-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-zoom-call

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[Robert Chris]

This extraordinary thread brings to mind Humpty Dumpty and his conversation with Alice (see below).

Angsting over the right word without simultaneously considering the audience, is pointless self-indulgence.  The focus we should have is on effective communication and that requires some appreciation of who's communicating with whom for what purpose.  All the various options mentioned in this thread may serve a useful purpose in certain circumstances.  The master uses the right one at the right time.  When in doubt, consider using more than one word, even a whole sentence.

'There’s glory for you!’

‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”’ Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’

‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument,”’ Alice objected.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’

Regards

Robert

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/AF57797C-1D08-443B-88E9-8AD9D566E66F%40rodagroup.com.

[Wil Burns]

I think that’s a reasonable argument, Jim, but I think it argues in favor of not drawing a distinction between SRM and CDR in terms of ability to control, or predict outcomes, which I fear some are attempting to do. I work primarily in the field of marine-based CDR currently, and we know that many questions of the ultimate impacts of large-scale deployment of ocean iron fertilization or enhanced ocean alkalinity, for example, remain opaque, and in some cases, these “interventions” could irreversibly alter ocean ecosystems biogeochemically. I would be fine with using the term “climate intervention” for both CDR and SRM, but not “privileging” from a rhetorical perspective, CDR based on alleged precision or ability to control. We have not reached that point, in my mind.

 

 

WIL BURNS Co-Director, Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy American University   Visiting Professor, Environmental Policy & Culture Program, Northwestern University   Email: wbu...@american.edu Mobile: 312.550.3079 https://www.american.edu/sis/centers/carbon-removal/   Want to schedule a call? Click on one of the following scheduling links: 60-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/phone-call 30-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30min 15-minute phone call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/15min 60-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60-minute-conference-call 30-minute conference call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-group 60-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/60min 30-minute Zoom call: https://calendly.com/wil_burns/30-minute-zoom-call   Follow us:

 

 

From: Jim Fleming <jfle...@colby.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2023 7:32 AM
To: claudia...@gmail.com
Cc: Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org>; Greg Rau <gr...@ucsc.edu>; Ken Caldeira <kcal...@carnegiescience.edu>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com <CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com> <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [geo] RE: [CDR] Tiresome nomenclature squabbles

 

When I proposed "climate intervention" to the NAS 2015 study group*, I simply meant that "engineering," at the geo scale, connoted unwarranted precision for processes that were quite uncertain. 

 

I have similar sentiments about terms such as solar radiation management and climate repair.

 

As Kathleen Blodget at General Electric said to Irving Langmuir in 1947: "Irving, you can intervene in a cloud, but you can't control it."

 

* Climate Intervention, 2 vols. National Research Council of the National Academies, 2015.

 

On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 6:50 PM Claudia Wieners <claudia...@gmail.com> wrote:

In my view part of the problem is that many terms - mitigation, climate intervention / climate engineering / geoengineering, adaptation - are a sort of continuum. Each have a "core" but the question is where to put the boundaries. Also, they are all everyday words with more or less vague meanings used in a (hopefully) more defined, but somewhat artificial way when used as climate jargon. 

 

Nobody would argue that, in the language use of climate change science: 

-- replacing a coal power plant by a wind farm is mitigation 

-- SAI is climate intervention (or whatever term you prefer) 

-- building higher dikes because of sea level rise is adaptation 

 

But each of them could in principle be used far from their "core meaning" (in climate science) especially when you look at their everyday meaning. In principle, building a dam could be called mitigation (you reduce/mitigate the harm arising from global warming); introducing a carbon tax could be called climate intervention (you intervene in the economy to preserve the climate). But I think we agree that this is not commonly meant by those terms. 

 

If you plot various measures on two axes, namely 1) local vs global, 2) target being upstream vs downstream in the causal chain (emission -> concentration -> warming -> physical impacts -> social impacts) it looks like: 

-- mitigation is usually thought of as being upstream in the causal chain and not very scale sensitive 

-- climate intervention (which ever term you prefer) is in the middle of the causal chain and somewhat more large-scale, but boundaries are fuzzy, as we see in this discussion

-- adaptation is downstream the causality line and rather local 

 

But one can easily argue about where the boundaries are, whether there is overlap, and so on, as I tried to illustrate in the sketch below. (Only meant as a very rough illustration based on personal view.)

 

There is no clear "right" and "wrong" about how to use these terms. 

So either some body such as IPCC (or, over time, a developing convention) at some stage simply gives a definition which might not make everyone happy but becomes accepted, or we agree that some of these terms are fuzzy and live with it (hopefully tolerating each other's view) or we start using more, though not perfectly, precise descriptions, such as "CDR and SRM" if we mean both and "SRM" if we mean only that. 

 

And meanwhile I hope the community can have a fruitful and balanced discussion about the relative benefits and risks, similarities and differences, as well as (in)compatibility and potential synergies of SRM and CDR - whatever we call it. 

 

Best

Claudia

 

 

 

 

Op di 14 feb. 2023 om 23:29 schreef Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org>:

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Series Editor, Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology, https://www.palgrave.com/us/series/14581

"Everything is unprecedented if you don't study history."

[Robert Chris]

Might there be some merit in drawing a distinction between methods that affect short-wave radiation and those that affect long-wave radiation (not necessarily using the word 'radiation')?  This distinction is important because while LWR methods are essential in the medium to long-term and remain urgent to scale because of their lengthy climate response time, they are now unlikely to be capable of keeping surface temperature below tipping point thresholds.  For that only SWR methods can work.  The difference between approaches capable of delivering climate stability and those that will keep us in the game long enough to enjoy that future climate stability, is perhaps one that needs emphasising at every opportunity.

Trying to find a single term that unambiguously and universally describes the nature of the technology, its climatic impact, and its controllability and risk profile across the multiple dimensions of the intractably complex climate system (including the biosphere and human society), seems to me to be asking rather a lot of a couple of words.

It might also be worth noting that we are having this debate in English but most of the world don't speak English.  Are we expecting to take control of this usage in every language? 

CDR, SRM, intervention, management and so on, all these words and terms have become imbued with nuanced, imprecise and variable  meanings.  Those contributing to this thread have comprehensively demonstrated that there is no single answer to what is the best terminology - if this group of luminaries haven't  been able to come up with it, then no one will.  If there is perceived to be such critical sensitivity in how we communicate ideas focused on averting a climate crisis, perhaps we should consider those sensitivities in more depth.  From that would likely emerge a language that offers greater power and flexibility.

Regards

Robert

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[Wil Burns]

I think we’re on the same page here. The reason that I don’t really care if all these approaches get put under the broad rubric of “geoengineering,” which I think they can fit under, but some others disagree, is that, at the end of the day, we need to defend their benefits and costs discretely. That’s why I’m fine with dispensing with the argument as to whether they all fall under the “g-term,” and focus on arguing why some of these approaches are worth pursuing. I fear, however, that when one starts trying flee from the “g-term” many see it as an effort to engage in sleight of hand. So why risk that perception?

 

 

WIL BURNS Visiting Professor Environmental Policy & Culture Program Northwestern University   Email: william...@northwestern.edu   Mobile: 312.550.3079   1808 Chicago Ave. #110 Evanston, IL 60208 https://epc.northwestern.edu/people/staff-new/wil-burns.html

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[Michael Hayes]

Why risk even the perception of deception?

A Planetary Conservation Corp would likely need many unique STEM, policy, and economic tools. What the tool box is called has questionable value to the public sector as long as the PCC is well managed and trusted.

As opposed to 'let's talk about the scariest and most bizarre option available' to get clicks, we have to start with 'let's talk about creating productive systems that last millinial time frames'. Planetary Conservation should be a positive thing in the publics' eyes not the scariest thing one can dream up. GE=SAI at this time, that is a grossly deceptive view.

A Planetary Conservation Corp can take directions from the IPCC WG#3 committee reports, and other inputs, and prioritize the PCC tech options accordingly.

[Jim Baird]

Doug “thermodynamics” is the term that is missing. Global warming is by definition a problem of thermodynamics. Wil Burns says we need to defend the benefits and costs discretely for all solutions. With the aid of Ron Baiman, an economist,  We have worked out with  the deployment of 31,000 one gigawatt Thermodynamic Geoengineering we would : a)  displace 0.8 W/m2 of average global surface heat from the surface of the ocean to deeper water for 226 years; b) produce 31 terawatts  of electricity per year (67% more than total world use), and c) absorb about 4.3 GtCO2 per year from the atmosphere by cooling ocean surface waters.  At an estimated cost of $2.9 trillion per year, it would take 30 years to ramp up to 31,000 plants. , , ,  Economies of scale have been estimated to potentially reduce the cost of electricity to abut 1.1 cents per KWh.

 

The current cost of energy is displayed below.

 

 

Global GDP was about $101 trillion in 2022.

 

The heat moved into the deep can be recycled after 226 years – 12 more times – until all of the heat of warming has be converted to work and the waste of those conversions has been dissipated to space.

 

Wil Burns is concerned with intergenerational equity but show me any generation that won’t want more energy that mitigates every consequence of climate change at less cost?

 

Ken Caldeira has expressed a concern about the cost, which I believe Ron should have dispelled?

 

Best

Jim

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