Dear David, I proposed that we refer to "climate restoration" rather than "climate cooling", as I believe that should be our objective in using some of the proposed geoengineering techniques. But you are concerned by side-effects.
The side-effects of the proposed climate restoration techniques, using stratospheric aerosols and marine cloud brightening, are well researched because we can study the effects of volcanoes (like Pinatubo) and contrails from ships respectively. It turns out that both techniques are relatively benign - and benefits (including the protection of both terrestrial and oceanic carbon sinks, which threaten to decline due to global warming) vastly outweigh the negative side effects (such as a small amount of ozone depletion and acid rain in the case of sulphate aerosols). Neither technique is life threatening. Furthermore neither technique is expensive - we are talking of a few billion dollars per annum at most. On the other hand, without geoengineering, the cost of adaptation to global warming, even just the global warming in the pipeline, is enormous - and millions of lives would be affected. It seems that the media are determined to poke fun at geoengineering, but they are producing a lot of disinformation which distracts the policy makers from the task at hand, i.e. to save ourselves from getting caught in a spiral of global warming and sea level rise, which would most likely follow from loss of sea ice or massive methane release in the Arctic region. However, if it is a scientific advisor to the government who denigrates geoengineering [1] [2], then I am concerned that they may not be giving good advice to policy makers, which would be a breach of duty and moral obligation. I challenge anyone to come up with a strong argument why we should not deploy geoengineering, when this appears the only way to guard against the risks of Arctic sea ice disappearance and massive methane release, either of which could happen in the next few years. Surely geoengineering has to be top priority for government, although it should be done in conjunction with mitigation efforts. Kind regards, John John Nissen Chiswick, London W4 [1] You mention David Hawkins. He wrote last November in testimony to a Senate committee: http://docs.nrdc.org/globalWarming/files/glo_07111301a.pdf "Scholars and economists have only begun a serious assessment of the costs of inaction but it is clear from their work that it is climate disruption, not climate protection programs, which will wreck the economy." We are proposing geoengineering as a crucially urgent part of a climate protection program to include mitigation - so Hawkins should be behind us. Perhaps "climate protection" would be an even better term than "climate restoration". [2] See evidence given to the IUS parliamentary committee, where a low carbon economy is given immediate priority over geoengineering by the scientific adviser, Professor Bob Watson: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmdius/uc1202-i/uc120202.htm "If we go to some of the other areas [of geoengineering], on paper there are potential offsets [undesirable side-effects], whether it is tropospherical or stratospherical aerosols, but I would argue the number one priority at the moment is to actually implement a low carbon economy in both the production and use of energy and that would be the number one priority." ----- Original Message ----- From: David Schnare To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 1:20 PM Subject: Re: [geo] Re: the science and technology of climate cooling ??? Brian, John and Ken: David Hawkins is reading this and thinking about how to make fun of your terms so as to minimize their impact and turn them into something that will make you look like a crazed individual. I believe you can leap past his purposeful sarcasm if you get a thought-piece paper out (general press, not scientific press) discussing these terms and holding them up to public examination, and if you make a special email to the reporters on this list (there are atleast two) asking them to do a little piece on how to view geoengineering from a public policy perspective. Either way, your terms don't address the known and unknown potential adverse effects associated with the various means of cooling the planet. That will be the point of attack, as it has been for some time now. Overall, while I use metaphore and analogy all the time, when it comes to cooling the planet, I like to use simple words (like cooling) and sound nerdy and scientific. Thus, I use "solar radiation management (SRM)" and then explain how it prevents warming. Or I use "cloud whitening" and show a picture of contrails, explaining how natural it already is. When others bring up the potential adverse consequences, I address them directly (precipitation changes, ozone layer, acid rain) and indicate the community has looked into these things and others as well and has found no adverse impact as bad as relying exclusively on high cost carbon emissions reductions. fwiw d schnare On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 6:50 AM, John Nissen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hi Ken, Finding the right terminology is important in persuading people that what you are doing is sensible. "Cooling" and "refrigeration" could bring fears of overdoing the geoengineering, e.g. accidentally triggering an Ice Age (as some journalists worry!). I prefer the term "climate stabilisation". We may need to cool the Arctic well below its current temperature in order for the sea ice to reform, but for non-polar regions (i.e. most of the rest of the world), our initial aim should be to halt global warming - no more, no less. Basically the idea is to stop things getting worse. But an even better term might be "climate restoration", as we'd like to stop droughts rather than prolong them, restore the Arctic to a former condition, reverse the spread of deserts, etc. Thus, if possible, we could produce regional effects on climate for the benefit of those regions that have been already adversely affected by global warming. BTW, this is where marine cloud brightening could prove invaluable. Politically, I think "restoration" has the better connotations and sounds more valuable. And it leaves open the door to negotiate how far the restoration and to what original state/date (e.g. 80% towards pre-industrial). Cheers, John -- David W. 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