All: Jim’s truism that global geo-engineering cannot be tested because it is, well, global and is, thus, implementation, returns us back to, but ignores, earlier posts here about phasing and scaling. Truism is not argumentation. But Jim also asserts that any stepped research plan is a slippery slope, so don’t try that either. Alliterative metaphor isn’t analysis, and we need more than drive-by shots. In another thread (“Fleming in Slate”) Jim agreed with my assessment of his book that the historical record he has documented showed that instead of a heady optimism about geo-engineering schemes, social response has been skepticism and rejection….even the secret ideas and attempts leaked out and were squashed (we were embarrassed to find our military seeding clouds as a weapon in Viet Nam, and congress supported ENMOD). Society may not have a fully rational policy analysis arm, but critical scientists, policy-makers, laws (social and physical), and public attitudes managed to squash all the farfetched and potentially dangerous schemes he recounts, as well as some less fantastical ones. Geo-engineering faces a slippery slope, alright, but it is up-hill! And that’s perhaps how it should be, given what is at risk, though my priors, backed by Jim’s history, suggest a strong likelihood of rejecting a useful technology before it is field tested.
Granger Morgan suggested at Asilomar a research strategy designed to reduce any tendency to premature testing or deployment-because-we-have- it, and the “allowed zones” in Morgan and Ricke’s International Risk Governance Council paper are a starting point for that, and should be fleshed out by, in addition to natural scientists, the many social scientists, philosophers, ethicists, and historians that are indeed included in this conversation (like the ones over on the moral hazard thread). Bill Travis On Sep 29, 6:42 pm, "James R. Fleming" <[email protected]> wrote: > Colleagues, > > Is global climate engineering untested? -- Yes, with the exception of the > historical example I provided, which was US and Soviet nuclear devices > detonated in the magnetosphere between 1958 and 1962 as a form of > sabre-rattling during the Cold War. These tests led to the Limited Test Ban > Treaty. > > Is global climate engineering untestable? -- Yes, since a global ³test² > would be an implementation. The key word is global. OIF patch experiments > are not global, nor are they justification for SRM tests that ³pump it up > and spew it out.² > > Do I support research in climate engineering? Yes, but keep it indoors and > please, please include the humanists and social scientists and take their > work seriously. Remember, climate engineering is not to be left to the > technocrats. We need research by ethicists, sociologists, psychologists, > historians, etc., > > Do I support Ken's 3-phase program that escalates from computer modeling > and lab tests to ³development of a deployable system?² No, this outlines a > slippery slope greased with conditional statements. Caldeira and Keith use > 31 ³coulds² and 9 ³mights² in the short Issues in S&T article. Yet, we do > not disagree on Phase I, except I would argue for more funds going to > atmospheric science in general, not earmaked for geoengineers. > > Now, I have to leave for a meeting about military efforts to control the Van > Allen Belts during the Cold War. > > Jim > > On 9/29/10 7:01 PM, "Ken Caldeira" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Robock et al (Science, 2010): "We argue that geoengineering cannot be > > tested > > without full-scale implementation." > > Fleming (Slate, 2010): "Global climate engineering is untested and > > untestable..." > > > In summarizing this conversation, it seems universally agreed that flat > > statements like these are simply untenable, in that everyone acknowledges > > that > > there are many tests that can be done (both in the real world and in > > numerical > > simulations) that will help improve our ability to predict consequences of > > deployments of climate intervention systems. > > > (Couldn't someone equally argue that "climate consequences of emissions > > reductions are untestable" ?) > > > As with all large scale deployments in complex systems (c.f., electricity > > generation and transmission, highway systems) there is no way prior to > > full-scale system deployment to be able to predict all consequences of that > > deployment. Nevertheless, there are a large number of things that can be > > done > > to improve our predictive ability. > > > It is clear that we need either good models or lots of time with > > mid-sized-tests to predict climate consequences of a full-scale deployment > > with confidence.. > > > This state of affairs makes it clear that we should be working hard to > > improve > > and test climate models and to conduct field experiments that can improve > > process representations in those models. As Stephen Salter points out, there > > are many things to be tested beside large-scale climate consequences. > > > Alan Robock and co-authors may feel they knows what they meant when they > > wrote > > those words, but I think what they meant was not what they wrote. It seems > > to > > me that the content of their statement is something like: > > > "If we are unwilling to rely on climate models and are unwilling to spend > > decades doing mid-sized tests in the environment, then there is no way to > > test > > the climate consequences of geoengineering schemes without full-scale > > implementation." > > > To understand large scale climate consequences of a geoengineering > > deployment, > > we will most likely need to rely on climate models, and I think that is what > > Robock et al meant to say. > > > There are plenty of tests we can do in the field (e.g., testing hardware, > > tests aimed at improving physical process understanding and improving > > representations of those processes in the models). We can test climate model > > performance using a wide variety of observations (e.g., Mt Pinatubo). We can > > also test various climate intervention proposals in climate models (and our > > trust in those results of those tests should increase as models improve and > > are evaluated on a broader range of measures). > > > It is damaging to efforts to conduct these climate engineering tests to have > > people going around saying things like "geongineering cannot be tested > > without > > full-scale implementation" when this statement is clearly wrong as written: > > there are many valuable tests that can be done, both in the real world and > > in > > models. > > > ___________________________________________________ > > Ken Caldeira > > > Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology > > 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA > > +1 650 704 7212 [email protected] > >http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeirala...@kencaldeira > > > "Marriage cannot be tested without full-scale implementation."- Hide quoted > > text - > > - Show quoted text - -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. 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