Cheers!
Sam Carana
On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 9:03 AM, Andrew Lockley wrote:
>
> John Nissen's work on the Arctic should be incorporated into this I've
> tried to condense the essence of his arguments on the 'Arctic
> Shrinkage' wiki. He's also circulated many posts to this group.
>
> It is primarily his thinking that has led me to believe that we are in
> far more trouble if we don't do geo-eng.
>
> A
>
> 2009/1/23 Eugene I. Gordon <eugg...@comcast.net>:
>> David: The concept is newsworthy. However, I would avoid characterizing it
>> as a consensus. That word smells bad to me.
>>
>> I suspect Andy Revkin would be willing to include the statement in one of
>> his posts and possibly link the post to a regular article. There are at
>> least two others in the New York Times writers community that might
>> participate.
>>
>> I like the idea that someone who is a recognized participant in the field
>> take the first draft. It is also reasonable that the group establish a
>> website and use the statement in its masthead.
>>
>> I also suspect that some money could be raised to support a staff person to
>> manage the website, the e-mails, and, very important, the use of the website
>> to publish on-line briefs on various related technical topics. I think we
>> should be low key in contrast to the AGW group and simply tell the story of
>> what needs to be done, what can be done, and what else is needed for a
>> successful effort, without trying to scare the public.
>>
>> -gene
>> ________________________________
>> From: David Schnare
>> Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 11:55 AM
>> Cc: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
>> Subject: Re: [geo] Re: Badgering Geoengineering
>>
>> Gene:
>>
>> I've been thinking along the same lines with regard to a definitional
>> statement and a statement about the relative risks of geoengineering, as
>> compared to mitigation. I believe it should be simple enough to be
>> understood by the lay public; specific enough to distinguish between
>> geoengineering and adaptation; honest enough with regard to relative risks
>> to be signed by the breadth of the geoengineering science community, to
>> include David Keith, Alan Robock, Lee Lane, John Nissan, Tom Wigley, Alvia
>> Gaskill, and Ken Caldiera, to name a few. Certain others will not sign
>> because it would give legitimacy to geoengineering, which they don't want;
>> and others should not be invited to sign, myself included, as I don't do
>> original research on this. I believe the folks doing serious writing on
>> governance should be included.
>>
>> I would post it on this group, perhaps in the head notes, and I would think
>> some of the members of the media (there are two I'm thinking should be
>> interested) should put the statement into the public forum as a news item.
>> One of those owes this community a debt at this point and ought to be happy
>> to repay it in this manner. The wiki folks could also do their part.
>>
>> The statement then could be endorsed by other scientists and engineers as
>> their working understanding of the subject. We would have to build on the
>> discussions we've already had regarding what to call this subject (e.g.,
>> climate geoengineering) so as to distinguish it from not only mitigation and
>> adaptation, but from other forms of geoengineering that have long existed.
>>
>> Someone has to draft this, and I'm thinking whomever that is would be wise
>> to begin with Tom Wigley's discussions, either from his papers or
>> presentations, as he makes very clear the use of this approach is one that
>> needs to be integrated into a carbon emissions strategy, as well as David
>> Keiths seminal work on the history of the subject. At the same time, I
>> believe it essential to explain the degree of uncertainty in the risk of
>> geoengineering in the context of the uncertainty of the risk of climate
>> change itself, and the linkage between those uncertainties (same models,
>> etc.); and finally the need to clearly delineate the risk-risk trade-off in
>> the context of the mutually antagonistic moral dilemmas.
>>
>> I note as a final thought that the worst way to draft and get consensus on
>> this is to do it openly on this group. Nevertheless, we might as well as
>> there is a moral superiority to doing things in a fully transparent manner,
>> and anyone who does not play can not later complain about the statement.
>> There are a ton of reasons why an advocate should prepare the first draft,
>> but I don't have the energy to care about that anymore.
>>
>> Someone on this list and qualified to be a signatory - have at it.
>>
>> Best,
>> David
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 11:22 AM, Eugene I. Gordon <eugg...@comcast.net>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Who is Gadian to speak for geoengineering? if there are ethically unsound
>>> people around they are more likely climate scientists who overstate the
>>> situation. In any case, practicality dictates that we not count on the world
>>> to suddenly decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Trying to trick the world
>>> into reducing by overstating the problem is ethically unsound.
>>>
>>> It seems to me that a clear statement from this group that gets published
>>> broadly is much in order.
>>> ________________________________
>>> From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
>>> [mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Alvia Gaskill
>>> Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 7:51 AM
>>> To: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
>>> Subject: [geo] Badgering Geoengineering
>>>
>>>
>>> http://bristlingbadger.blogspot.com/2009/01/geoengineering-ethically-unsound-says.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> geoengineering 'ethically unsound' says geoengineer
>>>
>>> Last month I went to a Cafe Scientifique talk by Dr Alan Gadian. He's part
>>> of a team with Mike Smith at the University of Leeds and John Latham who are
>>> experimenting with cloud-seeding.
>>>
>>> Their idea is that if you whoosh up great quantities of sea water into the
>>> air then the salt crystals will encourage clouds that reflect solar energy,
>>> thereby reducing the amount of heat trapped by greenhouse gases.
>>>
>>> The big problem with this and other climate geoengineering projects is
>>> that they allow an escape route for the carbon emitters. Desperate to do
>>> anything other than reduce our energy consumption and attendant emissions,
>>> they fired off the decoys of climate denial, followed by carbon offsets and
>>> biofuels. Anything to distract us, to give us the hope that there'll be some
>>> swift, simple magic bullet.
>>>
>>> NOT REDUCING CO2
>>>
>>> The geoengineering schemes that reflect the sun have a very serious
>>> problem. They mean that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will
>>> keep rapidly increasing. This will have serious impacts on plantlife but
>>> seemingly more serious is the impact on the oceans. It will cause them to
>>> acidify, killing the coral reefs and making many species unable to properly
>>> form shells. This isn't taking out one or two species, this is hacking out a
>>> huge length of the food chain. The knock-on effects scarcely bear thinking
>>> about.
>>>
>>> Dr Gadian said that the scheme, should it work, would require £1.5bn worth
>>> of whooshy boats. All things going well they'll make the desired sort of
>>> clouds, although the might make the wrong ones and actually dissolve the
>>> present level of reflective clouds and make the situation worse.
>>>
>>> He told us that it's not that dangerous a plan because sometimes 'clouds
>>> are naturally like that'. Hmm, taking something that naturally occurs and
>>> increasing the amount of it in the atmosphere, that's not a problem is it?
>>> Can anyone say 'carbon dioxide?'
>>>
>>> Dr Gadian says his scheme is less risky than other reflection schemes as
>>> if anything untoward is discovered it's rapidly switch-offable. All
>>> artificially-induced clouds should be gone within two weeks of the boats
>>> stopping their work.
>>>
>>> The problem is that by then it may be too late. Not only are there the
>>> unforeseen side-effects and having to get someone who's invested over a
>>> billion dollars to admit they're wrong and take a massive loss squarely on
>>> the chin, but more importantly there's what hasn't happened. We haven't cut
>>> our emissions because we were banking on this scheme. To stop making the
>>> clouds is to allow more sun in and let all the emissions from the time when
>>> we chose the scheme to the swithc-off date heat the climate.
>>>
>>> Even if it doesn't affect weather in the least and even if altered cloud
>>> cover has no adverse ecological effects, this will be used to delay real
>>> action. It means if it doesn't work well enough we're stuffed. It means we
>>> permit - we actually choose to cause - all the other effects of spiralling
>>> quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere.
>>>
>>> THE BREVITY LIE
>>>
>>> Dr Gadian said it mightn't be that much really, because that his scheme
>>> mightn't be long-term, it could be 'just for ten years or so until we
>>> change'.
>>>
>>> This is the central lie of the geoengineering lobby. They cannot argue
>>> that their ideas are safer or more effective than carbon cuts, so they argue
>>> that they're just a stopgap until we make such cuts.
>>>
>>> The time it takes to develop, test for effectiveness and the very high
>>> degree of safety, and then scale up and deploy any of their schemes is at
>>> least as long as it'd take to make serious carbon cuts. And who do we think
>>> would invest billions of dollars in a scheme that's trying to be as short
>>> term as possible?
>>>
>>> The investors will want something back for their money, and the benefits
>>> of any climate geoengineering will almost certainly be sold as 'carbon
>>> credits' to the polluting industries and nations. It will not be done in
>>> tandem with emissions cuts but instead of them. Geoengineering will not be a
>>> tool of mitigation but of exacerbation.
>>>
>>> THOSE WHO WANT IT DON'T KNOW ENOUGH
>>>
>>> Dr Gadian's grasp of the threat from carbon emissions was graphically
>>> illustrated by the astonishing declaration that 'my biggest fear is that we
>>> will run out of fossil fuels in two or three centuries'.
>>>
>>> If we get to the point of actually running out of fossil fuels as opposed
>>> to abandoning them then the mere running out will not be our biggest
>>> problem.
>>>
>>> If it gets to that stage then, given the ecological devastation and our
>>> inability to wean ourselves off fossil energy, it would truly be a case of
>>> 'would the last species on earth please turn out the lights?'.
>>>
>>> Dr Gadian plainly said that humanity will burn all the fossils it can, so
>>> geoengineering is necessary to mitigate this inevitability. Like him, I'm
>>> old enough to remember another certainty of global politics, the inevitable
>>> nuclear war with the Soviet bloc. Those who treat these things as
>>> certainties make them more likely, when in fact they are avoidable.
>>>
>>> To move ahead with geoengineering is to divert efforts from elsewhere, it
>>> is giving up on the pressure, education and resistance that can still
>>> prevent those emissions. The geoengineers' main purpose is to be a tool of
>>> those who wish to continue burning fossil fuels.
>>>
>>> WHAT ABOUT CHINA?
>>>
>>> He fell back on the standard fossil-enthusiast's argument that 'we can't
>>> tell China and India that they can't have our standard of living'.
>>>
>>> This is bollocks. Firstly, they can sit there saying 'why should we cut
>>> back when you won't?'. Everyone is using everyone else's inaction as an
>>> excuse for their own.
>>>
>>> As a medium sized industrialised country nobody is better placed than the
>>> UK to be the leading light in showing that a swift transition to a
>>> low-carbon economy is possible. And as the nation with the greatest
>>> historical responsibility for carbon emissions, we are also the most morally
>>> obliged to be the leader in the solutions.
>>>
>>> And all this is before we start to point out that Chinese per-capita
>>> emissions are a fraction of ours, and that figure, in turn, is before we
>>> take into account that around a quarter of their carbon emissions are from
>>> manufacturing goods for export. Much of 'their' emissions are just us
>>> outsourcing ours.
>>>
>>> There is no need for China and India to unswervingly follow our path,
>>> instead they can leapfrog the high-emitting decades and go straight into
>>> what the 21st century should look like.
>>>
>>> THOSE WHO KNOW ENOUGH DON'T WANT IT
>>>
>>> Dr Gadian says Met Office disapprove of the cloud-seeding plan. He
>>> sarcastically suggested that it was because the idea came out of a
>>> university and it threatens their supremacy. Nothing to do with the fact
>>> that the Met Office do have a large and leading role in concern about
>>> climate change as opposed to a scientist who readily admitted that he isn't
>>> motivated by concern for the climate but is primarily concerned with finding
>>> out how clouds are formed.
>>>
>>> The issue is too important to let such head-in-the-sands be charged with
>>> solutions, and certainly too important to let such infantile catty attitudes
>>> have any part in dismissing as august a voice as the Met Office.
>>>
>>> That this scheme will undoubtedly be used to distract us from cutting
>>> carbon emissions; that it will not be a short-term precursor to responsible
>>> action but an excuse for long-term emissions; that it will allow carbon
>>> emissions to assault marine biodiversity that could lead to major extinction
>>> events and threaten food supplies for many species and peoples; that they
>>> haven't even asked people in Chile where they're doing their experiments
>>> what they think; all these things make it an outrage and something to be
>>> opposed as strongly as we oppose new runways or coal power stations.
>>>
>>> [What experiments in Chile would that be??? AG]
>>>
>>> His final words on the subject haunt me. After I named those reasons why
>>> the scheme is so wrong Dr Gadian said, 'I agree, it's ethically unsound'.
>>>
>>> The major crime of our culture is that we know what we're doing but we do
>>> it anyway.
>>> Posted by merrick at 13:05
>>> clear=all>
>>> --
>>> David W. Schnare
>>> Center for Environmental Stewardship
>>>