---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Stephen Salter <[email protected]> Date: 2009/4/10 Subject: Relayed email To: Peter Read <[email protected]>, Andrew Lockley < [email protected]>
Peter I am grateful for your support in the debate with the ETC group but I wondered if the message could be relayed to Diana and the others by Andrew Lockley who has no difficulty in posting things to the geoblog. It would be slightly undignified if I push it. Stephen -- Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design School of Engineering and Electronics University of Edinburgh Mayfield Road Edinburgh EH9 3JL Scotland tel +44 131 650 5704 fax +44 131 650 5702 Mobile 07795 203 195 [email protected] http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs Peter Read wrote: > PS. Dear Stephen, I continue to have difficulty with the geoengineering > blog which rejects messages that I send to it. I usually ask John Nissen to > help but as he is on vacation would you please be kind enough to post this > message for me. Many thanks, Peter > ******************************** > > Dear Diana and colleagues > > I would like to add a further consideration to Stephen's message. This is > that humankind (including both genders) has been engaged in geo-engineering > for about 6000 years, since the dawn of settled agriculture (industrialized > agriculture? - ask how it felt to the slave societies that fed the cities of > ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, etc.). > > The work of Bill Ruddiman shows that the reason we are not by now plunged > into the ice age that has been overdue since the last Milancovich maximum is > the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere from progressive clearance of forested > land for settled agriculture. This long-lived phase of benign > geo-engineering has been followed by a couple of centuries of progressively > more malign geoengineering as fossil fuel carbon has been shifted into the > atmosphere to a point that now threatens many species, including humankind. > > So the question I ask you is "why stop now, at a point of maximum danger > ???" Why stop when we have available apparently benign geoengineering > technologies for getting us out of danger and when the point of no return > (one stage worse than the tipping point) may be close (hopefully not yet > passed, but we don't know that either). > > Of course there are risks from every kind of geoengineering (including, as > we now know, from the malign process begun ~200 years ago). But there are > severe risks from relying on emissions reductions alone to cure the problem. > The threat of collapse of large areas of land based ice on Greenland and > West Antarctica is trebled in the next half century, even if emissions are > (implausibly) reduced to zero in 25 years. It is necessary to remove carbon > from the atmosphere and stock it somewhere safer. And quite likely it is > also necessary to supplement such carbon stock management with low risk and > easily reversible cloud albedo modification schemes such as proposed by > Stephen and others > > If you can think of something better please provide a suggestion but, in my > opinion carbon removals means restoring forest cover over a large area > worldwide, not just reducing deforestation (REDD). That does not mean the > horizon to horizon industrial forestation envisaged in some environmental > dystopias. 1 billion hectares can be 10 million 100 hectare plantations (1 > Km square) each adapted to the environmental conditions and community needs > where they are located. That involves a very large programme of capacity > building to create a corps of 'grassroots entrpreneurs' trained to stimulate > communities to take advantage of the sustainable development opportunities > presented by carbon credit cash inflows and to empower communities to resist > the depradations resulting from the current unregulated and sometimes > unsustainable bioenergy developments that are resulting from declining oil > supplies. > > So wise up and get your priorities right. The first of which is to avoid > climatic catastrophe. For that we need to understand better what the > options are, including through increased funding of research into the > avilable mitigation options. > > Albert Einstein said "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human > stupidity -- and I'm not sure about the universe". Do you want to prove him > right? > > Peter Read > Hon Research Fellow > Massey University Centre for Energy Research > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Salter" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Cc: <[email protected]>; "Parker, Andrew" < > [email protected]> > Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 4:56 AM > Subject: [geo] Re: ETC Group to White House: Yes, you can -- but don't > > [[Snipped - PR]] > > The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
