Make Sunsets stimulates more debate over "Geoengineering"- PT Barnum further vindicated!

[Ron Baiman]

Dear Colleagues,

I thought that these pieces (shared by someone on one of the lists above) merited wider distribution. These are interesting and in my view further indications that the Making Sunsets “publicity stunt” is working well at stimulating  awareness of the immense problem we are facing and how to address it per Circus owner PT Barnum’s adage that “there is no such thing as bad publicity”! 

Best,

Ron 

[Ron Baiman]

Lol Peter! 

But more seriously, an expert climate scientist colleague has encouraged me to point out some clear points that we both noticed. These are that (especially the George piece, but to some extent all of them and most general debates about "geoengineering") focus on SAI or SRM as though there are no other possibilities (see 19 possible direct climate cooling methods in cooling paper here: www.heathlyplanetaction.org)  and moreover:

a) Neglect to employ a "risk - risk" framework - that is what is risk if we don't deploy direct climate cooling.  Jim Hansen et al (https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.04474 ) believe that existing legacy GHG's  have put us in "in the pipeline" for 10 degrees C warming by 2100!

b) Like almost all of the "geoengineering"  debates that I've seen or heard, the articles assume a one-off duality of immediate global SAI program or not. That they don't include the possibility of carefully beginning to pilot, test, and SAI in the polar regions in the spring and evaluate and adjust (or cease) as more is learned about the impacts.  There is only so much you can learn from "pure research" and we don't have a lot of time (or ability as much of the learning is inevitably learning by doing) to keep doing "pure research" on SAI and other promising direct climate cooling methods. 

BTW, the two papers without authors etc. in the attachments are:

"This Climate Debate is a lot of Hot Air"  is by Evan George and published in Legal Planet, Feb. 16, 2023

"Should There be a 'Non-Use' Agreement on Solar Geoengineering?" is by Duncan Mclaren and also published in Legal Planet, Feb. 23, 2023.

Best,

Ron Baiman

On Sun, Feb 26, 2023 at 2:50 PM peter jenkins <jenkinsb...@gmail.com> wrote:

PT Barnum is also credited with the saying "there's a sucker born every minute". - Peter Jenkins.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Healthy Climate Alliance" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to healthy-climate-al...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-climate-alliance/CAPhUB9B5myWZac%2B0xq47Qdkf0kOy-t0ZzMLePugg8Q5sBn_D_A%40mail.gmail.com.

[Robert Chris]

Ron

Hansen et al say that the 10degC is based on 'today's GHG level' and that it has an e-folding time of 100 years.  That implies 6.3degC by 2120 and a bit less by 2100.

Regards

Robert

[Ron Baiman]

Thanks for the correction Robert!

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 26, 2023, at 6:41 PM, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:



[Ron Baiman]

Robert,

Do you have a page number or an explanation of how you arrived at your figures?   In the paper(https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.04474) on p. 31 I'm finding: "The 7-10 C global warming is the eventual response if today's level of GHGs is fixed and the aerosol amount is somewhere between its year 2000 amount and preindustrial amount."  but the key temp Figure 7 on p. 18 doesn't extend beyond 2025.  In the section on Climate response times (p. 32) the paper states that the in 2020 GISS GCM: "...the time required for the model to achieve 63% of its equilibrium response remains about 100 years" which would put the expected temp based on forcing estimated in the paper at 6.3 C (63% or 10) by 2023.  Is this where you're getting your 6.3 C by 2120 from?  Unfortunately, I have not had the time (and probably not the background) to go through the entire paper and understand it well!

Best,

Ron

[Ron Baiman]

*6.3 C (63% of 10) by 2020*

[Douglas Grandt]

Ron and Robert,

Visually, the shape of the curve is something like this … more or less … as best I can fathom.

This is my interpretation of Hansen's assumptions and conclusions, but I very well could be wrong …

Perhaps somebody has chart generating software that would be more precise than my eyeball.

Doug

[Robert Chris]

Doug and Ron

Here's how I arrived at my conclusions.

From the extracts below, I conclude, given that by 2020 (or thereabouts) we had already doubled atmospheric GHGs from pre-industrial including non-CO₂ GHGs, that we will eventually warm the surface by 10^oC with a climate response e-folding time of ~100 years provided the offsetting cooling from anthropogenic aerosols continues to decline and is eventually largely eliminated.  That means that by 2050 the warming would be ~2.4^oC less the residual aerosol cooling of, say 0.4^oC, giving their estimate of 2^oC.

·        When all feedbacks, including ice sheets, are allowed to respond to the climate forcing, the equilibrium response is approximately doubled, i.e., ESS is ~ 10°C.

·        Yet the time required for the [improved] model to achieve 63% of its equilibrium response remains about 100 years.  (See Fig 4b – note log x-axis.)

·        With all trace gases included, the increase of GHG effective forcing between 1750 and 2021 is 4.09W/m², which is equivalent to increasing the 1750 CO₂ amount (278 ppm) to 561 ppm (formulae in Supporting Material).  We have already reached the GHG climate forcing level of doubled CO₂.  [Note that they develop a scaling factor of 2.4^oC per W/m² which corresponds to 10^oC for the 4W/m² of current GHG forcing.]

·        Declining aerosol amount implies acceleration of global warming above the 1970-2010 rate.

·        Global temperature responds reliably to climate forcing on decadal time scales, with about 50% of the response in the first decade, with about 15% more in the next 100 years

·        we expect some [aerosol] reduction and a forcing increase of at least +0.1 W/m² per decade [between 2010 and 2050].

·        we estimate that the global warming rate in 2010-2040 will be at least 50% greater than in 1970-2010, i.e., at least 0.27°C per decade.

·        The poster child for warming in the pipeline is Fig. 7, showing that equilibrium warming for today’s GHG level, including slow feedbacks, is about 10°C.  Today’s level of particulate air pollution reduces equilibrium warming to about 7°C.

·       The 7-10°C global warming is the eventual response if today’s level of GHGs is fixed and the aerosol amount is somewhere between its year 2000 amount and preindustrial amount. (emphasis added) [Note that the assumptions here are that ‘today’s level of GHGs is fixed’, which I take to mean that future emissions are ignored, and aerosols are currently lower than they were in 2000.]

Here's a simple graph showing the realisation of 10^oC of warming with an e-folding time of 100 years.  Assume it starts in 2020 or thereabouts (when atmospheric CO₂e reached 556ppmv.). 

Regards

Robert

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to healthy-planet-action...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/CAPhUB9A%3D%3D7ReMcX972gAa21YTb%2B4a%2BmkHDgqFvo2d0adZJWydg%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Ye Tao]

Dear all,

Thank you for a fascinating discussion.  I believe there is a bit of confusion, which arises from the differing definitions for ECS (Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity, see p4 of article) vs ESS (Earth System Sensitivity, also p4).   Bottom line: we will most likely NOT have a 6C increase in global average temperature by the end of the century by holding constant the current level of GHG.  A highly probable range is 2.3C-4C.  This is explained below.

ECS is an artificial concept defined to enable computer model development and computational thought experiments.  Its assessment requires holding constant slow-response components (forests and ice cover).   These artificial constraints, which greatly simplify code and speed up calculations, cannot be strictly true in nature; we have seen forests burning up (cut down increasing quickly due to feedbacks in the human system) and we have witness dramatic arctic melting, all within decadal time scales.  Therefore, ECS cannot be used directly to predict reality on and beyond the time scale on which these processes occur.  Hence, Fig. 4 is not a surrogate for reality.

In spite of its artificialness, projections based on a chosen ECS value is useful for describing a range of times (year to a few decades) when the simplifying assumptions of unchanging land surface types can be taken as approximately acceptable.   This is also because some of these changes, when they do happen, can have mutually cancelling effects at the level of radiative forcing.  For example, darkening arctic oceans could be partially compensated for by brighter barren landscape emerging out of clear-cut forests and burnt boreal forests.   Within this short time scale, we can use ECS and the temperature response function of your (favorite) model to semi-quantitatively project future temperature trends.  See Fig. 4 of paper for examples based on the GISS models.    For all intents and purposes, you can trust Fig. 4, at the very most, to Year = 100 on the X axis.

Beyond Year = 100, Fig. 4 is no longer useful for future projections.  All we can say is that paleoclimate data potentially provides a constraint on how bad things could get thereafter.  This is done by Hansen et al in Figure 7.   Reality is most likely between Figures 4 and a scaled version (ESS/ECS).

Regarding ESS, there is one caveat to keep in mind.  The caveat is that the ESS value provided in the paper (10C per doubling of eCO2) is based on historical data at temperature ranges cooler than that of the present and near-future.  And we are obviously heading to hotter, unprecedentedly warm territories for which paleoclimate data do not exist.  In other words, ESS is itself a function of the temperature at which it is evaluated (taking the slope of the tangent point along the temperature axis, theoretically speaking.  Linear fitting to a range of temperature data in practice.). 

There is evidence that ESS is a positive function of temperature: SNYDER, C. W. Revised estimates of paleoclimate sensitivity over the past 800,000 years. 2019. Climatic Change. 156. 121–138.  The implication would be that going forward, ESS could well be larger than the 10C per doubling of eCO2 Hansen suggests.  Oops! Luckily for us mortals, or unluckily since you are a curious person, no one on this list would live long enough, which requires waiting several thousand years, to see experimental verification of the actual value of ESS valid for the hotter end of the temperature range.

Practically, in thinking about a real-world trajectory, one can consider the effective, realized climate sensitivity to morph towards larger values as time passes, from the small Transient climate response (TCR = 2C per doubling), to ECS (4C per doubling), and then to ESS (>10C per doubling).   Discussions about what happens by the end of the century therefore could use values intermediate between ECS and ESS, i.e. somewhere between 4C per doubling of CO2 and somewhat larger than 10C per doubling of CO2.

The implication of the discussion above is that your previous understanding of global warming by the end of the century is still valid. At the current level of GHG, with a rapidly successful decarbonization program that eliminated fossil fuel aerosols, we will likely see warming somewhere between 2.3C (as indicated by Figure 4, and the fact that a ECS of 3.5 was used in its making, in stead of a more likely 4) and 6C (scaled by the ESS/ECS=3 ratio).  The actual value is more likely to be on the lower end of this range, i.e. between 2.3C and 4C.  

Note, importantly, that assumptions also include immediate carbon neutrality and holding constant current GHG levels, which for those of us who really thought deeply and understood the impossibility of meaningful CO2 capture, can readily accept as being compatible with a voluntary or involuntary contraction of the human enterprise, constrained by primary productivity projections and the inevitably increasing cost of energy production (declining EROI) going forward.

Cheers,

Ye

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/2e9fce17-12d2-31c1-d31c-0dfc48ea3737%40gmail.com.

[Robert Chris]

Hi Ye

Thanks for these comments.  The Hansen et al paper is a prepublication draft and I know he is reworking it for final publication.  Would you mind if I shared some of your comments with him as it would be hugely valuable to have him address some of the points you raise, if he is minded to do that. 

One of my problems with this paper is my lack of formation in the underlying climate science and modelling to be able to undertake a proper critical analysis.  Like most others, I am obliged to assume that if Hansen is saying it, it must be true.  But I'm sure that even Hansen would recognise that that's not necessarily a wise move!

Regards

Robert

[Ron Baiman]

Thank you Ye! I’m going to have to go over this in more detail and try to understand it but for now I think I’m going to stick with the direct quote from Hansen on p. 31 that I referenced and avoid prognosticating on timing until (or if and when) it appears that you and other experts in the field whom I respect have sorted this out more.

For policy purposes it’s enough to point out that we’re very likely going to be in deep s**t even if get to net-zero GHG (natural and human) very quickly (which appears highly unlikely at this point) so that direct climate cooling is urgent now as Hansen el al. point out on p. 37 of the paper!

Best,
Ron

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 27, 2023, at 8:17 AM, Ye Tao <t...@rowland.harvard.edu> wrote:

[Tom Goreau]

Arguing about predictions made by different models is worthwhile only if the models adequately describe climate change.

 

Hansen is the best modeler in the business, but even his models miss many positive feedback mechanisms, especially the dominant biological ones, so they must underestimate real change.

 

A completely empirical approach that is completely free of any modelling deficiencies is to look at the real world paleoclimate records (ice cores, deep sea sediments, coral reefs) over hundreds of thousands of years.

 

These show that IPCCC models have greatly underestimated the actual climate sensitivities of global temperature and global sea level to CO2 (Goreau, 1990), and show the long term response to 400 ppm is an increase of around 17C and 23 meters (Rohling, 2009 et seq).

 

It’s much worse than even Hansen realizes!

 

His highest estimates are likely to be exceeded in the future, without immediate global efforts to reverse runaway warming.

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)

 

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392

 

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734

 

No one can change the past, everybody can change the future

 

It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think

 

Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away

 

Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/265690ac-ed50-80a0-c60d-366b644fb62b%40rowland.harvard.edu.

[Douglas Grandt]

Thanks, Robert!

Wouid you mind sharing the software and equation? It’s exactly as I envisioned.

T = fn (t) = t * (0.063e) * (e^^-(0.01t)) ???

where:

T is temperature °C increase over present

t  is number of years from present time

Is that close? My recollection of “ln” decay is a bit rusty.  This equation matches the endpoints at t = 0 and t = 100 years, and generally has the approximate shape, but I believe the is a more elegant and absolutely correct equation that this.

Plus, another factor may be required to accommodate the asymptotic approach to 10°C at the limit  t = ♾️ 

Doug 

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Feb 27, 2023, at 8:22 AM, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:



Doug and Ron

Here's how I arrived at my conclusions.

From the extracts below, I conclude, given that by 2020 (or thereabouts) we had already doubled atmospheric GHGs from pre-industrial including non-CO₂ GHGs, that we will eventually warm the surface by 10^oC with a climate response e-folding time of ~100 years provided the offsetting cooling from anthropogenic aerosols continues to decline and is eventually largely eliminated.  That means that by 2050 the warming would be ~2.4^oC less the residual aerosol cooling of, say 0.4^oC, giving their estimate of 2^oC.

·        When all feedbacks, including ice sheets, are allowed to respond to the climate forcing, the equilibrium response is approximately doubled, i.e., ESS is ~ 10°C.

·        Yet the time required for the [improved] model to achieve 63% of its equilibrium response remains about 100 years.  (See Fig 4b – note log x-axis.)

·        With all trace gases included, the increase of GHG effective forcing between 1750 and 2021 is 4.09W/m², which is equivalent to increasing the 1750 CO₂ amount (278 ppm) to 561 ppm (formulae in Supporting Material).  We have already reached the GHG climate forcing level of doubled CO₂.  [Note that they develop a scaling factor of 2.4^oC per W/m² which corresponds to 10^oC for the 4W/m² of current GHG forcing.]

·        Declining aerosol amount implies acceleration of global warming above the 1970-2010 rate.

·        Global temperature responds reliably to climate forcing on decadal time scales, with about 50% of the response in the first decade, with about 15% more in the next 100 years

·        we expect some [aerosol] reduction and a forcing increase of at least +0.1 W/m² per decade [between 2010 and 2050].

·        we estimate that the global warming rate in 2010-2040 will be at least 50% greater than in 1970-2010, i.e., at least 0.27°C per decade.

·        The poster child for warming in the pipeline is Fig. 7, showing that equilibrium warming for today’s GHG level, including slow feedbacks, is about 10°C.  Today’s level of particulate air pollution reduces equilibrium warming to about 7°C.

·       The 7-10°C global warming is the eventual response if today’s level of GHGs is fixed and the aerosol amount is somewhere between its year 2000 amount and preindustrial amount. (emphasis added) [Note that the assumptions here are that ‘today’s level of GHGs is fixed’, which I take to mean that future emissions are ignored, and aerosols are currently lower than they were in 2000.]

Here's a simple graph showing the realisation of 10^oC of warming with an e-folding time of 100 years.  Assume it starts in 2020 or thereabouts (when atmospheric CO₂e reached 556ppmv.). 

	<FHSZ9j4fwfinBYJV.png>

[Robert Chris]

Hi Doug

It's only a simple Excel spreadsheet.  The formula is T*(1-e^-λt) where T is the total temperature difference (here 10^oC); λ is the inverse of the e-folding time (here 0.01); t is the number of years from the start. 

Regards

Robert

[Ye Tao]

Dear Ron and Tom,

I think you have misunderstood my comments; they are entirely consistent with Hansen's results.  I simply added some details that Hansen probably did not realize could help avoid confusing people outside of the simulation field.  I suspect some of you were in shock because of the number 10C for ESS in the abstract.  But this doesn't mean heating of 10C anytime soon.  The critical element is time.  ESS applies for thousands of years later.  What this group had been discussing before I chipped in was about what happens by 2100. 

By the way, results in Hansen's paper are nothing new, save minor tweaks to numbers. It is simply the first time that the author group has collected key pieces of the climate puzzle in a comprehensive and cogent fashion.  The fact that ECS could be up to 5C per W/m2 was known, for example, based on results reviewed by Sherwood et al 2020 (ref 28).   I myself, through plotting historical data, was able to reproduce, back in 2019, the result of ESS ~ 7.5C (assuming aerosol was held constant at some average, ill-defined value during 2000-2019).  Compare the following graph I made to Hansen's recent writing: "Today’s level of particulate air pollution reduces equilibrium warming to about 7°C"

@Robert C., please feel free to forward any of my comments to Hansen, though they are basically rephrasing results in his paper.  Perhaps the above figure could help them making the message clearer, that ESS=10C per W/m2 does not imply order 10C warming in our or our children's lifetimes.  It is also worthwhile citing Snyder's work that I included in my previous comments.

Best,

Ye

On 2/27/2023 11:36 AM, Ron Baiman wrote:

Thank you Ye!  I’m going to have to go over this in more detail and try to understand it but for now I think I’m going to stick with the direct quote from Hansen on p. 31 that I referenced and avoid prognosticating on timing until (or if and when) it appears that you and other experts in the field whom I respect have sorted this out more.

For policy purposes it’s enough to point out that we’re very likely going to be in deep s**t  even if get to net-zero GHG (natural and human) very quickly (which appears highly unlikely at this point) so that direct climate cooling is urgent now as Hansen el al.  point out on p. 37 of the paper!

Best,
Ron 

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 27, 2023, at 8:17 AM, Ye Tao <t...@rowland.harvard.edu> wrote:

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/b09db825-6075-04fc-f205-8cfdd0c3a7de%40gmail.com.

[Tom Goreau]

No confusion Ye, the climate record that Eelco and I analyzed reflects the LONG-TERM response, not the short one or intermediate ones which Hansen and IPCC do, as it integrates over the 1.5 thousand year time lag intrinsically caused by ocean mixing.

 

The long term prospect is more frightening, and should not be discounted away by short sighted analyses.

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)

 

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392

 

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734

 

No one can change the past, everybody can change the future

 

It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think

 

Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away

 

Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

 

 

 

From: Ye Tao <t...@rowland.harvard.edu>
Date: Monday, February 27, 2023 at 3:36 PM
To: Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com>, Douglas Grandt <answer...@mac.com>, Ron Baiman <rpba...@gmail.com>, Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org>
Cc: peter jenkins <jenkinsb...@gmail.com>, 'Eelco Rohling' via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>, Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>, Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>, geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>, healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [prag] [HCA-list] Make Sunsets stimulates more debate over "Geoengineering"- PT Barnum further vindicated!

 

Dear Ron and Tom,

[Ron Baiman]

Thanks again, Ye.  I wasn't assuming that you were contradicting Hansen et al.  I just realized that I'm in way over my head on this and had best just stick with direct quotes like the one on p. 31:

 "The 7-10 C warming is the eventual response  if today's level of GHG is fixed and the aerosol amount is somewhere between its year 2000 amount and preindustrial amount." 

Which I take to mean that Hansen et al. believe that legacy GHGs and their impacts as of 2020 have already committed us to 7-10 C in the future assuming that 2020 fossil fuel and other human caused aerosols that have a net cooling impact on the climate will be cut back to 2000 to pre-industrial levels during the period after 2020. 

From which I believe that we can draw the policy conclusion (assuming that Hansen et al. are more or less correct or understating warming in the pipeline per Tom's comment) that unless we are able to achieve human and natural net-zero GHG emissions (which realistically is not going to happen for decades at the very least if this will be possible at all) and draw down additional massive amounts of GHG very quickly after that (even less likely to happen within decades at speed and scope) we need to engage in urgent direct climate cooling. 

Or in Hansen et al. speak p. 36-7 going back to the point made at the beginning of this thread on the need for risk-risk comparison:

"Removely of human-made GHGs from the air will be spurred by a carbon price, but GHG removal sufficient to reduce EEI [Earth Energy Imbalance] to zero may require decades, if it is even feasible. Given that GHG forcing is still rising rapidly, highest priority must be given to phasing down emissions. However, given that GHG forcing is already 4 W/m2, it may be necessary to temporarily effect EEI via solar radiation management (SRM), if the world is to avoid disastrous consequences, including large sea level rise. Risks of such intervention must be defined, as well as risks of no intervention." [brackets mine]

Best,

Ron

[Ye Tao]

Dear Tom,

Thank you for sharing your 1990 paper.  It is inspiring to see how relevant its contents remain 32 years later.

In the paper, you highlight a fitted slope of 0.094C per ppm CO2 (200-280ppm data range).  Linear extrapolation leads to 26C per doubling of CO2.   You correctly pointed out that the extrapolation is not linear, but concave down, as shown also in this more recent piece.  Visual inspection suggests roughly a difference in slow of X2.   So your results are consistent with a ESS, from 280-560 ppm eCO2, of ~10C per doubling.

Your analyses thus appear consistent with those of Hansen et al.   And Hansen's results are not only for short or intermediate timescales.  The 10C per doubling for ESS they advance is for multi-millennia time scales as well.

From human and engineering intervention perspectives, the long-term ESS stops being relevant beyond ESS>8C per doubling, this is because there is no way for civilization to survive past 3-4C.  What is needed is to achieve the capacity to bring EEI<0 within a time frame of years to decades, well before 2.5C is reached.  Within this period, ECS remains relevant for describing reality.

Best,

Ye

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/D7AF1344-EBF3-4016-B0DA-C549BA4F0F0B%40globalcoral.org.

[Tom Goreau]

That paper, based on empirical climate data was ignored  by model-oriented physicists because it showed their models did not describe the real world changes.

 

IPCC attacked it because it disagreed with their low consensus values based on models that missed most of the feedbacks that we know must operate in the Earth climate system from the paleo-climate data.

 

Eelco Rohling’s later independent analysis had much more data, and the conclusions were very robust.

 

In the 33 years since then the models have gotten much better, especially Hansen’s, but they still can’t incorporate biological feedbacks that physicists don’t understand well enough to model.

[Ye Tao]

That is way real scientists need to be in the field, at least one day per week;)

Cheers,

Ye

[Ron Baiman]

Thank you all!  This has been a good discussion. A copy of Tom's paper is attached below.

Best,

Ron

[Ron Baiman]

BTW, my impetus for launching this thread was to try to avoid making a factual error in this Make Sunsets guest blog post (https://makesunsets.com/blogs/news/pricing-cooling-credits ) and this discussion did indeed (I hope!) lead me to correct the sentence and avoid egg on face!

This is the (edited) sentence in question:

"And even more alarmingly, a recent draft paper by James Hansen (the climate scientist who warned the US Senate in 1988 that climate change was happening) and coauthors suggests that 7-10 degrees C may already be in the pipeline even if we were to achieve net-zero today."

Best,

Ron

[Ye Tao]

Dear all,

Please consider join this Sunday's MEERTALK given by Rupert Read entitled "Transformation Beyond the Climate-bubble: The Case for Building a Climate Majority". 

We are likely to live-stream this event on YouTube.  Let me know if you want to ask questions on video. 

Best,

Ye

[John Nissen]

Hi Paul and everyone,

 

Thanks Ron and others for the attachments for which I have found URLs [1] [2] [3].  Make Sunsets has certainly stimulated something, but mostly statements of prejudice against SRM and SAI in particular.  Especially narking are statements to the effect that no “serious” scientist is thinking of urgently deploying SAI to address the climate crisis.  The prejudice against SAI among journalists is huge.

 

You, Paul, point out how this prejudice has been stirred up by a small group of deniers, probably funded by climate change deniers or supporters of the fossil fuel industry (see email below).  This group could have been responsible for the crucifixion of the climate scientists in the Climategate scandal whose emails were illegally obtained and scrutinised for any statements of the slightest doubt about climate change.  They are a mafia who make ordinary scientists tremble – and they are largely responsible for the taboo on any serious discussion of SRM in IPCC reports.

 

As for temperature trajectory projections, any temperature rise above 1.5°C will result in a high risk of tipping point processes becoming irreversible, hence leading to inevitable catastrophe.  3°C or 4°C might not be survivable.  As Ye Tao says:

 

From human and engineering intervention perspectives, the long-term ESS stops being relevant beyond ESS>8C per doubling, this is because there is no way for civilization to survive past 3-4C.  What is needed is to achieve the capacity to bring EEI<0 within a time frame of years to decades, well before 2.5C is reached.  Within this period, ECS remains relevant for describing reality.

 

Thus the exact trajectories that we have been arguing about are immaterial.  We have to apply SRM to prevent them from happening.  Furthermore these trajectories ignore feedbacks which could make them far worse: e.g. the methane from permafrost could boost global warming such as to take us into a Hothouse Earth [5].

 

We are travelling into the unknown, and we need to get back to the known Holocene norms, including for Arctic snow and ice.  We have a golden opportunity for planetary restoration.

 

Cheers, John

 

[1] Katherine Ricke (Nature, 16^th February 2023)

Solar geoengineering research should get real

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00413-6#content

 

[2] Britta Clark (Journal of Applied Physics, 6^th January 2023)

How to argue about Solar Engineering

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/japp.12643

 

[3] Evan George (Legal Planet, 16^th February 2023)

This climate debate is a lot of hot air

https://legal-planet.org/2023/02/16/this-climate-debate-is-a-lot-of-hot-air/

 

[4] Corbin Hiar

Efforts to block sunlight get boost from prominent scientists  

https://www.eenews.net/articles/efforts-to-block-sunlight-get-boost-from-prominent-scientists/

 

[5] Steffen et al. (PNAS 2018)

Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810141115

 

On Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 8:27 PM klin...@cox.net <klin...@cox.net> wrote:

Restorers,

I see a possibility of an anthropogenic temperature feedback loop.

Some areas of the Horn of Africa are completely denuded of vegetation, not a leaf to be seen.  If humans didn't exist, wild herbivores would grow weaker and would be culled by predators, allowing the tougher plants to barely survive and grow back.  Herders with cattle or with goats change the dynamics.  Humans can often supplement the feed to their oversized herds of cattle and goats with imported grain, in hope that the market price of their own cattle will one day rise to an acceptable level.  Humans are also adept at tearing taller trees apart to bring down any residual forage for their herds of goats. 

I've seen one distressing field report of a 99%+ denudation of a certain Ethiopian land area, leaving zero seeds that can sprout next year.  Bare desert ground soon dries out when baked by the sun.  Then, bone-dry bare ground can get quite hot because of zero evaporation and full sunlight.  In a number of different regions of the world we've seen instances of weeks-long periods of record high temperatures coupled with extremely low humidity.

So, it's possible that an anthropogenic response to greenhouse gas forcing won't resemble any of the geologic record's known responses to forcing.  If the physicists are bothered by their poor understanding of biological feedback loops, anthropogenic forcing will keep them up at night.

Yours,

Paul Klinkman

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Planetary Restoration" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to planetary-restor...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/planetary-restoration/cff1a684-f46f-4477-8811-c725928374edn%40googlegroups.com.

[rob...@rtulip.net]

Ron

 

We had some discussion on Radiative Forcing Credits at https://groups.google.com/g/planetary-restoration/c/02nphUdUtjU.  This thread includes a link to the ISO 2019 Draft Document ISO/NP 14082

GHG management – Guidance for the quantification and reporting of radiative forcing based climate footprints and mitigation efforts.  This was intended to develop a Standard on Radiative Forcing, but was abandoned.

 

My discussion note https://planetaryrestoration.net/f/radiative-forcing-credits explores some broad parameters for pricing cooling credits. 

 

I was surprised the recent letter supporting SRM Research from 60 scientists claimed that SRM “likely will never be an appropriate candidate for an open market system of credits”.  I disagree with this assertion.  I have not seen any scientific or economic literature to back up this claim, which looks like a political reaction to Making Sunsets.

 

Regards

 

Robert Tulip

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NOAC Meetings" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to noac-meeting...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/noac-meetings/CAPhUB9CZawwYP9vYz7te%3DUe060LE1brqNOL3irDJRZy6jRzPjg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Achim Hoffmann]

Hi Robert:

Fully agree. I cannot find any supporting arguments for why Cooling Credits will not work. I had been in touch with STRIPE – they manage the Frontier Carbon Credit (CC) system (backed by McKinsey, Stripe, Meta, Alphabet, Shopify)- but there was no appetite for this at that time. However, by repeatedly asking that question you chip away and put ideas into heads.

 

The fundamental issue with cooling credits vs carbon credits is that one core element of carbon credits is “Durability”. The fact that CC Suppliers need to show that the Carbon is not coming up again for at least 100s or 1000s of years.  This is different for Cooling as it is only temporarily and needs to be topped up continuously.  A different convincing case needs be made here that does not compromise the CC durability demand. Work to be done.

 

None of the SRM solutions are bankable at the moment and that has to change going forward.

A Cooling Credit system would be (IMHO) the best and easiest way to do that.

 

A

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/1e8001d94cee%248bcc74e0%24a3655ea0%24%40rtulip.net.

[Ron Baiman]

Thank you Robert, Achim and Paul,

Needless to say, I agree. As expressed in my Make Sunsets blog, I believe that we need “all hands on deck” on cooling. Public, private, non-profit initiatives all have I think have different strengths that can help move direct climate cooling forward at speed and scope as with CDR and emissions reduction.  

On the cooling credits issue, as I’ve noted in earlier threads, its a bit more complicated than GHG credits as, depending on method, cooling is not generally a pure public good as GHG reduction is. Where, how, and how much is done makes more of a difference. And (as I believe we all agree) there are major risk issues for (effective) high leverage cooling initiatives that need to be carefully studied, monitored and adjusted for gradual ramp up (or down) that clearly require public implementation or very stringent public monitoring and regulation.

  But in my view, for now politically provocative private initiatives (that don’t cause any physical harm) like Make Sunsets can be helpful, and carbon credits allow for larger groups of citizens/customers to make their voices heard that direct climate cooling needs to be Implemented now! 

Best,

Ron 

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 2, 2023, at 4:05 AM, rob...@rtulip.net wrote:



<image001.png>

<image002.png>

	<image003.png>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/1e8001d94cee%248bcc74e0%24a3655ea0%24%40rtulip.net.

[Peter Fiekowsky]

Ron-

Pardon me for asking, but:

1. What exactly do you mean by “all hands on deck”? Who? Where? Why? When?
2. If you were successful, what outcome would we see?

 

Nevermind the how. We know a heck of a lot about SAI, MCB, and other techniques. Please explain the who, what, when, where, and why for your call to action.

 

Again, I apologize for asking—it must be annoying.  I hope you agree that getting this clarity is the only way success is possible.

 

Peter

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Healthy Climate Alliance" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to healthy-climate-al...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-climate-alliance/9B2104A9-323E-4537-9E17-43A055F7B10E%40gmail.com.

[Ron Baiman]

Peter,

Thank you for the question. 

Sometimes political provocations are important to stimulate public action (as I expect you well know!).  I also believe that Make Sunsets could morph into a useful and effective private direct climate cooling initiative, either within a carefully publicly regulated SAI regime, or using some other "cloud making" method.

As I said none of us has a crystal ball but we need to support all possible methods and systems (including ownership and institutional within existing economic frameworks)  to move cooling forward. 

Time is fleeting as I probably don't need to remind anyone on these lists!

Best,

Ron

[Peter Fiekowsky]

Ron-

“none of us has a crystal ball”—That’s false in this sense: We know that climate disruptions are going to get worse on today’s path. What else do you need to know about the predictable future? That’s the trajectory we’re on.

 

Are you saying that you don’t know how you want SRM to be implemented?

If that’s true, then now is the time to propose a specific defensible plan.

 

I discuss a plan in my book. If you aren’t going to come up with a specific plan, who will? (and why do you think they might?)

 

Peter

[H simmens]

Peter,

First, let me say that I commend you on everything you have done to bring climate restoration to the attention of decision makers and the public, including through your fine book. 

HPAC is a volunteer group with essentially no budget and is not much more than a year old. In addition to hosting several dozen stimulating presentations and conversations with climate restoration leaders in almost every conceivable endeavor we have also produced two papers which describe in broad strokes our plan for bringing back temperature increases to well below 1° C.

We hope to build upon the information we shared, the connections we made, and the strategies we advocate in the coming year. This includes preparing an updated version of our vision document and perhaps of the cooling document in addition to strengthening our ability to reach out to the public and decision makers alike. 

I have always greatly valued your ability to cut to the chase by raising questions and issues that are often easily ignored or dismissed. And so I welcome you to review these documents and let us know how you feel we can work together to best advance achieving the HPAC mission, which is the same mission as yours - to restore a healthy climate and a healthy planet. 

Thank you again for your leadership and continuing commitment. 

Herb

Herb Simmens

Author A Climate Vocabulary of the Future

@herbsimmens

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/BY3PR19MB5076A5DFF082B211C365F623FFB29%40BY3PR19MB5076.namprd19.prod.outlook.com.

[H simmens]

Ron,

While I completely agree with the essence of your comment that we need to show folks that there are truly portfolios of actions that if urgently, comprehensively, and thoughtfully executed, may well restore some semblance of a safe climate and functioning ecosystem I am very leery of using the concept of hope. 

Prior to reading the essay Beyond Hope linked below I saw no problem with Hope as a concept but since I read that my views have entirely changed. At the risk of significantly oversimplifying his message, the author calls upon us to embrace love instead of hope as an organizing and motivating force, a force that restores human agency, rather than outsourcing it to others. 

The language below is taken from my upcoming book: 

Herb

“In his brilliant essay “Beyond Hope” Derek Jensen says “When we stop hoping for external assistance, when we stop hoping that the awful situation we’re in will somehow resolve itself, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free — truly free — to honestly start working to resolve it. I would say that when hope dies, action begins.”

Herb Simmens

Author A Climate Vocabulary of the Future

@herbsimmens

On Mar 6, 2023, at 1:17 PM, Ron Baiman <rpba...@gmail.com> wrote:



Dear Paul et al,

I think it's important that we offer hope and not just gloom and doom. There are now books being written about "generation desperation" etc. and I think many of us have the experience of not being able to talk about climate change at all with our family, friends, and communities, due a pervasive sense that there is no hope and therefore the best strategy to to ignore and try to enjoy life in the present as much as possible (perhaps we should call this the "Titanic" response?.  My daughter wrote a song a about this is reference to the 2022 US election that seemed it was going to be a disastrous "red wave" but thank God (or better yet some remaining common sense among US voters) turned out to be mostly the opposite: https://fb.watch/j5UV9BEo42/.

My effort at this is reflected in this sentence from the HPAC cooling document (https://pdfhost.io/v/kUvEpsGdb_Understanding_the_Urgent_Need_for_Direct_Climate_Cooling_0209233 ) copied below:

"Limiting further warming would thus provide an opportunity for societies to evolve from a fossil fuel and mineral mining based economy that is dependent on discovering and mining fossil fuels and minerals in particular locations, to a potentially more equitable, prosperous and ecologically sustainable civilization based on use of renewable energy and materials, able to harvest energy, and use minerals from the ocean and carbon from the air to synthesize needed materials, almost everywhere on the planet.^[1],[2]

---

[1] Eisenberger, Peter. 2020. REME -- Renewable Energy and Materials Economy -- The Path to Energy Security, Prosperity and Climate Stability. Physics and Society: https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.14976

[2] Baiman, Ron. 2021. In Support of a Renewable Energy and Materials Economy: A Global Green New Deal that Includes Arctic Sea Ice Triage and Carbon Cycle Restoration. Review of Radical Political Economics 53 (4): 611-622. "

 In the paper cited (preprint here: https://www.cpegonline.org/post/our-two-climate-crises-challenge) I use the terms "industrial hunter-gatherer civilization" and "industrial farmer-cultivator civilization" to designate this transition.  I have also (in blogs and elsewhere like this one: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/local-cooling-sai-cdr-baiman/id1529459393?i=1000598002442 ) used the biblical analogy of getting through the Sinai desert to reach the promised land.  But part of being human is to have hope and will to improve our situation. In the meantime of course we need to cool!

Best,

Ron

On Sun, Mar 5, 2023 at 7:39 AM klin...@cox.net <klin...@cox.net> wrote:

I'll take a first try at a thirty second political pitch:

- - - -

The climate car is headed straight for a wall. The driver is drunk. Hit the brakes now. Please!

From my own personal experience and also from documentaries such as “Who Killed the Electric Car,” much potent, practical R&D is apparently not getting done because of fossil fuel-driven government corruption.

We already know that if the planet's permafrost continues to melt, 1.7 trillion tons of additional greenhouse gases will be released and the results will be catastrophic. Now we want to know how to stop this. Can we count on your vote?

Yours in Hope,

Paul Klinkman

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Planetary Restoration" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to planetary-restor...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/planetary-restoration/64775c77-f534-497c-be5d-4ab26537cdd8n%40googlegroups.com.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Planetary Restoration" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to planetary-restor...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/planetary-restoration/CAPhUB9BE0VTmxTCaEAYzyRbA1pe1PyWVkK348fVo4Yic5Jbxzw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Ron Baiman]

Agreed Herb. The "hope" that I'm talking about is hope to inspire agency, our agency and our responsibility, that is rooted in empathy and love for our children, families, friends, communities, and all of humanity.  It's not a hope for some higher power or "deus ex machina" to save us!  It is important that this distinction be made clear. I thought that the civilization transition language that obviously only we humans can achieve, and the reference to the Exodus story that (at least in my reading) focuses on the social and ideological struggles necessary to reach the "promised land",  made this clear but, as you point out, it may be useful to spell it out more clearly!

Best,

Ron

[Rebecca Bishop]

Hello Ron and Herb,

Thank you for sharing about language, and hope and love.

I echo what Ron says about the younger generation, many around me are living in fear about the future, although this hasn't prevented them from living in the moment and engaging as best they can.

Ron, it seems you are coming from an understanding of the Judaeo-Christian heritage, and I like what you said.  I also like what Herb said.

Here is a quote, which is at the end of an apocalyptic passage, and also has the famous passage about love often read at weddings:

1 Corinthians 13

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Faith, that we can pull together, Hope that we will, and that there are things we can do to restore the planet, and Love for each other, to allow this to happen, and heal old wounds of disconnection from nature and economic injustices.

This is another example of the wisdom from poetry and tradition; to me, all human traditions are equally important but there are only a couple that I know really well.

Best wishes to all,

Rebecca.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/CAPhUB9AQR1B1nLzR8WHN0GPO7_pdz5%2B3rNqLDo8W45g9te%3DiWA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Ron Baiman]

Thank you Rebecca. Well put imo!  I think the key is a humanistic/naturalistic (I forgot love of nature or our fellow species in my list)  interpretation of these ancient traditions, rather than a deity or higher power focus. My guess is that all (or the vast majority of us on these lists) understand this, but I think it can be useful to use traditional thought (interpreted as above) to communicate our policy views with the broader public, at least in the US and other countries where traditional religions have greater sway than (I believe) they do in Western Europe for example. 

Best,

Ron

[Ron Baiman]

My understanding/experience is that eastern traditions tend to be more naturalistic (I was a full time Zen Buddhist for about 7 years) and western and middle-eastern traditions (the so-called Abrahamic religions) more humanistic (I'm ethnically Jewish and spent about 7 years in Israel as well though in terms of "religious" belief my partner and I raised our kids as secular Ethical Culture/Ethical Humanists).  I've been leading an Ethical Humanist Seder in Chicago for almost 30 years which is where my inclination to talk about the Exodus story probably comes from!

Best,

Ron

[Ye Tao]

Only Love Remains: Dancing at the Edge of Extinction

-Guy R. McPherson

Ye

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/CA%2BKfrk1BPc%2B812ELRT4COEuaHMm97JetOiq7i%3DiYxsZ6SgL0Ww%40mail.gmail.com.

[Robert Chris]

Hi all

Since starting this thread by correcting Ron’s misunderstanding about Hansen’s 10C being referenced to 2100, it has morphed into something a long way from underlying climate science.  I’ve been watching from the sidelines as I’ve been preoccupied with some non-climate change aspects of my life.  Yes, I have some of those!  But now I’m back on the case, I cannot help but add a few comments that I hope we’ll be able to examine further in Thursday’s HPAC gathering.

From this long thread I’d like to pick out just one quote that set things off down a different path, namely that we should ‘embrace love instead of hope as an organizing and motivating force, a force that restores human agency, rather than outsourcing it to others.’  This heart-warming exhortation received a great deal of positive comment.  At risk of being branded a misanthropic iconoclastic anti-Christ, I want to push back on this notion.

But first, let me be absolutely clear that my objection is not to the application of a loving-kindness maxim as a guiding principle in our daily lives.  I’m totally on-side with that.  My issue is with its relevance as a guiding principle to inform policy intended to address the causes and impacts of global climate change.  In a posting a few weeks ago, RobertT referenced Machiavelli.  In relation to global climate change policy I think we’ll get better guidance appealing to his insights, than to those from humanistic and religious sources.

What follows is a toe-dip into complex adaptive systems theory, a theory that I have found to have extraordinary explicative power about the workings of self-organising and self-sustaining systems at all scales, whether involving humans or not.  Loving kindness is a feature of systems involving humans but is one of many and its capacity to be a determining factor reduces as the members of the system multiply.  In a family it has much greater force than in a corporation or a regional or national government.  The reason for this is to do with the way in which emergent properties are autonomously selected for enhancement and replication.  Put five people in a room and a lot of ideas will emerge.  Few, if any, will survive the test of real-world trial and error.  

Loving kindness (I’m using that as a shorthand for a range of related ideas around moral imperatives) is an emotional response to those around us.  It operates at the level of the individual.  It also has considerable instrumental power.  For most people, routinely being nice to those with whom we have direct dealings is likely to lead to better outcomes than routinely beating the crap out of them.  Because it generally leads to better outcomes, it is self-reinforcing, it works, so we do more of it.  That’s why families where kindness rules tend to endure and those where it doesn’t, tend to fall apart.  But as the scale grows the instrumental value of loving kindness becomes overwhelmed by other factors.  We don’t generally vote for our public representatives on the basis of their loving kindness in their relations with their families or with their wider public.  We vote for them because we want them to deliver better education, justice, healthcare, national security and so on. 

Of course, we expect those to be implemented in ways that respect an assumed moral framework, but that framework is rarely articulated in detail and it can vary considerably from one jurisdiction to another.  We are all different so when our individual senses of loving kindness are aggregated, it all becomes a bit of a hotch-potch.  There may even be real conflicts where some interpret loving kindness in very different ways to others.

Cutting to the chase, when trying to establish a global policy, if loving kindness is to be a guiding principle, there needs to be clarity and a reasonable degree of agreement about two key points.  First is there a version of loving kindness that most people can buy into?  Second, are there other guiding principles that enough people regard as more important than loving kindness, causing its significance to be diminished, and possibly even largely ignored?

The crucial lesson from complex adaptive systems theory is that the answers to these two questions are not determined by reason and debate among the many members of the system, in this case the entire global human population, although that debate can (maybe) have influence.  They are determined by the process of autonomous selection by which the system adopts some emergent properties and rejects others.  Loving kindness plays a role here.  But so do a myriad of other factors that individuals wittingly and unwittingly respond to as being desirable or not.

The central problem is that even with loving kindness as a major guiding principle, when dealing with anything complex, and nothing is as complex as dealing with global warming, there will be winners and losers.  Who is to decide whose interests are to be sacrificed for the benefit of the rest?  What are the intergenerational justice concerns?  What criteria are to be used to make these judgments?  These decisions may be discussed rationally in privileged circles but at global scale they are not made rationally.  They are emergent properties of the system.

If the system is functioning well, the process of autonomous selection will select the emergent properties that best serve the system.  But if it isn’t, there will be maladaptations in which some emergent properties that become dominant do so because they favour the interests of a small powerful minority.  This happens when the consequence of that minority protecting its own interests works against the interests of the system as a whole.  The forces of conservation come to overwhelm those of adaptation and the system becomes an accident waiting to happen.

That’s where we are.  An accident waiting to happen.  The way out of this is to realign the interests of the powerful minority with those of the system as a whole.  But herein lies the challenge.  That realignment will see a redistribution of power and assets from the powerful minority to the rest.  Unless the minority can be convinced that it is also in their best interests to cede some of their wealth, power and status, they will continue to promote emergent properties that become increasingly dysfunctional for the system as a whole.

I’ll leave this hanging there.  The question for those pressing for loving kindness to lead us to the light, is how the minority currently in control can be convinced that it would be better for them to show loving kindness to the masses, and to do this on a timescale that is fast enough to have the necessary climatic impact.

Regards

Robert

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/90EDE5CF-8B5D-41AA-8323-015D861B88A5%40gmail.com.

[Ye Tao]

Dear Robert C,

Seems to me that your line of reasoning logically leads to the necessity for a realignment of interests by force.  For it is obvious that the powerful minority is intrinsically impervious to love and kindness; they are were they are because they truly are sociopaths. 

Absent a violent overthrow of the Neo-feudal class and a complete redesign of society leveraging past experiences and modern science, what agency do the people, the techno-serfs, actually have, if not love and kindness for others, as unrelated to them as it can be, and a willingness for self-sacrifice for the greater good?  If one were not satisfied with a grassroots approach, what would be other options? 

Perhaps the bravery to stand behind and amplify the voice of the likes of Jeff Sachs?   The following lecture will be worthy anyone's time:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Enjoy!

Ye

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/dac217c9-c974-6147-c07c-d7ac4746cc49%40gmail.com.

[H simmens]

Hi Robert,

As always, I so appreciate the thoughtfulness and originality of your writing. As the author of the phrase about embracing love instead of hope I wanted to briefly respond. First, my intention was only to contrast an orientation to love rather than hope as perhaps a more authentic and empowering approach to really anything in life. I couldn't agree more that it shouldn't be looked at as any kind of universal panacea. In our current global context, perhaps Machiavelli would be a more relevant teacher and role model.

That said my response to your challenge of how to convince the minority in control to do essentially the right thing NOW is as follows:

I would focus efforts to allow, or perhaps even require most everyone, but particularly those with undue influence in our society, to immerse themselves in psychedelic experiences. In my book, A Climate Vocabulary of the Future written in 2016 I coined the term 'climadelic therapy’  in that context. (The second edition will be out next month if all goes well.)

The extraordinary transformation that occurs in the large majority of people who are exposed to certain psychedelics, in nurturing and supportive environments, has been demonstrated in an increasing number of experimental trials in the US in the past few years. Tolerance, gratitude, acceptance, selflessness, and absence of fear of death all seem to expand. 

I remember, when I first thought about the dilemma you describe Robert. It was when I learned in graduate school about the triune brain theory developed by neuroscientist Paul MacClean in the 1960s. The idea is that the reptilian, limbic and neo-cortex are out of sync largely because the neo-cortex grew so rapidly in recent history, so that our species has difficulty maintaining balance between instinct, emotion, and reason. Reading Arthur Koestler, an intellectual hero of mine, many years ago, he concluded that the only remedy for this fundamental biological imbalance would be the development of some pharmaceutical that could bring these often warring triads into balance. The triune theory as I understand it has been heavily criticized, but I think the concept beneath it still has some validity.

And it appears that psychedelics could be the remedy for the imbalanced triune brain. 

Even after having had professional dealings with Donald Trump many years ago, I still was not prepared for the sociopathic havoc he created as President.Thus I often wished that someone -anyone - would put a dose of psilocybin or something similar in his diet Coke.

For those who think I may perhaps be writing this with some flippancy, that is not the case, I really believe in the possibility if not the probability that an urgent psychedelic exposure campaign could help remedy many of our societal ills attributable to the likely biological imbalance our species is saddled with. Such an effort, even if successful would not automatically provide answers to the difficult questions that Robert raises. It could, however, result in a group of elites and other key decision makers much less impaired by ego, prejudice and greed. And that wouldn't be a bad start…..

I invite everyone to attend the HPAC meeting this Thursday at 4:30 Eastern time where these and related issues will be discussed in more depth by Robert Chris, Robert Tulip and all who tune in...

Thanks again Robert!

Herb

On Mar 7, 2023, at 12:55 PM, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all

Since starting this thread by correcting Ron’s misunderstanding about Hansen’s 10C being referenced to 2100, it has morphed into something a long way from underlying climate science.  I’ve been watching from the sidelines as I’ve been preoccupied with some non-climate change aspects of my life.  Yes, I have some of those!  But now I’m back on the case, I cannot help but add a few comments that I hope we’ll be able to examine further in Thursday’s HPAC gathering.

From this long thread I’d like to pick out just one quote that set things off down a different path, namely that we should ‘embrace love instead of hope as an organizing and motivating force, a force that restores human agency, rather than outsourcing it to others.’  This heart-warming exhortation received a great deal of positive comment.  At risk of being branded a misanthropic iconoclastic anti-Christ, I want to push back on this notion.

But first, let me be absolutely clear that my objection is not to the application of a loving-kindness maxim as a guiding principle in our daily lives.  I’m totally on-side with that.  My issue is with its relevance as a guiding principle to inform policy intended to address the causes and impacts of global climate change.  In a posting a few weeks ago, RobertT referenced Machiavelli.  In relation to global climate change policy I think we’ll get better guidance appealing to his insights, than to those from humanistic and religious sources.

What follows is a toe-dip into complex adaptive systems theory, a theory that I have found to have extraordinary explicative power about the workings of self-organising and self-sustaining systems at all scales, whether involving humans or not.  Loving kindness is a feature of systems involving humans but is one of many and its capacity to be a determining factor reduces as the members of the system multiply.  In a family it has much greater force than in a corporation or a regional or national government.  The reason for this is to do with the way in which emergent properties are autonomously selected for enhancement and replication.  Put five people in a room and a lot of ideas will emerge.  Few, if any, will survive the test of real-world trial and error.  

Loving kindness (I’m using that as a shorthand for a range of related ideas around moral imperatives) is an emotional response to those around us.  It operates at the level of the individual.  It also has considerable instrumental power.  For most people, routinely being nice to those with whom we have direct dealings is likely to lead to better outcomes than routinely beating the crap out of them.  Because it generally leads to better outcomes, it is self-reinforcing, it works, so we do more of it.  That’s why families where kindness rules tend to endure and those where it doesn’t, tend to fall apart.  But as the scale grows the instrumental value of loving kindness becomes overwhelmed by other factors.  We don’t generally vote for our public representatives on the basis of their loving kindness in their relations with their families or with their wider public.  We vote for them because we want them to deliver better education, justice, healthcare, national security and so on. 

Of course, we expect those to be implemented in ways that respect an assumed moral framework, but that framework is rarely articulated in detail and it can vary considerably from one jurisdiction to another.  We are all different so when our individual senses of loving kindness are aggregated, it all becomes a bit of a hotch-potch.  There may even be real conflicts where some interpret loving kindness in very different ways to others.

Cutting to the chase, when trying to establish a global policy, if loving kindness is to be a guiding principle, there needs to be clarity and a reasonable degree of agreement about two key points.  First is there a version of loving kindness that most people can buy into?  Second, are there other guiding principles that enough people regard as more important than loving kindness, causing its significance to be diminished, and possibly even largely ignored?

The crucial lesson from complex adaptive systems theory is that the answers to these two questions are not determined by reason and debate among the many members of the system, in this case the entire global human population, although that debate can (maybe) have influence.  They are determined by the process of autonomous selection by which the system adopts some emergent properties and rejects others.  Loving kindness plays a role here.  But so do a myriad of other factors that individuals wittingly and unwittingly respond to as being desirable or not.

The central problem is that even with loving kindness as a major guiding principle, when dealing with anything complex, and nothing is as complex as dealing with global warming, there will be winners and losers.  Who is to decide whose interests are to be sacrificed for the benefit of the rest?  What are the intergenerational justice concerns?  What criteria are to be used to make these judgments?  These decisions may be discussed rationally in privileged circles but at global scale they are not made rationally.  They are emergent properties of the system.

If the system is functioning well, the process of autonomous selection will select the emergent properties that best serve the system.  But if it isn’t, there will be maladaptations in which some emergent properties that become dominant do so because they favour the interests of a small powerful minority.  This happens when the consequence of that minority protecting its own interests works against the interests of the system as a whole.  The forces of conservation come to overwhelm those of adaptation and the system becomes an accident waiting to happen.

That’s where we are.  An accident waiting to happen.  The way out of this is to realign the interests of the powerful minority with those of the system as a whole.  But herein lies the challenge.  That realignment will see a redistribution of power and assets from the powerful minority to the rest.  Unless the minority can be convinced that it is also in their best interests to cede some of their wealth, power and status, they will continue to promote emergent properties that become increasingly dysfunctional for the system as a whole.

I’ll leave this hanging there.  The question for those pressing for loving kindness to lead us to the light, is how the minority currently in control can be convinced that it would be better for them to show loving kindness to the masses, and to do this on a timescale that is fast enough to have the necessary climatic impact.

Regards

Robert

On 06/03/2023 18:34, H simmens wrote:

Ron,

While I completely agree with the essence of your comment that we need to show folks that there are truly portfolios of actions that if urgently, comprehensively, and thoughtfully executed, may well restore some semblance of a safe climate and functioning ecosystem I am very leery of using the concept of hope. 

Prior to reading the essay Beyond Hope linked below I saw no problem with Hope as a concept but since I read that my views have entirely changed. At the risk of significantly oversimplifying his message, the author calls upon us to embrace love instead of hope as an organizing and motivating force, a force that restores human agency, rather than outsourcing it to others. 

The language below is taken from my upcoming book: 

Herb

“In his brilliant essay “Beyond Hope” Derek Jensen says “When we stop hoping for external assistance, when we stop hoping that the awful situation we’re in will somehow resolve itself, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free — truly free — to honestly start working to resolve it. I would say that when hope dies, action begins.”

[rob...@rtulip.net]

RC

 

Your thinking here injects the logical realism of evolutionary causality into climate analysis.  Seeing the world as a complex adaptive system invites us to develop a theory of change where the levers and mechanisms have the power to actually move the world from its current maladaptive and destructive trajectory to a path with hope for progress toward shared goals.

 

I submit that Albedo Enhancement offers the needed critical causal capacity to serve as a lever for change.  By seeing planetary brightness as the decisive physical and conceptual problem for stability, security and strategy, we can actually formulate a path able to engage with the interests of the powerful and the powerless in negotiating global governance.  Brightening is our Archimedean fulcrum. The physical changes involved in brightening the planet will also bring conceptual changes in how people think, not by coercion but by consent.  As such, brightening can really make the planet smarter, happier and more reflective.  That then can provide a platform to discuss longer term agendas of justice, peace and love.

 

The climate problem is that people are unable to think globally.  Thinking globally means seeing our planet as a complex adaptive system. That global way of thinking in turn offers the hope of finding policy nudges with ability to influence what you crucially defined as “the process of autonomous selection by which the system adopts some emergent properties and rejects others.”    The evolutionary principle of natural selection emerges here as the decisive guide to what will work and what will not, in culture as in biology. Regardless of our emotional preferences, there are remorseless processes of cumulative adaptation that determine climate outcomes.  Understanding and influencing those emergent processes is really the only way to change the earth system trajectory.

 

When we ask what we can influence at climate relevant scale, it seems to me that albedo is far more tractable than emissions.  The irrational personal and social desires that govern emissions are so strong that no amount of exhortation and agreement will make any global difference to the upward trajectory.  By contrast, a decision to refreeze the poles could be made and implemented by a new Bretton Woods Conference, delivering a path to climate stability and repair.  The high value of such a goal is that it aligns with the findings of complex adaptive systems theory about the program logic of theory of change, and therefore offers prospect of actually working, unlike the exhortatory hot air of Paris.  Such an agreement also aligns to the empirical scientific principles of Baconian instrumental logic, understanding cause and effect, and so can bring in multiple stakeholders to serve mutual interests in negotiating acceptable results.

 

The evolutionary goal we need is to enable human beings to think globally.  That is a decisive shift in mentality, using our brains to adapt to requirements of global survival and flourishing, rather than our current neo-tribal approaches with politics based on stone age instincts.  Seeing albedo as the tractable lever that can stabilise the climate crisis offers a path to global evolution and provides time and ability to mobilise the slower processes of cooperating to fix the planetary carbon system, while also working to influence cultural change.

Here is the quote I shared on 4 January from The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. As you mentioned it is quite relevant to these discussions.

“all prudent princes ought to regard not only present troubles, but also future ones, for which they must prepare with every energy.  Because, when foreseen, it is easy to remedy them, but if you wait until they approach, the medicine is no longer in time because the malady has become incurable.  For it happens in this, as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure. Thus it happens in affairs of state, for when the evils that arise have been foreseen (which it is only given to a wise man to see), they can be quickly redressed, but when, through not having been foreseen, they have been permitted to grow in a way that everyone can see them, there is no longer a remedy.”

Looking forward to our discussions at the HPAC meeting this week. I hope people have time and interest to read our issue papers.

 

Regards

 

Robert Tulip

Beyond Hope orionmagazine.org

HPAC Vision for a Healthy Planet.pdf pdfhost.io

 

 

 

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/planetary-restoration/dac217c9-c974-6147-c07c-d7ac4746cc49%40gmail.com.

[Robert Chris]

Hi RobertT

I agree with almost everything you say but... there's always a 'but'!

40 years ago all we had to do was reduce our emissions by a meagre 10GtCO2/yr.  We couldn't get out sh*t together to do that.  Today, all we have to do is a modest amount of AE.  On what basis does anyone imagine that we're going to get our sh*t together to do that?

You make a dangerous assumption that was shockingly rammed into my consciousness last week in my hour long chat with Tero Mustonen.  I haven't yet had a chance to transcribe the whole conversation and write up my notes from it, but I will do in the coming days.  But here's the 'but'.  There is no 'global way of thinking'.  Tero was quite clear that the great majority of Indigenous Peoples (IP), including those of which he is one in the Arctic who would be immediate beneficiaries of refreezing the Arctic, has zero interest in even engaging in an AE discourse.  He resigned from Sir David King's high level CCAG entirely because he opposed refreezing the Arctic, a cause to which Sir David is wedded.

Tero is a lead author on AR6 WGII (133 references to him), he understands the issues.  But for us, I regard his perspective as other-worldy.  IP have memory.  They've seen it all before over tens of thousands of years.  They've endured.  Western civilisation is a few hundred years old.  It'll go the same way as its predecessors that didn't commune with nature but just saw it as a resource to be exploited, without a life and personality of its own, without 'personhood'.  For him the question that precedes all others is 'What is it that we value, that we want to preserve and to promote?'  He has a set of answers to that question that are about as far away as it's possible to get from what drives our global economy.

The Saami killed off Scopex not because they didn't appreciate the usefulness of AE, but because it deeply offends their sense of how to interact with nature.  My understanding is that they will continue to follow that path.  No amount of allegedly rational argument will shift them.

Given time there might be a sufficient accommodation between our two radically opposing worldviews.  But time is the one thing we don't have.  So the path that is now more or less set in stone is COCAWKI (Collapse of Civilisation as We Know It).  The timing is a little uncertain.  The pain will be considerable.  But the excitement and opportunity of the ensuing rebirth should not be underestimated.  Mankind has a uniquely indomitable spirit.  We always pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down, and start all over again.  The creative potential is greatest in the wake of a crisis.  Maybe in three or four generations our successors will look back on our folly and be grateful for the lessons it taught them.  Think of the Death card.

Although it is the Tarot card that many people fear, Death generally does not mean physical death. The Death Tarot Card usually signifies spiritual transformation and a time of change and new beginnings, not actual death! The transformation or change that Death can bring can be difficult, unexpected, sudden or even traumatic but it will bring with it a new lease of life. It's best to try not to resist the change the Death Tarot card brings as resisting it will only make the transition difficult and painful. Instead try to embrace the change as a fresh start. This Major Arcana card can also signify the need to let go of old issues or beliefs when it appears in a Tarot spread. It may be telling you that you need to draw a line under the past in order to move forward in a positive direction. A Death card transformation can be a bit of a shock to the system but ultimately it’s a positive one.

We can find wisdom and inspiration in the strangest places!

Regards

Robert

[Ye Tao]

Haha, nice one Herb!

If not for lack of time, I would have talked about psychedelics in my talk at the Congreso Futuro organized by the Chilean Senate.  I can confirm that numerous peer-reviewed studies have demonstrated few negative effects, but reproducible improvement in psychological health and an enhancement of trait Openness to Experiences, which is positively correlated with episodes of inspiration and creativity.

Anybody knows the % of people in the US and Europe who have used, or are routinely using, psychedelics?  For Herb's proposal to work, there needs to be a small prevalence of usage among the elite.  One also needs to consider the impact of multiple drugs acting together.  Who knows what happens at parties of the 1%!

Ye

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/3C6EF8C0-6DF5-4EF3-8573-1B02633D60C4%40gmail.com.

[Michael MacCracken]

Dear Robert C--So, may I ask a question about Tero's position. Being on Sir David's CCAG in the first place, he presumably had the view that human-induced climate change is a problem and that emissions should be curtailed so as not to change the climate. While it is sometimes said that climate change induced by fossil fuels is unintentional, that argument only makes sense for the time before we know this would happen, which goes back to at least the 1965 report of the President's Science Advisory Council and arguably back to Arrhenius. So, ever since, it has been an intentional act to not curtail fossil fuel emissions, making climate change intentional, if still perhaps inadvertent. And apparently Tero's position is that human action should be taken to reduce emissions in order to curtail, pull back climate change.

In that Tero thus favors humans taking action to limit and even reverse climate change that has been induced by human activities, what is it about AE that leads to a view that is completely opposed to having there be human action to limit human-induced climate change? What is it about imitating natural volcanic eruptions that clearly have led to some cooling that is ruled out so strongly?

Going back to the 1960s and even back to the 1870s (so when one might say the climate was in the control of Nature), there were proposals to warm the Arctic via geoengineering/climate intervention and so change the natural climate in order to improve access to the region's natural resources. These discussions, and they did get to pretty high government levels, showed considerable hubris and took some effort to be suppressed--and really brought ill repute on the notion of geoengineering, and I am wondering if this is where the objection might be coming from. The proposals now are very different, really intended to counter the human influence and put Nature back in control.

If the notion is to just let what will be occur, then why be in favor of limiting CO2 emissions and fine to have the climate return to that of warm periods tens of millions of years ago when the C that makes up today's fossil fuels was in the atmosphere. If one instead is arguing to halt all emissions and reduce the human influence, what is the basis for AE imitating Nature by inserting the equivalent of volcanic aerosols. Were you able to get any sense of this in your conversation?

Best, Mike MacCracken

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/planetary-restoration/a274255e-3857-39b2-1b37-b506a09065b3%40gmail.com.

[Robert Chris]

Hi Mike

Great questions.  I don't think I am yet in a position to articulate convincingly where Tero is coming from.  What emerged in our conversation, frankly, took me by surprise.  I had prepared for this conversation by sending him the article I wrote with Dave King and links to Hansen's Warming in the Pipeline and Armstrong-Mackay on tipping points and a link to Tim Lenton's presentation to the NAS.  He had looked at all the material.  I imagined, like RobertT that when it comes to global warming there is a 'global way of thinking' around which almost everyone could coalesce.  I was expecting there to be some instrumental reason why IP oppose AE.  I was expecting a consequentialist case to emerge - we shouldn't do this because it'll cause bad outcomes.  But that hardly featured.  He seemed to follow a virtue ethics path, arguing that our guiding principle must be to be good people.  He stressed that the environment has 'personhood'. and by implication we should treat nature with the same respect that we treat other people.  Clearly he sees AE as offending that sense of respect for the environment. He said he found nothing in any of the material I referenced that altered that view.

We kept coming back to the idea that this was a true clash of civilisations.  Our power is to self-destruct; theirs is to survive.

I have undertaken to share my notes with him and to re-engage to discuss this some more.  Perhaps I should ask if he'd present to an HPAC session.  Would we like that?

Regards

Robert

[H simmens]

Hi Robert,

Speaking just for myself, I would strongly support asking Tero to engage in a conversation with us at an upcoming HPAC meeting. 

I had made a suggestion at our last steering circle meeting that we attempt to have one of the originators of the Non-Use Agreement speak with us as we have yet to have anyone who opposes what we are advocating meet with HPAC. 

And that needs to change! 

Herb

Herb Simmens

Author A Climate Vocabulary of the Future

@herbsimmens

On Mar 7, 2023, at 5:12 PM, Robert Chris <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:



Beyond Hope orionmagazine.org

[Rocio Herbert]

Robert,   

Yes, I would like to have Tero speak at one of our meetings.   

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/cbd174cf-e2c9-ff1e-9f51-c3a208ab9bdd%40gmail.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Rocío Herbert, Blue Dot Change

Director of Outreach

650-575-3607

ro...@bluedotchange.com

[Michael MacCracken]

Back 20+ years when I was still with the Office of the US Global Change Research Program and head of the National Assessment Coordination Office, I was liaison to the Native Peoples component of the assessment--and learned a good deal. I also at the time was asked to be scientific adviser to the panel of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops that was preparing a statement for the bishops to consider. When those on the Native Peoples team heard about this, they said that I needed to get the Vatican to repeal the Papal Bull of 1493. Being something close to 40 years since having heard reference to that, I needed to ask for an explanation. And the explanation was close to what you heard, basically that the Papal Bull considered Man as separate from Nature with its mention of land ownership and transformation of the environment, whereas the Native Peoples view was of Man as being part of Nature and no one having the right to own land, but rather all to share its resources, etc. Checking the Web, there was even a campaign among the Native Peoples seeking its repeal (e.g., see https://ictnews.org/archive/pope-francis-takes-a-first-step-toward-revoking-the-papal-bulls)

So, I do understand there is quite a different perspective and respect for and wholeness with Nature, but given how fossil-fuel and human-driven climate change will destroy the planet, still a bit hard to understand the notion of trying to counter-balance it.

Best, Mike

[rob...@rtulip.net]

In my HPAC paper on Moral Perspectives on Climate Policy, I mention Greta Thunberg’s view 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 view appears to be at the base of the Indigenous criticism and suspicion articulated by Tero Mustonen. Addressing it requires ability to convince critics that calls to brighten the planet are not in service to a domineering mindset.   There is a philosophical challenge here to justify the idea of a global way of thinking.

 

One way to discuss global thinking is Gaia Theory. The Gaia Foundation supports James Lovelock’s view of “the Earth as a living organism and a self-regulating system, opening the way for western science to restore a holistic approach to understanding our planet home.”   The question this raises is how geoengineering relates to the holistic approaches of Gaia Theory.  Indigenous perspectives of the Earth as sacred are fundamental to the Gaia Foundation, and they would probably differ with Lovelock over his view that we should compare geoengineering to medicine.  

 

Lovelock wrote in this 2008 Royal Society article that “if a safe form of geoengineering buys us a little time then we must use it.” However, his worry is whether our species is “sufficiently talented to take on what might become the onerous permanent task of keeping the Earth in homeostasis.”  As well, he fears that our knowledge of geoengineering effects is as crude as nineteenth century medicine, before the rise of antibiotics and other modern treatments.

 

Homeostasis is the complex physiological stability of an organism.  The alternative of rising to Lovelock’s challenge of planetary homeostasis is collapse.  And the emergency pathway to planetary homeostatic equilibrium requires albedo enhancement.  This is an existential reality that cannot be refuted by Indigenous spirituality, however much we respect and welcome diversity.  Humans are part of the Earth.  Our existential choice is whether to be like white blood cells, healing the planet, or viruses that will kill or disable their host.

 

Part of the confusion arising here is that geoengineering advocates do tend to take a holistic and non-domineering view, based entirely on care and concern for the future wellbeing of the planet.  The activist and Indigenous opposition to domineering attitudes is entirely justified, but geoengineering does not sit within that destructive mentality of selfish exploitation and greed.  It is better to see geoengineering on Lovelock’s medical analogy as a spiritual response from Gaia, like a healing antibody to the destructive virus of human exploitation.   

 

The problem is that opponents of geoengineering have been misinformed, because geoengineering advocates have not yet engaged enough on the cultural and philosophical problems raised by the need to define a global way of thinking.  There has been a lack of respectful philosophical dialogue to weigh all the factors in the balance.  The catastrophic risks of delaying action to brighten the planet are incontrovertible, but the case that this requires albedo enhancement is now understood and accepted by only a tiny number of people.

 

I was pleased to see Robert Chris mention the tarot, an arcane tradition that is largely viewed with contempt by the domineers of our world.  While an appropriate level of scientific scepticism is reasonable toward magical culture, such practices do have close connection to the spiritual worldviews of Indigenous people, and have a legitimate place within respectful dialogue.  Part of the problem for geoengineering is its connection to the arrogant lack of humility that has characterised modern technological civilization, dismissing whole worldviews out of hand. 

 

A global way of thinking does not yet exist, but that only highlights the essential urgency of creating one through respectful dialogue with people of a range of differing perspectives.  One element of this is Pope Francis’s call to integrate care for humanity and care for nature.  Tero’s opposition to geoengineering is a view that would need to be convinced to change, by presenting persuasive evidence that the case for brightening the planet incorporates and respects his values and views.  Similarly, many of us are in dialogue with other critics of geoengineering.  Building the case to change their views in a respectful way will be essential before we can hope to deploy field tests of new technologies.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/planetary-restoration/cbd174cf-e2c9-ff1e-9f51-c3a208ab9bdd%40gmail.com.

[Rebecca Bishop]

Hello all, 

I'm glad we're trying to understand why some people (specifically the Saami, also people like Greta Thunberg) oppose SRM or albedo enhancement.

Given the vast experience and wisdom of Mike MacCracken, and the conversation Robert C. had recently, could we summarise what we have heard, and what our questions are?

I'm thinking of active listening, and showing respect for the other person, and making it a safe place to explore the apparent contradictions and also the hopes we have for a world where humans experience (rediscover, existentially and practically) our connection with nature.

Robert C., I am looking forward to any more reflections you have from your conversation.

Kind regards,

Rebecca.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/03d401d95166%24b05d5140%241117f3c0%24%40rtulip.net.

[Ye Tao]

Hi all,

Do native people really approse SRM just SAI?

None of the native peoples I have talked to in life, at COPs, or at project sites oppose MEER; they are rather supportive.  Though granted, sample size is currently in the low double-digits, and certainly not randomized.

Best,

Ye

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/CA%2BKfrk3LpWjfiVHOgzy3-KEvjwEs8uxG436MXtXX4-8Yy2UHFQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[John Nissen]

Hi Rebecca,

Tero has told us something very fundamental about our own psyche.  Why is it that we all have a particular aversion to SAI, regardless of the fact that volcanoes do it?  I believe it is because we have been brought up on our mother's knee to believe in Mother Nature as a beneficent force. Tero puts it as "personhood".  We are naturally against anything which would seem like a violation of Mother Nature.  SAI smacks particularly strongly of violation, because it involves a toxic substance, SO2.  At the MEER meeting, Andrew Lockley was particularly incensed by Make Sunsets because they were putting a toxic substance into the stratosphere.  It is the violation of Mother Nature that drives the ETC group: hence their naming "Hands off Mother Earth".

Only when we can accept that our emotional dislike of SAI is irrational can we agree that SO2 is an excellent idea for refreezing the Arctic, which is essential for the future prosperity of the human race.

Helpful in this acceptance is the stated attitude of the Christian church: mankind is a steward of the planet.  It is our moral duty to look after our planet.  We have been given intelligence and have the means to restore our planet to a healthy state.  This should be our overriding ambition.  It has a moral force which might even be accepted by Tero.

And there is the force of love: to do the best for our children and grandchildren.  This can be our overriding emotional drive: entirely positive.

Cheers, John

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/CA%2BKfrk3LpWjfiVHOgzy3-KEvjwEs8uxG436MXtXX4-8Yy2UHFQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[H simmens]

Could the name ‘stratospheric aerosol injection’ account for some portion of the resistance to it?

Injection is not seen as a particularly warm and fuzzy word. Those who strongly distrust the Covid vaccines for example, dismissively label them as injections. The other two words are not particularly positive either in their associations.

Most people appear to be very accepting of personal sunscreen protection. 

Perhaps instead of SAI the use of  ‘planetary sunscreen’ should be encouraged. It’s understandable, simple to remember and essentially accurate.

Instead of SPF - sun protection factor - perhaps there should be a PPF index -  ‘planetary protection factor’. The stronger the application of  PS - planetary sunscreen - the higher the PPF number would be. 

Herb

Herb Simmens

Author A Climate Vocabulary of the Future

@herbsimmens

On Mar 8, 2023, at 12:32 PM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:



Beyond Hope orionmagazine.org

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/planetary-restoration/CACS_FxrqK0BaYbXq-pim%2BJAdEgj2y8vb-3JZNSTLdv6gj75GhQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Rebecca personal em]

Hello John,

I appreciate very much your thoughts below, and I’m going to read and ponder them.

I think you’ve addressed me because in one of the other posts I was exploring what Christian poetry and tradition might lead us to - Faith, Hope and Love. Of course there are many traditions and Ye and Ron included some in that discussion.

What I find of emotional and intellectual concern is a judgemental implication or undertone in some of our comments about people who don’t agree with SRM.  

I know you don’t mean that, but if I were one of the people in question, I think I would be feeling judged or misunderstood.

I’m only saying this now to add to this discussion, I’m not wanting to judge you or others, and as I said I will think further about it all. 

I can see Herb has again contributed, by helping us think about the language of injection. Perhaps renaming it might allow us to have a discussion of these things, as we share it around. 

My fond regards to you John, and again, thank you for this offering you have made.

I hope everyone has a good day wherever you are, it’s early in the morning here in Sydney, and I’m going for a swim with my beloved mother Isobel. We will see the sunrise, and last year we saw the alignment of the planets (age of Aquarius) , but that finished around Christmas. 

Best wishes to all, 

Rebecca 

On 9 Mar 2023, at 4:57 am, H simmens <hsim...@gmail.com> wrote: