Pete Irvine’s talk on risk risk of SAI given at the Arctic Repair conference

[H simmens]

I was pleased to see that the excellent talk by Pete Irvine looking at a preliminary risk risk assessment for SAI is now available. I would strongly recommend viewing the 20 minute talk and 10 minute Q&A afterwards. 

He basically concludes that in a number of different dimensions the benefits of SAI clearly outweigh the risks of its side effects. 

I was also pleased that at the beginning of his talk he emphasized the point that I’ve been banging on about for years which is that eliminating emissions will not lower elevated temperatures for centuries and will still lead to continued ecosystem loss and sea level rise. 

I also note that Oliver Morton - yes he was also at the Cambridge meeting - asked Pete a question about why the tipping points Community is not embracing SRM and Pete had a interesting response - essentially that the tipping points community argues that after tipping points are activated SRM would do little to reverse them and before they’re activated it is too controversial to use. 

So voila! we can safely ignore SRM..

Herb

https://youtu.be/M13nf0UpI2c

Herb Simmens
Author of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future

“A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson
@herbsimmens
HerbSimmens.com

[Alan Kerstein]

Herb,

Although there is a grain of truth in Pete's 'interesting' response, it is buried in a mountain of fallacy. Adopting his assumptions about SRM acceptance/effectiveness before/after tipping point occurrences solely for the purpose of discussing its implications, and recognizing as he does that there are multiple tipping points, there is the possibility that the earliest tipping point promotes acceptance and yet SRM remains effective in preventing others that have not yet been reached. The illogic that permeates discussions of geoengineering across the range of viewpoints is frustrating.

Perhaps in this case he gave a transparently preposterous answer as an indirect way of showing that it is actually the anti-SRM argumentation that is preposterous. People who privately support SRM might not want to express that support directly and end up getting labeled as geoengineering wackos.

Alan 

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[Clive Elsworth]

Thanks Herb

 

Pete Irvin (SRM360) neatly summarizes much of what we have been discussing for years on the need for cooling. Here it is again: https://youtu.be/M13nf0UpI2c  I’d suggest putting it on the HPAC website.

 

On Oliver Morton’s question on motivation for reducing CO2 emissions, to me what’s needed is a low emissions energy source equal to our voracious appetite for low-cost energy, that works safely everywhere. That is the promise of advanced nuclear, which can now even recycle most high-level nuclear waste. That recycling process makes more fuel at low cost without raising weapons proliferation concerns (it’s too impure).

 

However, most environmentalists (not Hansen) reject any form of nuclear energy, preferring to multiply the worlds mines and dig up half the ocean to supply the vast quantity of metals needed for the ‘energy transition’.

 

Another driver is the rising cost of capital. Renewables need a high initial cash-injection, whereas fossil fuelled energy spreads the cost over the lifetime of power stations, which have a lower capital cost and higher operational cost (the fuel). Thus, today’s rising capital costs are making renewables more expensive over their lifetime.

 

But I suggest that lack of progress on phasing out fossil fuels is driven largely by the tragedy of the commons, i.e. why bother if no one else is? Acceptance and proper funding of advanced nuclear would make it far easier to reduce global emissions than guilty feelings about the effects of climate change.

 

Do the anti-geoengineers concerned about tipping points consider any of these drivers?

 

Clive

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