Oliver, Thanks very much for raising this. This came up several times at Asilomar, and is clearly an issue for public understanding and consideration of this high-risk/high-leverage area of geoengineering. The Solar Radiation Management term is indecipherable to many (most?) non-experts, and actually 'Management' may imply something more exacting anything we know about these techniques just yet.
To add one idea to the pot, I am wondering if "sunlight reflection", might be both technically accurate and relatively neutral in perception. It may be sometime before we know if we get an overall reduction of sunlight, but, as I understand it, reflection would be the nearest lay translation of "albedo" which is most applicable technical term for this area of activity. Best Regards, Kelly Wanser Silver Lining On Mar 31, 9:00 am, Oliver Morton <[email protected]> wrote: > As I understand it, solar radiation management is a term that Ken > invented at least in part as a joke when folks at NASA Ames expressed > concern at using the term "geoengineering" in the title of a meeting > at Ames. It was deliberately coined to look opaque, dull and > bureacratic, and as a result it does indeed look opaque, dull and > bureaucratic. > > Jargon is much maligned, in that sometimes it is absolutely necessary. > Technical discussions need technical terms for more than just > excluding the laity. But I don't think that, in this case, the term > actually adds anything to our conversations. "Sunshine reduction", > used analgously to the accepted term "carbon dioxide reduction", would > seem to me to do just fine as a replacement. (I can see that it might > be more accurate to say "surface sunlight reduction", but I'm not sure > it's worth bothering. We don't say "atmospheric carbon dioxide > reduction".) > > The best reason for sticking with SRM is that it's a term already out > there and people sort of know what it means. But I'm pretty sure they > will be able to grasp what "sunshine reduction" means pretty easily, > and new entrants to the debate -- of whom we seem to be expecting, and > indeed soliciting, a fair few -- will find the new term more > transparent and easily grasped. After all, in common parlance sunshine > doesn't really count as radiation. Also, terms often used only as > initialisations can be particularly irksome to people using English as > a second or third language. > > To people who might worry that "sunshine reduction" sounds a bit > ominous, I'd say a) only a bit (sales of sunscreen show that people > are already aware that reducing sunshine can be good) and b) that's a > feature, not a bug. Sounding slightly ominous is no bad thing for a > geoengeering technology. > > So is there a good reason for keeping the term SRM, rather than > shifting to the simpler "sunshine reduction"? If not, let's make the > change. > > (I tried to post a shorter version of this last night, but seem to > have failed: apologies if I end up double posting) -- 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.
