John, I agree. we need to coin another term so tht we may distinguish between Geoengineering I and Geoengineering II.
_____ From: John Nissen [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 12:39 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; Ken Caldeira Cc: [email protected]; Geoengineering FIPC; [email protected]; Indianice FIPC; Peter Read Subject: Re: [geo] Re: Post on geoengineering - do not keep attacking Hansen or others who disagree you Hi Albert, What I find incomprehensible is that Jim Hansen, who I admire greatly for convincing people about the reality of global warming, should appear to be supporting the message that emissions reduction (including sequestration) alone can get us out of the mess we are in. Humanity has put a great "pulse" (Hansen's word) of CO2 in the atmosphere, sufficient to cause over 2 degrees of global warming, even without positive feedback making the situation worse. I believe that climate models now indicate that, even if we were to halt emissions overnight, it could take centuries for the CO2 to return to pre-industrial levels, other things being equal. (Ken, do you have a time for this, from your own modelling?) Thus to get the level quickly down to the 350 ppm that Hansen now wants, we have to employ CO2 extraction by geoengineering, bioengineering, aforestation and reforestation. This perhaps requires "reengineering of the economy" in some countries, e.g. for widespread uptake of biochar practice. So, thus far, I go along with Gene: We don't stand a chance in hell of significantly reducing GHG emissions sufficiently to make a difference and if the lifetime of GHGs is as long as some think, it is already too late for mitigation. All we have left is the geoengineering option or building rocket transports to establish life on another planet. I am a homebody so I elect geoengineering R&D. Now on top of this, we have colossal threats/risks from the Arctic sea ice retreat and regional warming - one threat being sudden sea level rise (not impossible), another being massive methane release from permafrost (possibly enough to cause runaway global warming). To counter these threats we have to use geoengineering to cool the Arctic. But this is extraordinarily inexpensive, using stratospheric aerosols or marine cloud brightening. We don't have to reengineer any economies for this. Deployment cost could work out at well under 1$ billion per year, which is peanuts compared to bailing out banks for example. BTW, it is very confusing to lump the two quite different types of geoengineering together - the one for removing CO2 from the atmosphere, and the other for cooling through solar radiation management (SRM). Cheers, John ----- Original Message ----- From: Albert Kallio <mailto:[email protected]> To: [email protected] ; [email protected] Cc: [email protected] ; Geoengineering FIPC <mailto:[email protected]> ; [email protected] ; Indianice FIPC <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 3:27 PM Subject: [geo] Re: Post on geoengineering - do not keep attacking Hansen or others who disagree you MISLEADING COMMENTS: It is very dangerous criticism and unfair as Jim Hansen has put his skin deep in and out to point out the dangers of climate change. An unhelpful criticism like that sinking into the political patrons, and the rest assured, there will be no money and then no geoengineering. Many on the emissinons curtailment camp point out to Winston Churchill as an example to his ability to re-engineer the economy to respond to the threat. In a just few years the UK industry was converted to supply aeroplanes and munitions. As the car industry is going to decline in the US and UK due to falling demand and cheap cars from elsewhere, what is better than industrial conversion to make them to turn up wind turbines, solar energy gensets, insulation materials, and - geoengineering gadgets. Neither renewable energy nor geoengineering can be substantially implemented without establisment of approppriate industrial base for both. Is someone just trying to create clever experiments whitout any intent to fix the climate problem? [snip] There are many things that can go wrong and badly, both known and unknown, both agreed and disagreed, but blaming each others different perspectives is just disgusting and leads into a dysfunctional response to the grave danger. Kind regards, Albert _____ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:55:50 -0400 Subject: [geo] Re: Post on geoengineering From: [email protected] To: [email protected] CC: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] If David Hawkins knows of a way to accomplish geoengineering research absent third party funding, it might be helpful if he proffers his knowledge. In the mean time, I suppose he would use OIF (the commercial investment) as an example. Otherwise, he simple pricks the skin of the geoengineers without helping whatever. David Schnare On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 7:14 AM, Hawkins, Dave <[email protected]> wrote: Gene says-- "Any honest scientists will agree that you cannot prove the negative; you cannot prove that it will not be affordable; and you cannot prove that it will not be available in time. In contrast dishonest scientists can make it not happen by ignoring or deprecating the possibility; or by preventing it from getting funding to establish feasibility, timing and cost." This statement is correct whether the word "it" represents geo-engineering or emissions mitigation. But not everyone who raises questions about either approach should be characterized as dishonest. And we should recognize that "funding" is not the only tool available to society. _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Eugene I. Gordon Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2009 11:10 AM To: [email protected] Cc: Revkin Subject: [geo] Post on geoengineering This appeared today in the New York Times Dot Earth post by Andy Revkin on Tipping Points. Please send comments and particularly send items to Andy that he should include in an article on geoengineering. Many of you are just a prestigious as the people he includes in his Posts. You can help him get it done and get some discussion going. If you don't follow these posts you may not know that 'denier' is the term used AGW aficionados to describe those who don't agree with them. I am making a small twist of the knife -gene Andy, I continue to find it amazing that in all these discussions, including this one on tipping points and the value of using it as a scare tactic in forcing action on reducing use of fossil fuel, reality has not set in. I was glad to see some experts in your Post point out that in effect that 'crying polar bear', as in crying 'wolf', can be counter productive. Experts like Hansen keep pushing 'reduction' when it is clear that they are working against a prevailing force or resistance that will only give slowly if at all. The real deniers are those who are pushing for a change that cannot occur to any great extent in the next half century and possibly longer. Even more amazing is that these deniers never consider or discuss alternate solutions such as geoengineering. In my opinion the human mind is capable of producing viable techniques for reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface or removing CO2 from the atmosphere long before it will be able to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Any honest scientists will agree that you cannot prove the negative; you cannot prove that it will not be affordable; and you cannot prove that it will not be available in time. In contrast dishonest scientists can make it not happen by ignoring or deprecating the possibility; or by preventing it from getting funding to establish feasibility, timing and cost. Hansen totally ignores it. That is incredible! By my limited definition that makes Hansen a dishonest scientist. That cannot be refuted because that limited claim is totally true. Finally I have to say Andy you are failing us by not including geoengineering in the discussion, by not posting related comments by experts, by not getting opinions from people like Chu and other government 'experts'. And you readers please attack what I say. Produce your arguments and URLs that pooh pooh geoengineering. You don't and you have not in the past despite many past comments about geoengineering by me. You deniers, where are your competitive juices? - Gene G, New Jersey </div --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
