David, is it really necessary to use highly emotive words in order to encourage
research (eventually including limited testing) on the possible use and effects
of geoengineering? And it is not only geo-engineering which is at issue. The
use of emotive terms has encouraged the idea that only quick action resulting
in large near term emission reductions can "save us" (whatever that means),
which seems at variance with the sciece that indicates it is atmospheric stocks
of carbon, not flows, that matter for climate change (global warming). A victim
of the type of thinking that the emotive language (and "Chicken Little" claims)
you and the "environmental left" use/make is that it has discouraged the
long-term commitment to researching, developing and eventually deploying carbon
free or carbon neutral technologies without which climate cannot be
"stabilized" and the acidification of the oceans.
Chris Green
PS. You should applaud George Bush because the global recession his failed
stewardship has engendered will do more to reduce (for at least a few years)
global emissions than anything else that I can think of.
________________________________
From: David Schnare [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sun 1/18/2009 12:00 PM
To: Christopher Green, Prof.
Cc: Alan Robock; [email protected]; [email protected]; John Nissen;
Geoengineering FIPC
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: Boston Globe-- SETI perspective of Earth - I'd like to
hear more views on this
OK, Chris. How about we use the term "devastating climate change
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climatechange> ". This is the term Jim
Hansen is now using, He is crying "wolf" louder than anyone I know. Except,
of course, Al Gore, who uses the term "catastrophe" almost as much as Caroline
Kennedy uses the term "you know". According to Hansen, (see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/18/jim-hansen-obama) we have
only 4 years to reduce carbon emissions. That is a short enough time for a
climate catastrophe when considering collapse of the Arctic ice system, per
Stephen's points.
But call it what you want. Whether it is our civilization or that of our
children, the environmental left are the ones claiming we are facing a kind of
calamity akin to world war, akin to a pandemic, akin to the wrath of God, akin
to . . . well, you can read their dire predictions as well as I.
So, environmental left, now is the time to put up or go away. It is
irresponsible to argue that we should suffer devastation (Hansen's word) in
order to prevent anyone from testing the only short-term relief valve we have
to temperature rise. The political solution will not prevent us reaching 450
CO2eq, since we passed that point some time ago. Nor will a political solution
get us on a significant downward trend. It hasn't worked in Europe, and they
are backsliding even more now. Nor do any of the bills that have been drafted
in the U.S. get close to the kinds of reductions needed to prevent devastation
(Hansen's word).
So, Chris, Alan, and any who fear geoengineering to a point of trying to stop
it in its tracks, all of us are watching and waiting for your public
announcement in support of immediate funding of geoengineering field research.
If you don't call for that research, by definition, you deny there will be
"devastating climate change", and I'll have Heartland add your names to the
deniers list.
d.
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 9:57 AM, Christopher Green, Prof.
<[email protected]> wrote:
A dictionary (Webster's) definition of "catastrophe" is: "a sudden and
terible event, e.g. an earthquake, flood or tornado, any disster affecting one
or more persons".
By this definition a giant meteorite hitting earth is a "catastrophe",
but the relatively slow workings of climate change, while likely to be very
serious, is not well-described as a "catastrophe".
For this reason, the cautionary position taken by Alan, and by Tom
Wigley, and that are implicit in Ken's many clarificatory statements and in the
Bala article he recently circulated, are well taken.
Level-headedness, to say nothing of science and political judgment,
might benefit by (a lot) less use of the "c" word.
Chris Green
________________________________
From: [email protected] on behalf of David Schnare
Sent: Sun 1/18/2009 12:18 AM
To: Alan Robock
Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]; John Nissen;
Geoengineering FIPC
Subject: [geo] Re: Boston Globe-- SETI perspective of Earth - I'd like
to hear more views on this
Alan:
You do not deny that there is insufficient political will to reduce
carbon emissions to levels necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change.
You do not deny the catastrophic nature of impending climate change.
So, what do you want, to see food riots due to economic dislocation or
food riots due to climate change?
Finally, you conflate getting research dollars with some half-baked
plan for immediate full scale implementation of various forms of
geoengineering. I know of no one that is calling for the latter, so why are
you presuming that's what this discussion is about.
The world cannot sit behind a desk, like you, and play with models,
thinking that is sufficient to understand the actual effects of the various
approaches being seriously considered. The world needs to run the OIF study in
the scale now being stopped by the environmental left - by people like you.
The world needs to test SRM, either with aerosols or cloud albedo adjustment,
but you and your ilk stand in the way.
If you want to advance the science, then get behind a $20 million
research effort and don't spend it all on modeling that does nothing more than
make guesses as to real world implication. Stand up and speak publicly about
the threat of a continued do nothing approach masked as modeling studies.
Or, accept the fact that you and yours will be as guilty for the food
riots as the deniers (nice scientific term, by the way).
In prosaic terms, either you are part of the solution or you are part
of the problem. Which is it Alan.
d.
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 11:41 AM, Alan Robock
<[email protected]> wrote:
I can't stand it anymore.
How can all of you advocate geoengineering and try to build
public support for it before the science is done? How can you advocate
something that may be much worse than the problem it is trying to solve?
You are acting like politicians or lawyers trying to win an
argument, having already made up your minds with no regard to other information.
Why don't you behave like scientists and evaluate all the
information? Granted, we will never have everything, but why not wait a couple
years until much more research is done into the climate effects, engineering of
delivery mechanisms, psychlogical effects of changing sky color, ozone
depletion, and many other things?
Why can't we agree to advocate together for enhanced research
funding for geoengineering, and stop this premature advocacy for geoengineering
itself?
This irresponsible behavior of advocacy for geoengineering now
will hurt responsible calls for research. You will tarnish the rest of us who
are trying to learn abouth the issue.
If you were a program manager, how much money would you give a
global warming denier for global warming research, knowing he has already made
up his mind? Think about it! If you want to start a geoengineering advocacy
group, go ahead but clearly separate yourself from responsible scientists.
Alan
Alan Robock, Professor II
Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program
Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone:
+1-732-932-9800 x6222
Rutgers University Fax:
+1-732-932-8644
14 College Farm Road E-mail:
[email protected]
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA
http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
On Sat, 17 Jan 2009, David Schnare wrote:
Albert has asked me how to argue in a manner that will
help build wide
public support for geoengineering. Here are my
suggestions, drawn from my
paper of last March entitled The Uncomfortable Middle
Ground (see:
http://www.thomasjeffersoninst.org/pdf/articles/Schnare_speech_2.pdf
Step 1 - Identify all the high profile statements that
the Kyoto limits have
not worked, that governments refused to pass laws strict
enough to prevent a
climate catastrophe, and that people world wide refused
to give up economic
and personal growth in the name of climate change.
Step 2 - Explain the belief that the failures of step
one will destroy
mankind as we know it due to the otherwise inevitable
climate change.
Step 3 - Explain that Step 1 and Step 2 result in the
destruction of
civilization as we know it, either by economic
catastrophe or by
environmental catastrophe.
Step 4 - Offer a third way - geoengineering (See the
Wigley papers on how to
use it in companion with carbon emission reduction) - an
option that avoids
destruction of civilization as we know it; and admit
that it may harm 5% of
the world (and less than 1% of civilization), but that
is a much smaller
risk than harming 100%, than seeing food riots, than
seeing mass starvation,
than seeing inundation of the homes and businesses of
over half the world
economy, of death of families, neighborhoods, and
nations.
Publicly challenge the environmental activists to pick a
side - death by
economic harm, death by political inaction, death by
climate change, or life
through geoengineering.
End of argument.
Now comes the hard part - getting that message out. I
have thoughts about
that too, but until I see some environmental activists,
including several on
this group, speak up and admit their approach (world
socialism, population
reduction, and economic misery) is not going to be
politically acceptable,
and thus geoengineering research NOW is essential, then
I'm just going to
watch this area of research remain in its muddle, since
any further effort
would be a waste of time. Leadership must come from the
extreme left at
this point.
David Schnare
On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Albert Kallio
<[email protected]>wrote:
I just wonder if you could suggest we overcome
these innate evolutionary
tendencies.
I think our best chance as a survival of human
species is to intensively
train ourselves and society to sustainability.
Otherwise, there is a risk that mankind becomes
like overgrown mushroom,
still growing but rot inside and full of worms.
In a way this is how the
Popcorn Theory of Evolution sees the apex of
evolution. Classical evolution
being the thesis where life develops into higher
and higher forms (physical
evolution >> biological evolution >> social
evolution), then comes the
antithesis, the crash and all advanced higher
forms began to fail due to
resource over-exploitation, the final phase
being the synthesis where all
the advanced life degenerates back into a stable
form of primitive single
cellular life, the consumed resources being
locked until the solar system
comes to its natural end.
In a way the pop-n'-puff ('popcorn') evolution
is a directionless movement
of life phenomenan through spacetime that
creates and degenerates life
indiscriminately without any indefinite,
deterministic,
directional tendencies for the higher species
continuously becomed 'better
and better' as the classical Darwinian theory of
natural selection may
suggest.
As it is Darvins 200 year anniversary, I would
not accuse Darwin not
spotting 150 years ago that the process is
entirely directionless: so far we
have been riding on the rising wave crest, but
now the climate change may
well reach the tipping point of the wave crest
in our evolutionary phase
within the Earth's history.
SETI proves that the Earth system may be a
typical executor of the
'popcorn' evolution where the dominant leading
species is hell-bent to
dismantle its own collective ecological
foundations.
People who say Darwin is so wrong, I think they
should look better at him
more like Isaac Newton of his age who created
basic theory of mechanics, it
later to be complemented with the additional
perspectives and complexities
of Albert Einsteins theory of relativity and
quantum phenomena.
In case of Darwin he could never have seen that
man was about to destroy
major Earth systems in their entirety such as
the Amazon rainforest, world
wide coral reef bleachings and ocean
acidification, fish out the ocean to
the last individual fish, starting to melt the
Arctic Ocean sea ice and
glaciers by all his greehouse gases emissions,
excessive recless tree
felling, fossil fuels use, and over-fishing
destroying the balances
from tropics to permafrost.
Your comments would much be appreciated how do
we encounter and re-train
ourselves away from this suggested deterministic
evolutionary outcome of a
more recent evolution so that we as a species do
not produce the final crest
and get back to Martian stable state of
incapacitated single cellular live
that ekes out its existence in the silts.
*I do believe the only solution behind all the
other soltutiosn is to
solve the global warming is education,
education, education.. towards
sustainable energy and land use and forms of
transportation to get between A
and B. People need to be educated to the
sustainability and then all the
rest of action will follow.*
Rgs,
Albert
------------------------------
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected];
[email protected];
[email protected]
Subject: [geo] Boston Globe-- Very Interesting
SETI perspective of Earth
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:55:15 +0000
E: [geo] Re: Boston Globe-- Very Interesting
SETI perspective of Earth
*SETI Implication to Geoengineering*
I have been a patron of The Planetary Society's
project, the Search for the
Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), that has
been scanning countless
nearby stars in the northern and southern
hemisphere with very large radio
telescopes.
Despite massive distributed computer networks
and excellent decryption
algorithms that are deployed to detect and
listen into any intelligent
communications that occur in the space using
radio communications. What the
SETI result is? Is there life, anything, just
more advanced than that which
NASA yesterday stipulated that may exist in
Mars? (References & links
below.)
The answer is: *NO.* The SETI scanning has
never produced any positive
result for advanced life and it seems that there
is not any single advanced
civilisations in nearby stars using radio
communications (due to pure lack
of radio signals which should be intense enough
and detectable with the
radio telescope technology we already posses).
We have the answer already. There is no
intelligent life out anywhere in
space, we need to ask the question: Why?
SETI forms an important consideration and
possibly a framework within
geoengineering why it may or may not be carried
out. The answer for the
apparent lack (or utmost scarcity) of
intelligent civilizations in tens of
thousands nearby solar systems scanned is
readily answered by "The Popcorn
Theory of Evolution". What the hell that means?
*The Popcorn Paradigm*
A Popcorn Theory of Evolution suggests that
there will always be an
inherent lack (or at least immense scarcity) of
advanced life forms in the
universe because within the destructive
processes of evolution itself the
populations pop in and out of existence (much
alike the vacuum energy that
materialises and annihilates upon itself in the
vacuum).
No advanced life forms have been found in space
as the life pops-and-puffs,
in and out of the existence, by the whim of its
smallest constituent
element, individual, that makes up the advanced
populations in the planetary
ecosystems.
The reason for existence-threatening puff is
found within the innate
resource-hungriness of an individual that then
drives out the sustainability
of the Gaia (self-regulating ecosystems) to
brinks of collapses due to the
population booms in combination with associated
technological booms (that in
initial transition population growth phase
facilitate and help in sustenance
of all advanced civilizations) that are using
radio technologies to
communicate.
The 'deterministic grab' of an individual, its
resource hungriness, then
ultimately drives out all advanced specie
systems into their ultimate
collapses due to the insatiable
resource-hungriness in use resources for
imminent pleasure. Therefore, the Earth control
system is now transiting
from the productive pop phase to the puff phase,
where the leading species
crashes and takes with it much of the rest of
the Gaia, leaving no radio
operators behind.
When a capacity of species is very limited, such
as the arctic rodent
- lemming, which happily copulates every now and
then, enjoying pleasure of
sex and food and producing the maximum litter as
much as individual can, its
population grows and its consumption eventually
reaches the supply side
limit until no further resource for sustenance
is left and the numbers
collapse to zero at the core range occupied by
that species. Then from the
periphery ranges, few survivors emerge who will
find the decimated area
vacated and growing in plenty of food, and then
happily re-fill the area
where lemming population had been decimated to
zero.
The implication of SETI research for
geoengineering is that the more
advanced a species becomes, the more will be its
ecological
reach. Therefore, every planetary system arrives
to an evolutionary tipping
point where the capacity of the advanced
species' (either in isolation or in
combination) reaches and exceeds the cliff-edge
and the entire,
self-regulatory, planetary Gaia system
ecological high structure falls apart
due to the dominant species (or group of
species).
The puff-phase in the popcorn evolution then
leaves nothing behind but a
fossil planet (aside a few extremely simple,
single-cellular life forms
that no longer tip system back towards its
earlier complexity) as the
materials have been consumed and locked
efficiently in a way that they do
not re-emerge in the useable life span of
ordinary sun.
Thus when it comes to technologically advanced
species, such as ourselves,
The Planetary Society's SETI programme searches
suggest that we are alone
amongst the tens of thousands solar systems
scanned for advanced
communications. This leading to conclusion that
most advanced life forms
must all have gone bust as the individual innate
survival instinct is much
greater force than the collective architecture
for specie's survival.
*Deterministic Nature of Evolution*
Therefore, the Search for the Extraterrestrial
Intelligence (SETI) is
suggestive that no advanced civilisation can
exist on sustainable basis and
therefore schemes such as geoengineering, well
meaning, may be directed
against the very nature of universe to create
and annihilate its advanced
civilizations due to a destabilising
resource-hungriness at the core of
individual survival instinct and individual
pleasure seeking that rejects
the ecological architectures.
Let me suggest, that a great deal more education
is put onto ecological
sustainability as the SETI research is quite
suggestive that no advanced
life seems to appear at present even in
favourable solar systems in so huge
numbers. Can geoengineers train Homo Sapiens to
behave sensible instructions
like dog, or does it retain individual
independence of Felix Catus, until
there is no more breathable air and food left
for the kitten?
By definition the evolution dictates that human
species inherited a complex
social hierarchy and behaviours from their
ancestors, the apes, that are
pack animals with a complex set of behaviours
related to determining the
individuals' position in the social hierarchy of
the species. All advanced
species do exhibit these various postures and
other means of nonverbal
communication that express their states of mind
to status and control
function. These sophisticated forms of social
cognition and communication,
often expressed through insatiable consumption,
and legitimised as need for
the infinite economic growth, may still be
utilised for mankind's
trainability and ability to fit into the Earth
system and into ecologically
sustainable social situations where individual
social hierarchy is still
expressible.
Let us resolve the problem of reaction and
energise the society like a war
economy to create energy and transport
sustainably, make plans in place for
adaptation when the adverse comes, and motivate
backing for geoengineering.
Let us make geoengineering the end and high apex
of the evolution to save
the world!
*Veli Albert Kallio*, FRGS
Frozen Isthmuses' Protection Campaign
of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans
References and Links to Primitive Life NASA
Claims may have been found:
*New light on Mars methane mystery *Scientists
detect seasonal releases of
methane gas on Mars and say either geological
activity or life could be the
cause.
*http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/7829315.stm*<http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/7829315.stm>
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/news/marsmethane.html
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jan/HQ_09-006_Mars_Methane.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/news/marsmethane_media.html
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2133475.ece
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2137842.ece
> The trouble is that the Earth system
is not driven by some life
force, as in
> the Gaia theory. Nor is it driven by
suicidal tendencies, as in the
Medea
> idea. The Earth system has behaved
in the way it has, because it
needed to
> produce us. Putting that the other
way round, we wouldn't be here to
> appreciate our own development if the
universe wasn't precisely as it
is,
> and the history of our planet had not
been much as it has been. This
is the
> anthropic principle [3] [4], but I'm
applying to geological history.
> So, if you like, there may have been
many chance events during the
past four
> billion years that enabled human life
to develop eventually. And
there have
> almost certainly been chance events
and situations that have enabled
> civilisation to develop and the human
population to explode to its
current
> level.
> These chance events (and absence of
events) for our own survival are
> unlikely to continue. Therefore we
are most likely to have to
intervene for
> own survival. This message is most
obvious for the absence of events
such
> as super and large bodies colliding
with the Earth. We can
appreciate the
> danger, partly because we can think
of it as far in the future or
very
> theoretical, and therefore can be
detached about it [5].
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:01:03 -0800
Subject: [geo] Re: Boston Globe-- Very
Interesting anti-Gaia perspective
of Earth
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
A teleological, anthropomorphic
description of a "series of suicide
attempts" seems just as silly as a
teleological, anthropomorphic
description of a loving mother-goddess.
In the range of possible
states of the system, there are regions
of negative feedback and other
regions of positive feedback. The system
spends most of its time in
regions of negative feedback, for the
obvious reason that it tends to
stay in those when it's in them. But
changes such as the appearance
of a new metabolic pathway can nudge it
into a region of positive
feedback, sometimes leading to mass
extinction.
Was the argument about anything but
imagery and rhetoric?
On Jan 16, 2:51 am, "John Gorman"
<[email protected]> wrote:
I also agree completely. i
thought Andrews email was very clear.
My hope is that the Royal
Society's report this spring will reach the
same conclusion.
john Gorman
----- Original Message -----
From: John Nissen
To: [email protected] ;
[email protected]
Cc: geoengineering ; Peter Read
; [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, January 15,
2009 11:15 PM
Subject: [geo] Re: Boston
Globe-- Very Interesting anti-Gaia
perspective of Earth
Hi Andrew,
I agree with you absolutely:
I think we need to be focussed
very carefully on preventing any
significant sudden climate
change. According to my reading of the
Arctic sea ice data, this means
we have to act almost immediately if
we are to use 'gentle
geoengineering'. Something far more onerous
may
be required if we dawdle and
argue for a year or two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_shrinkage
That to me is completely
rational. But why aren't people leaping
into action?
My point was that our "world
view" affects the way we consider our
present condition, and can produce irrational
behaviour. If we (as a
society) had a world view that expected
disaster, then we would be on the
lookout for imminent disasters to ward them off.
As it is, we are looking
at the Arctic sea ice disappearing, and behaving
as if we can't or shouldn't
try and save it - quite irrational.
Cheers,
John
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Lockley"
<[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Cc: "geoengineering"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 15,
2009 10:16 AM
Subject: [geo] Re: Boston
Globe-- Very Interesting anti-Gaia
perspective of Earth
I think this debate has become
overly narrowed by it's focus on
survival. Our existence is
testament to to survival of a mere
fraction of our ancestors. The
genetic records suggests that at
several point in human history,
entire races or the species itself
were reduced to a few
individuals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe
I think we should be looking at
preserving civilisation, not merely a
few scattered individuals eking
out an existence in a
post-apocalyptic
wasteland (a la Mad Max or
Terminator).
Many writers have suggested
that civilisations of whatever complexity
just aren't that stable in the
face of even temporary climate change.
The Toba eruption, the Mayan
collapse, the Clovis event and the
1159BC
cooling event are examples
among many.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10884-collapse-of-civilisations...
Further, the complexity of our
society makes it far less robust than
distributed, agrarian societies
of the past.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826501.500-the-demise-of-civi...
I think we need to be focussed
very carefully on preventing any
significant sudden climate
change. According to my reading of the
Arctic sea ice data, this means
we have to act almost immediately if
we are to use 'gentle
geoengineering'. Something far more onerous
may
be required if we dawdle and
argue for a year or two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_shrinkage
A
2009/1/15 Bonnelle Denis
<[email protected]>:
> Dear all,
> I am surprised that time
orders of magnitude are not considered as
a main parameter in such a debate.
> It is an interesting idea
that "Although windows of stability are
possible, they are simply respites between
catastrophic boom-and-bust
cycles", but those windows have proved able to
be stable during tens of
millions years (ice ages oscillations - driven
by positive feedback forces -
have developed within a "tunnel" of precise
limits which operated as rather
efficient negative feedbacks, so I'm speaking
only about the major events
which really threatened life itself).
> I agree with the anthropic
principle, which says that things are
what they are but that if there had been
thousands of narrow escapes, very
likely we wouldn't be here to discuss them. So,
things are what they are but
there are some reasons that the number of such
narrow escapes is lower than
ten in 4 billion years.
> So, three time orders of
magnitude should be considered:
> - geological time: the Gaia
model would probably provide us with
some tens of millions years of security, even if
in the longer run the Medea
one could override it;
> - anthropogenic perturbation
time: will we, e.g., reach the 800 ppm
CO2 level in 2040 or 2100 or never?
> - science progress time: when
will there be enough knowledge for us
to either offer the economy clean and cheap
solutions such a renewable
energies, or be able to fix the climate (using
geoengineering) in a safe
way?
> Two conclusions can be drawn
from this:
> - the Gaia / Medea debate is
not an emergency from a practical
point of view (it may be relevant from a
political / symbolic one)
> - there is a race among
anthropogenic perturbation time and science
progress time, and every efforts should be
considered as adding up rather
than competing against each other: curbing the
CO2 emissions is necessary to
slow the anthropogenic perturbation down, and
investigating, at the same
time, "fundamental applied physics", massive
renewable energies economics,
and geoengineering, is safer than relying on
only one tool to fix the
climate up.
> The third possible debate:
"should geoengineering be promoted in
order to protect us from Medea's dangers?"
(surveying and fighting every
dangerous asteroids, and biological equivalents
of such an idea) is, from a
theoretical point of view, equally interesting,
but it is clearly not that
urgent.
> Cheers,
> Denis Bonnelle.
> -----Message d'origine-----
> De :
[email protected] [mailto:
[email protected]] De la part de
John Nissen
> Envoyé : mercredi 14 janvier
2009 18:08
> À : [email protected];
[email protected]
> Cc : geoengineering; Peter
Read; [email protected];
Martin J Rees
> Objet : [geo] Re: Boston
Globe-- Very Interesting anti-Gaia
perspective of Earth
> Dear all,
> I think this kind of
life-force thinking runs very deep, and
prevents us
> acting appropriately.
> Just about the whole
environment movement seems to be based on a
thinking
> that the planet is naturally
stable, and if only mankind can behave
> "naturally", all will be well
- the negative feedbacks will kick in
to halt
> the current global warming
and bring the temperature back to
normal.
> Putting vast amounts of CO2
in the atmosphere is not "natural".
Putting
> sulphur in the air is not
"natural". Both are CO2 and sulphur
compounds are
> seen as pollutants, and
therefore, by definition bad.
> This leads to illogical
behaviour. We have to reduce sulphur
emissions,
> although this leads to
exacerbate global warming - possibly causing
the
> visible acceleration in
global warming in mid 80s shown in the
glacier ice
> mass loss record (a good
proxy for global temperature) [1] [2]. I
know that
> the argument is supposedly
all about acid rain and asthma, but it
has
> inhibited our clear thinking
about the possibility of using
stratospheric
> aerosols to cool the planet.
> And, as another illogicality,
our view of CO2 as pollutant makes us
think
> that, because CO2 has caused
global warming, therefore cutting our
emissions
> will solve all our problems.
This blinds us to seeing that the
Arctic sea
> ice problem cannot be solved
by cutting CO2 emissions and we have
to apply
> geoengineering.
> But geoengineering in general
is seen as unnatural. Our instinct
is to let
> the planet sort itself out,
with minimum interference from
ourselves. We
> seem even happy for another 2
degrees global warming, although
global
> warming is already causing
enormous problems.
> The trouble is that the Earth
system is not driven by some life
force, as in
> the Gaia theory. Nor is it
driven by suicidal tendencies, as in
the Medea
> idea. The Earth system has
behaved in the way it has, because it
needed to
> produce us. Putting that the
other way round, we wouldn't be here
to
> appreciate our own
development if the universe wasn't precisely as
it is,
> and the history of our planet
had not been much as it has been.
This is the
> anthropic principle [3] [4],
but I'm applying to geological
history.
> So, if you like, there may
have been many chance events during the
past four
> billion years that enabled
human life to develop eventually. And
there have
> almost certainly been chance
events and situations that have
enabled
> civilisation to develop and
the human population to explode to its
current
> level.
> These chance events (and
absence of events) for our own survival
are
> unlikely to continue.
Therefore we are most likely to have to
intervene for
> own survival. This message
is most obvious for the absence of
events such
> as super and large bodies
colliding with the Earth. We can
appreciate the
> danger, partly because we can
think of it as far in the future or
very
> theoretical, and therefore
can be detached about it [5].
> What we seem unable to do is
to appreciate an impending disaster
which could
> take us all out. We cannot
think that such a thing is possible.
Yet it is
> staring us in the face. It
is the Arctic sea ice disappearance and
> consequent massive methane
release. That could kill us all, and
most of
> life, through global heating
far above the 6 degrees hell mark.
> Cheers,
> John
> [1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_mass_balance
> [2] See also Haeberli
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David W. Schnare
Center for Environmental Stewardship
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David W. Schnare
Center for Environmental Stewardship
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