Grist magazine on geoengineering

[Fred Zimmerman]

From scott Rosenberg, who moderated last week's Caldeira/Hamilton event:

http://grist.org/climate-energy/geoengineering-research-never-or-now/

Hamilton’s Earthmasters book quotes Lawrence Livermore Labs scientist Lowell Wood: “We’ve engineered every other environment we live in — why not the planet?”

If the hubris there is too much for you, Hamilton balances it with a line from another scientist, Ron Prinn: “How can you engineer a system you don’t understand?”

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Fred Zimmerman

Geoengineering IT!   

Bringing together the worlds of geoengineering and information technology

GE NewsFilter: http://geoengineeringIT.net:8080 

[Ken Caldeira]

The context of course is that we are already interfering in Earth's climate system in a major way ... we are already throwing sand in the gears.

Model results indicate that throwing some oil on the gears will help make the clock run smoothly, despite not knowing how all the gears really fit together.

When efforts to stop throwing sand fail, where does hubris lie? Does it reside in the person who wants to consider oiling the gears or in the person who claims a priori that their heightened ethical sensitivity demands that the gears not be oiled (as we watch the clockwork mechanism grind to a halt)?

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[Jim Fleming]

Prinn's quote is via Oliver Morton.

See Fleming, Fixing the Sky p. 225

How can you engineer a system whose behavior you don’t understand?

—Ron Prinn, quoted in Morton, “Climate Change”

Of course, this begs the question of someday gaining better understanding.

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James Fleming
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[RAU greg]

Just to follow up, we may not entirely understand the system but we know that elevated air CO2 (sand) is not good for it. Job 1 is then to stop air CO2 from increasing. Given that we have thus far failed to do this, what are the ethics of actively discouraging research on any CO2 management methods (engineering or otherwise) that might help us in this task?  Ethics, economics, and politics should enter the equation once research tells us if we actually have any technically and environmentally viable options. Or is SRM the only ethics target here? Or simply any "engineering"? Or anything that disturbs pre-1750 BAU?

Greg 

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From: Ken Caldeira <kcal...@carnegiescience.edu>
To: geoengin...@gmail.com
Cc: geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, May 14, 2013 7:48:25 AM
Subject: Re: [geo] Grist magazine on geoengineering

[Ninad Bondre]

Two points below.

1) Ken's comment that "we are already interfering in Earth's climate system in a major way".

I liked Ben Hale's response to this line of argumentation in April 2012 (although the context was somewhat different):

"If you have such a wide view of GE, then there is no ethical question about GE. It’s either permissible or obligatory or forbidden or a foregone conclusion (depending on your view of such actions). In other words, you’re begging the question. Ought we to geoengineer? Your answer to this question cannot be: geoengineering is permissible because everything we do is geoengineering.


2) Greg Rau's comment that "Ethics, economics, and politics should enter the equation once research tells us if we actually have any technically and environmentally viable options."

This rather anachronistic view of research does not account for the interests, biases, presuppositions and motivations of researchers and their funders (be it governments or corporations). Research isn't politically or ethically neutral, which is why it cannot be insulated from those considerations. This group might want to read this Ruha Benjamin piece in the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ruha-benjamin-phd/beyond-tokenistic-inclusi_b_2950515.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

3) Finally, regarding some group members' penchant for analogies - you may want to have a look at www.skepticsfieldguide.net/2012/09/false-analogy.html

Ninad