Balancing different climate restoration ideologies

[Sev Clarke]

HPAC friends and colleagues,

As we are generally agreed, this research paper https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629626002781 concurs that arguments against geoengineering are substantially based on (a handful of) ideologies, and that none can readily be expected to wholly defeat another. This suggests that localised restoration methods, particularly those dealing with initially-localised cooling, should stand a better chance of both being undertaken with minimal angst, and of being followed after success, than would large regional or global approaches - though we should also support the better governance development initiatives and accords as these will be needed following successful local projects.

Your thoughts?

Sev

[H simmens]

Hi Sev,

Thanks for providing the link to this very important paper. 

Gareth spoke at the Cambridge Arctic Repair conf last June and I was very impressed with his perceptions as also expressed in this paper. 

If you’re against SRM because you’re against capitalism and you think that SRM might work and extend the system that is corrupt and should be overthrown then obviously any research that demonstrates the effectiveness of SRM will be counterproductive. 

If you’re against SRM because it’s unnatural and nature bats last - as Guy McPherson says - and must be respected then any research that demonstrates that SRM is effective will strengthen the opposition amongst this very significant group of people. 

If you’re against SRM because humanity isn’t to be trusted based upon past experience or ideology with setting the global thermometer than any research no matter what it shows will not make any difference to this group either. 

And so forth. 

Whether that argues for localized cooling is another matter. To the degree to which it is perceived as adaptation and not intervention perhaps. But to the degree to which it allows temperatures and impacts to continue unbated then it can only cushion the collapse of society not prevent it. 

Herb

Herb Simmens

Author  of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future

“A wonderful achievement, a SciencePoem, an Inspiration, a Prophecy, also hilarious, Dive in and see"

 Kim Stanley Robinson

@herbsimmens

On Jun 23, 2026, at 8:18 PM, 'Sev Clarke' via Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC) <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

HPAC friends and colleagues,

As we are generally agreed, this research paper https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629626002781 concurs that arguments against geoengineering are substantially based on (a handful of) ideologies, and that none can readily be expected to wholly defeat another. This suggests that localised restoration methods, particularly those dealing with initially-localised cooling, should stand a better chance of both being undertaken with minimal angst, and of being followed after success, than would large regional or global approaches - though we should also support the better governance development initiatives and accords as these will be needed following successful local projects.

Your thoughts?

Sev

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[Alan Kerstein]

Herb,

Once these people find a bogeyman, information supporting the bogeyman serves only to show that the provider of the information is a shill of the bogeyman. We might call this an epistemic doom loop, which is a euphemism for a pithy two-word phrase.

No problem, here’s the plan: If you want people to love Stalin instead of hating him, offer them Hitler. In our context, Stalin is SAI and Hitler is space mirrors. I hate to throw the wonderful people developing that important technology under the bus, but you do what you gotta do. The story is that space mirrors will soon become an unstoppable juggernaut operating without constraint in the ungoverned Wild West of outer space. The SpaceX IPO was the starting gun. In comparison, the SAI chumps are at least under the jurisdiction of Earth-bound governmental authorities. Bottom line: kill SAI and the void will be filled by the madcap space-mirrors buccaneers.

Basically I’m channeling the guy in Apocalypse Now who suddenly has the brainstorm that to defeat your enemy you have to think like your enemy.

Okay, this is bonkers. Fine, so come up with a better idea.

Alan

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