[geo] Re: Manifesto for Geoengineering

[John Nissen]

Hi Peter, There's quite a lot wrong with the Royal Society report [1] and even more that is missing, especially on the context for geoengineering.  This needs redress.  I am thinking that the "manifesto" might serve such a purpose - putting the whole business of geoengineering into the context of an Earth system out of balance in several respects (having been reasonably well balanced for 8000 years before the industrial revolution).  In fact we might call the manifesto something like "Engineering our survival - how to rebalance the Earth system". Another notable report also misses out on context.  I'm thinking of the Worldwatch Institute's "State of the World 2009" [2].  The subtitle is tellingly "Into a warming world", which is already accepting that emissions reductions can only do so much. I would like the manifesto to include chapters on context and problem areas before discussing possible remedial actions and socio-political-economic aspects. Context and problem areas could include chapters on: * The Earth system in geological perspective (including Ruddiman's "Early Anthropocene" hypothesis [3]) * Perturbation of the Earth system's radiation balance (including climate forcing from CO2, aerosols, etc.) * The role of the Arctic in controlling global temperature * The carbon cycle (including ocean acidification) * The hydrological cycle (including rainforest) * Hazards from global warming  (including methane and sea level rise [4]) * Marine ecosystems under threat (including corals, polar ecosystems, marine biodiversity) * Terrestrial ecosystems under threat (including flora and fauna biodiversity). Remedial actions could include chapters on: * Emissions reduction (especially its limitations) * Agriculture (including biochar) and livestock management * Forestry * Carbon air capture (including artificial trees and iron fertilisation) * Heat transfer (including Rapley and Lovelock's pipes [5]) * Solar radiation management (including Salter and Latham's marine cloud albedo enhancement [6]) * Civil engineering (dams, barrages, river diversion, ice chipping, etc.) * Population control and reduction in per capita impact. On the socio-political-economic aspects there could be chapters on: * Common arguments against geoengineering * Taxing fossil fuel to pay for geoengineering (i.e. so that carbon out of the ground pays for putting carbon back into the ground) * Avoiding societal collapse [7]. All this sounds a lot to write, but we've had good contributions on these subjects on the geoengineering googlegroup over the past months.  The manifesto gives an opportunity to put these contributions together. BTW, Peter, I am absolutely with you on biochar as a win-win-win strategy.  And I very much like the idea of combining approaches at the grass roots, so to speak, for example combining help on farming with family planning in a holistic approach, see [8]. Cheers, John [1] Royal Society report on geoengineering: Royalsociety.org/displaypagedoc.asp?id=35094 [2] State of the World 2009: http://www.worldwatch.org/sow09 [3] Ruddiman's "Early Anthropocene" hypothesis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ruddiman [4] Colloquium on hazards: http://planetark.org/wen/54708 [5] Rapley and Lovelock ocean pipes: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7161/full/449403a.html [6] Latham and Salter's - marine cloud brightening technique: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_reflectivity_enhancement [7] Jared Diamond's book "Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(book) [Tim Flannery: "It is probably the most important book you will ever read."] [8] "A holistic approach to climate change", Andy Coghlan, New Scientist, 26 September 2009 (No URL found yet - perhaps Andy Coghlan can oblige) Peter Read wrote: Simon (E.) Re (in your message to Ron Larson) "" Having spoken to Simon Shackley at the UKBRC in January I doubt your assertion that the centre is in significant disagreement with the RS. He told me advocates "have to avoid creating the impression there’s some sort of magic bullet here". Meanwhile, he said "there is a danger of overselling [biochar] before it’s been properly investigated". "" I doubt that selective quotation of comments 9 months ago can be a useful guide to his thoughts on the RS report. I agree, as would any sensible person, with his quoted comments but they do not mean that it is not possible to measure the amount of carbon that is put into the soil through properly documented commercial biochar soil improvement. Of course carbon gold may want to keep that business to itself. If you think it's OK for the Royal Society to include in their policy review a passage in confused language on an area where they have manifestly not done their homework , and which is, as you say, an area viewed with enormous suspicion by some -- i.e. is highly contentious --and then to make an ill-founded policy prescription you are entitled to your opinion, but I believe many would feel it to be somewhat eccentric. As regards "gratuitous", RS President Lord Rees states in the foreward "This report is therefore offered as a clarification of the scientific and technical aspects of geoengineering, and as a contribution to debates on climate policy". Nothing about policy prescription. As regards CDM credits, the RS says "not yet", which effectively means "not for a long time" given the negotiating processes involved. The RS is effectively putting a rather heavy boot into a delicate negotiation currently in process, which the UN Convention to Combat Desertification secretariat is hopeful will lead both to carbon conservation and improved soil quality in Sub Saharan regions. I hope some way can be found to rectify the situation quickly Peter ----- Original Message ----- From: "chsee" <simev...@gmail.com> To: "geoengineering" <geoengineering@googlegroups.com> Sent: Sunday, September 27, 2009 1:55 AM Subject: [geo] Re: Manifesto for Geoengineering I sent this reply to Ron earlier but neglected to also post it (follows below). I would like to add to what I said in that message by noting it is not very helpful to say things along the lines of "those authors at the Royal Society clearly didn't do their homework. If they'd only read x,y or z they would see the error of their ways." On CDM credits, does the RS report say biochar should never get them? Given that carbon offsetting is viewed with enormous suspicion by many people, the CDM must be (and be seen to be) based on robust accounting. I can't see anything "gratuitous" about saying that. Anyway, Carbon Gold have their Voluntary Carbon Standard methodology in the pipeline. No need to rush into the CDM. best, simon evans ---------------------------------- Dear Ron, It is clear that biochar may, in its place, prove a sensible and sustainable addition to the range of actions which must be undertaken to mitigate against climate change. It seems to me the question of scale is key. If the Lehmann figure of 5.5-9.5GtC/yr approaches 10% of global primary plant productivity, how can there not be land use implications? A lower figure 1GtC/yr might be possible just with crop 'wastes'. Yet every man (and his dog) has found a use for the same agricultural 'waste' which biochar could be made from. First off, is it really waste - animals eat and sleep on straw, other waste is ploughed into the soil and so on. Then there are the competing potential uses - biomass energy, 2nd gen biofuels, green chemicals, etc etc. If I had a pound for every time someone mentions corn stover... Maybe biochar is a better and more efficient use for the 'waste' than all the others. I don't know. Maybe some agricultural waste can be easily used for biochar and not other things. I don't know about that either. Maybe clever use of winter biochar crops can lead to enhanced soil fertility despite no fallow period. Who knows. I've read a good part of your message #1158. What sets alarm bells ringing for me is when people start throwing around words like "bogus" "misleading" and "nonsense". The UK Biochar Research Centre of which you speak warmly is much more cautious than you in its endorsement of the potential for biochar. Their submission to the RS is available on their website http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs/biochar/documents/WP2.pdf. I could (but won't) quote extensively from that document to illustrate my point. You can read it as well as I. Having spoken to Simon Shackley at the UKBRC in January I doubt your assertion that the centre is in significant disagreement with the RS. He told me advocates "have to avoid creating the impression there’s some sort of magic bullet here". Meanwhile, he said "there is a danger of overselling [biochar] before it’s been properly investigated". Best wishes, simon On Sep 26, 1:20 pm, "Peter Read" <pre...@attglobal.net> wrote: Ken, Simon As it was I that said it, I had best front up. My objection on first reading was to the passage immediately following Simon's quote, which is a gratuitous shift from policy relevance to policy prescription, viz: "Biochar and other forms of sequestered biomass have not yet been adequately researched and characterised, and so should not be eligible for carbon credits under the UNFCCC flexible mechanisms until there is a reliable system in place for verifying how much carbon is stored, and the wider social and environmental effects have been determined. Substantial research will be required to achieve these conditions for methods other than BECS". However, as regards the words that Simon quotes, one concern is a matter of emphasis, interpretation and tone. For instance, there are in aggregate about 15Gt p.a. crop and forestry residues and animal dung, which may be expected to rise to 20Gtp.a. (with ~10Gtp.a. C content) with population increase to 9billions. If the lot were pyrolyzed with 50 per cent C capture, and the product used for soil improvement, that would yield the lower end of the Lehman et al quoted range without any growth at all "in the resources devoted to producing" [[not "biofuels" but biochar is presumably intended]]. There would not be conflict with the use of agricultural land but synergy, with improved soil leading to increased crop yield. In a single sentence the RS writer manages to state that "using crops [PRESUMABLY HE/SHE MEANS CROP RESIDUES] for renewable fuels would be in conflict with using agricultural land for the production of food AND/OR BIOFUELS" !! Beyond the circular non-sequitur, the sentence is about biofuels and not about biochar at all. Next, a negativistic sentence "However, unless the sustainable sequestration rate exceeds around 1 GtC/yr, it is unlikely that it could make a large contribution." contains a false premise [as per the numbers above] which is then carried through to a prominent conclusion of low effectiveness in table 2.4 As regards final sentence that Simon quotes "might increase the cost and reduce the availability of food crops" is precisely the opposite of what would happen with conversion of currently largely wasted or inefficiently used farm and forestry residues to soil productivity enhancing biochar. As Ron Larson has noted, there is an extraordinary failure to quote the enormous positive literature on biochar, conveniently referenced and summarized in book format published in London IN MARCH 2009, within 2 miles of the RS Carlton House Terrace headquarters [Biochar for Environmental Management, Eds J Lehmann and S Joseph, Earthscan] which contrasts strangely with the Report's favourable attitude to BECS where the literature is sparse (possibly a convenience) and where success is entirely dependant on the infant CCS technology. There is not the slightest doubt that we know how to pyrolyze. As regards the gratuitous policy prescriptive paragraph, the establishment of a reliable system for verifying how much C is stored through commercial biochar application to soil is no different from estimating fossil fuel emissions - quantities and quality assay will.become available through normal accountancy procedures and can be aggregated in the same way as is done for coal, except the movement is down into the gropund rather than up out of it. As biochar is "finely divided pyrolyzed biomass prepared [expensively] for soil improvement" purchasers are not going to waste if for fuel (especially as preparation will likely involve wetting and doping with nutrients and/or fungal spores etc., somewhat spoiling combustion properties). Nobody is talking about carbon credits for increased labile soil C resulting from increased productivity or about unregulated backyard operations, though much valuable experimentation is going on in that way. As regards the RS concern over "the wider social and environmental effects " it would be good to see the same applied to already large scale bioenergy before getting too excited about the (likely beneficial) social and environmental effects of infant biochar. While I do not generally favour ad hominem arguments it may be noted that there is not a single member of the working group and review panel that has a publishing record in the field of biochar. Hope that helps Peter ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@gmail.com> To: "geoengineering" <geoengineering@googlegroups.com> Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2009 4:51 PM Subject: [geo] Re: Manifesto for Geoengineering It would be nice if Ron would provide a direct answer to Simon Evans's question. I read the post on the yahoo group referred to by Ron. There are apparently differences of opinion on whether biochar is ready to be considered as an offset in negotiations under the UNFCCC, but I saw no errors of fact pointed out in that post. Tthe only substantive complaint I could find was that the section on biochar was inadequately referenced. If there are indeed errors of fact in the Royal Society Report, it would be helpful to point them out clearly, succinctly, and, where appropriate, quantitatively. Ken ----- Original Message ----- From: "chsee" <simev...@gmail.com> To: "geoengineering" <geoengineering@googlegroups.com> Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 9:43 PM Subject: [geo] Re: Manifesto for Geoengineering Please, someone explain to me what is "nonsense", or indeed "misleading" about this quote on biochar from the Royal Society: “Proponents of biomass for sequestration argue that very large rates of sequestration are in principle achievable. For example, Lehmann et al. (2006), quote a potential carbon sink of 5.5 to 9.5 GtC/yr by 2100, larger than the present day fossil fuel source (and approaching 10% of global primary production by plants). Such fluxes suppose that there will be enormous growth in the resources devoted to the production of biofuels, and that some large fraction of this carbon would be converted to biochar. The use of crops for renewable fuels on such a scale would very likely conflict with the use of agricultural land for the production of food and/or biofuels. As summarised in Table 2.4 biomass for sequestration could be a significant small-scale contributor to a geoengineering approach to enhancing the global terrestrial carbon sink, and it could, under the right circumstances, also be a benign agricultural practice. However, unless the sustainable sequestration rate exceeds around 1 GtC/yr, it is unlikely that it could make a large contribution. As is the case with biofuels, there is also the significant risk that inappropriately applied incentives to encourage biochar might increase the cost and reduce the availability of food crops, if growing biomass feedstocks becomes more profitable than growing food.” simon evans On Sep 24, 5:39 am, Ron Larson <rongretlar...@comcast.net> wrote: Geoengineering List (with some ccs): Earlier today, Peter Read used my name (Ron Larson - now a new member of this list) in connection with Biochar - saying / "//despite Royal Society nonsense based apparently on a submission from a scientifically ill-qualified NGO - Ron may care to comment" . / . The NGO being charged by Peter is BiofuelWatch (BFW), a London-based group fighting biofuels. They have (totally incorrectly) lumped Biochar with all biofuels, which they are against (justifiably) for past considerable global cutting of rainforests. From the perspective of this List, however, there is minimal attention to climate issues (nor to soil issues). Despite massive evidence on the longevity of [carbon-negative] char in soils for millenia, they deny all of that. Similarly they deny that Biochar is sure to provide considerable ag productivity increases. My main complaint about BFW is that the references they use never support their charges and they ignore all references that support Biochar. There is no other group anywhere in the world with anything like their published (but not peer-reviewed) anti-Biochar report. . Peter has also correctly identified that the recent Royal Society analysis of Biochar was "nonsense" from the perspective of those who are supporters of Biochar. And BFW was not listed as a checkable reference - whereas all of the other few the RS used were positive. . In sum, having put many hundreds of hours in fighting BFW, this is to fully support Peter's statements on these two superficial and therefore harmful analyses of Biochar's Geoengineering potential. Several rebuttals exist or are in process. The positive side of Biochar is best seen atwww.biochar-international.org(andI am not employed by, or on, any of the IBI committees or boards). Ronal W. Larson, PhD, Golden, Colorado (retired) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG -www.avg.com Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.112/2394 - Release Date: 09/25/09 05:51:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. 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