Hi All A comment about John's item G2 'that we make such a hash of everything in the past that we are bound to make a hash of geo-engineering'.
Everyone likes to believe this but the reality is that we magnify the hashes and ignore the many successes. I was certainly very bad to introduce rabbits to Australia. But horses to America? Potatoes to Europe? Thalidomide was tragic. But antiseptics? Antibiotics? Anesthetics? Vaccines? The Titanic sank but must most ships do not sink and do not get films made about them not sinking. I suggest that the success-to-hash ratio is at least a hundred to one and we can improve it by having the time and money to do the research properly. Stephen John Nissen wrote: > > Hi all, > > Alan Robock has said: > > "Whether we should use geoengineering as a temporary measure to avoid > the most serious consequences of global warming requires a detailed > evaluation of the benefits, costs, and dangers of different options." > > As you may already know, I am keen for rapid development and > deployment of SRM (solar radiation management) in the Arctic, with > some benefits (if successful): > > B1. Save the Arctic sea ice and associated ecosystem. > B2. Slow (and preferably halt) Arctic warming. > B3. Reduce discharge of CO2 and methane, contributing to global > warming and ocean acidification. > B4. Reduce risk of massive methane discharge, sufficient to > add several degrees of global warming. > B5. Slow the rise in sea level from Greenland glaciers. > B6. Reduce risk of Greenland ice sheet destabilisation, and > associated 6 metres of sea level rise. > B7. Develop the SRM techniques to use at other latitudes. > > B4 amounts to a reduction in the risk of such catastrophic global > warming that human civilisation could not survive. > > Against this we have the concerns of those who currently benefit from > a warmer Arctic: > > C1. Oil and mining industries, prospecting in the Arctic region. > C2. Traders who use the North-West passage. > C3. Greenlanders and others who may prefer a warmer climate (cf. > Inuit, who are having their way of life destroyed). > > I think we should try to counter people's natural fears about SRM > geoengineering, especially stratospheric sulfur aerosols. What are > the most frequent objections? One often reads that the remedy > (geoengineering) may be worse than the disease (global warming). We > need to present a balanced picture. > > General fears: > > G1. Geoengineering is interfering with nature. (I heard that fear > only this morning.) > G2. We've made such a hash of interventions in the past, we're bound > to make a hash of geoengineering. > G3. Moral hazard - geoengineering is a licence to continue CO2 pollution. > G4. Geoengineering is being offered as a silver bullet, which it > cannot be. > G5. You'll need international agreement - and that will be even more > difficult to get than agreement on emissions reduction. > G6. Too expensive - we always underestimate. > G7. Too cheap, so anybody could do it. > G8. It will not work. (We heard at the DIUS hearing "if emissions > reduction doesn't work, why should geoengineering work") > G9. It will work - but you might overdo it by mistake, leading to an > ice age. > G10. High risk of "unknown unknowns" turning out to be disastrous > side-effects. > G11. Our understanding is too limited. To quote the "Climate Safety > report": > > ".. even with the extraordinary advances in climate science to date, > our understanding of it has not developed to such a point as to allow > confidence that deploying direct cooling techniques would not cause > more harm than good." [1] > > > Specific fears of stratospheric aerosols (from Robock [2]): > > S1. Could have adverse effect on some regional climate(s) and > ecosystem(s) [4] > S2. Doesn't help with ocean acidification. > S3. Ozone depletion. > S4. Effect on plants (but more diffuse light has positive benefit?) > S5. Acid rain (noting that Alan Robock has withdrawn this particular > objection) > S6. Effect on cirrus clouds. > S7. Disappearance of blue skies (and appearance of red sunsets?) > could have negative psychological impact. > S8. Less sun for solar power. > S9. Environment impact of implementation (e.g. if put sulfur in > jetliners fuel). > S10. If stop, previously suppressed global warming will spring back > to hit you. > S11. Cannot stop quickly enough, if you did need to. > S12. Human error, with means of delivery, causing dreadful accident. > S13. Moral hazard = G3. > S14. Cost = G6 > S15. Commercial control of technology > S16. Military use of technology > S17. Conflict with current treaties > S18. Control of the thermostat > S19. Questions of moral authority > S20. Unexpected consequences = G10. > > Alan has since withdrawn objections on acid rain, S5, and cost, S14, > but added a new one [3]: > > S21. Ruin astronomical observations > > Do we have any more benefits, concerns, general fears or specific > fears to add to these lists? > > Cheers, > > John > > > [1] http://climatesafety.org/wp-content/uploads/climatesafety.pdf > > [2] http://www.thebulletin.org/files/064002006_0.pdf. Also see [3]. > > [3] Email from Alan Robock to the geoengineering and climate > intervention groups on 9th April: > > ---- > > Dear All, > > As some of you know, I published a paper last year: > > Robock, Alan, 2008: 20 reasons why geoengineering may be a bad idea. > Bull. Atomic Scientists, 64, No. 2, 14-18, 59, doi:10.2968/064002006. > > http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/20Reasons.pdf > > which also produced a roundtable discussion: > > http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/roundtables/has-the-time-come-geoengineering > > Since then, I have been evaluating these reasons and two of them seem to > not be of concern, excess acid deposition and cost. Our two papers on > these results, now under review, are: > > Kravitz, Ben, Alan Robock, Luke Oman, Georgiy Stenchikov, and Allison B. > Marquardt, 2009: Sulfuric acid deposition from stratospheric > geoengineering with sulfate aerosols. Submitted to J. Geophys. Res. > > http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/AcidDepositionJGRsubmitted.pdf > > Robock, Alan, Allison B. Marquardt, Ben Kravitz, and Georgiy Stenchikov, > 2009: The practicality of geoengineering. Submitted to Geophys. Res. > Lett. > > http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/practicality8NoFig3.pdf > > But I have also been giving talks on the subject and two days ago a > member of an audience suggested another reason why geoengineering (with > stratospheric aerosols) may be a bad idea: > > It would ruin Earth-based optical astronomy! > > With the tremendous investment in equipment, and mountain-top > observatories to get above most of the junk in the atmosphere, not to > mention sophisticated signal processing algorithms to remove the > remaining atmospheric influence, how could astronomers stay silent and > allow permanent clouds that would block their seeing? > > 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: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu > New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock > > ---- > > [4] Robock et al. > > *Regional Climate Responses to Geoengineering with Tropical and Arctic > SO2 Injections* > > [quote] The safety and efficacy of the recent suggestion of injection > of sulfate aerosols into the Arctic stratosphere to prevent sea ice > and Greenland from melting while avoiding adverse effects on the > biosphere at lower latitudes [/Lane et al./, 2007] are not supported > by our results. While Arctic temperature could be controlled, and sea > ice melting could be reversed, there would still be large consequences > for the summer monsoons, since the aerosols would not be confined to > the polar region. > > > -- 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 geoengineering@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
