I was typing my response to the offered paper when Dr. Caldeira's post came through. Exactly! And politely put! Even a layperson, such as myself, can see this paper as disturbingly myopic with a profound lack of "common sense". If a study incorporates a key phase such as "our analysis considers only a small subset of the parametric and structural uncertainties", why bother waisting the paper to publish it?
I would love to play Texas Hold'm with that research team! On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 8:12 PM, Dan Whaley <dan.wha...@gmail.com> wrote: > Seems to rehash so many of the canards, and to recommit so many of the > obvious fallacies.... sigh... are we condemned to a perpetual > groundhog day where even the Joe Romm's out there never pick up on the > main points? > > 0. We've got 700ppm baked in right now. So, mitigate, mitigate, > mitigate ain't going to cut it. > 1. SRM is not an either or, it's an AND. I don't see aerosol > geoengineering ever being substituted for emissions reductions-- in > other words, if we admit that we're in trouble, we'll likely take > action to address the root cause. Intelligent people might disagree-- > but I see it as a low probability outcome. > 2. The notion that if we started, we might somehow abruptly stop. > (This is akin to suddenly stopping the production of rice, or > microchips, for instance... sure, I suppose we could, but why would > we? It's not like we'd somehow forget how, or lose the ability to.) > 3. The concept that the Climate Intervention Bureau doesn't > effectively already exist. The IPCC/UNFCCC are already making a > determination that 2C is somehow the right number we should be aiming > at-- the geostat is already locked in. Precipitation impacts that > affect populations are already being decided. Why would the > deployment of strat aerosols be any different in nature than these > kinds of decisions? > 4. The notion that we need to make the decision about whether this is > good or bad mojo now, before we do the research to find out. > > D > > > On Apr 19, 7:35 pm, "Rau, Greg" <r...@llnl.gov> wrote: > > http://climateprogress.org/2011/04/17/aerosol-geoengineering-economics/ > > > > Science Sunday: “The economics (or lack thereof) of aerosol > geoengineering” > > Is the aerosol strategy intergenerationally unethical? > > April 17, 2011 > > Joe Romm > > > > The Gist: Putting reflective aerosols high into the atmosphere to slow > climate change is too risky and not cost effective. > > > > That’s Climate Central describing the core conclusions of the Climatic > Change paper “The economics (or lack thereof) of aerosol geoengineering,” > (full paper online here): > http://www3.geosc.psu.edu/~kzk10/Goes_et_al_geoengineering_cc_2009_su... > > > > This study would seem to support the view that if you don’t do aggressive > greenhouse mitigation starting now, you pretty much take aerosol > geo-engineering off the table as a very limited (but still dubious) add-on > strategy — as even geo-engineering experts like climatologist Ken Caldeira > have made clear. > > > > What’s nice about this study is that it doesn’t just do an economic > analysis, but also discusses intergenerational ethics. I’ll excerpt the > study itself at length — after the full Climate Central summary: > > > > Summary: Some have argued that if human society cannot sufficiently > reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, than we could still avoid the worst > consequences of global warming by putting highly reflective particles, known > as aerosols, high into the atmosphere. These aerosols would reflect light > back to space, thus counteracting warming from greenhouse gases. > > > > The authors of this paper use an integrated assessment model to determine > how costly such a method would be. The authors discuss the potential side > effects of this so-called “geoengineering” strategy, since adding aerosols > to the atmosphere could have unintended consequences, such as significantly > altering weather patterns and damaging stratospheric ozone. Also, aerosols > are short-lived, and would have to be continuously added to the atmosphere > in order for this scheme to work. If society stopped injecting them, the > result would be a rapid shift in the climate, something this paper argues > would be highly damaging. > > > > The authors calculate that if there is greater than a 15 percent chance > that such a method will be shut down, or if the unintended consequences of > aerosols are greater than half a percent of the world’s economy, then this > method of geoengineering is not worth the effort. > > > > And let’s not forget that the aerosol ’solution’ does nothing to stop the > consequences of ocean acidification, which recent studies suggest will be > devastating all by itself (see Geological Society: Acidifying oceans spell > marine biological meltdown “by end of century”). > > > > Here is the conclusion to the study itself: > > > > First, aerosol geoengineering hinges on counterbalancing the forcing > effects of greenhouse gas emissions (which decay over centuries) with the > forcing effects of aerosol emissions (which decay within years). Aerosol > geoengineering can hence lead to abrupt climate change if the aerosol > forcing is not sustained. The possibility of an intermittent aerosol > geoengineering forcing as well as negative impacts of the aerosol forcing > itself may cause economic damages that far exceed the benefits. Aerosol > geoengineering may hence pose more than just “minimal climate risks,” > contrary to the claim of Wigley (2006). Second, substituting aerosol > geoengineering for CO2 abatement fails an economic cost-benefit test in our > model for arguably reasonable assumptions. In contrast, (and as shown in > numerous previous studies) fast and sizeable cuts in CO2 emissions (far in > excess of the currently implemented measures) pass a costbenefit test. > Third, aerosol geoengineering constitutes a conscious temporal risk transfer > that arguably violates the ethical objectives of intergenerational justice. > > > > Our analysis has barely scratched the surface and is silent on many > important aspects. More than a decade ago, a Unites States National > Academies of Science committee assessing geoengineering strategies concluded > that “Engineering countermeasures need to be evaluated but should not be > implemented without broad understanding of the direct effects and the > potential side effects, the ethical issues, and the risks” (COSEPUP, 1992). > Today, we are still lacking this broad understanding. > > > > Caldeira made some similar points to me in a 2009 e-mail interview: > > > > Nobody has written about this that I know of, but …. > > > > If we keep emitting greenhouse gases with the intent of offsetting the > global warming with ever increasing loadings of particles in the > stratosphere, we will be heading to a planet with extremely high greenhouse > gases and a thick stratospheric haze that we would need to main[tain] > more-or-less indefinitely. This seems to be a dystopic world out of a > science fiction story. First, we can assume the oceans have been heavily > acidified with shellfish and corals largely a thing of the past. We can > assume that ecosystems will be greatly affected by the high CO2 / low > sunlight conditions — similar to what Earth experienced hundreds of millions > years ago. The sunlight would likely be very diffuse — maybe good for > portrait photography, but with unknown consequences for ecosystems. > > > > We know also that CO2 and sunlight affect Earth’s climate system in > different ways. For the same amount of change in rainfall, CO2 affects > temperature more than sunlight, so if we are to try to correct for changes > in precipitation patterns, we will be left with some residual warming that > would grow with time. > > > > And what will this increasing loading of particles in the stratosphere do > to the ozone layer and the other parts of Earth’s climate system that we > depend on? > > > > On top of all of these environmental considerations, there are > socio-political considerations: We we have a cooperative world government > deciding exactly how much geoengineering to deploy where? What if China were > to go into decades of drought? Would they sit idly by as the Climate > Intervention Bureau apparently ignores their plight? And what if political > instability where to mean that for a few years, the intervention system were > not maintained … all of that accumulated pent-up climate change would be > unleashed upon the Earth … and perhaps make “The Day After” movie look less > silly than it does. > > > > Long-term risk reduction depends on greenhouse gas emissions reduction. > Nevertheless, there is a chance that some of these options might be able to > diminish short-term risk in the event of a climate crisis. > > > > I would add the grave risk that that after injecting massive amounts of > sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere for a decade or more, we might > experience some unexpectedly bad side effect that just gets worse and worse. > After all, the top climate scientists underestimated the speed and scale of > greenhouse gas impacts (and the magnitude of synergistic ones, like bark > beetle infestations and forest fires). > > > > We would be in incompletely unexplored territory — what I call an > experimental chemotherapy and radiation therapy combined. There is no > possible way of predicting the long-term effect of the thick stratospheric > haze (which, unlike GHGs, has no recent or paleoclimate analog). If it > turned out to have unexpected catastrophic impacts of its own (other than > drought), we’d be totally screwed (see “the definitive killer objection to > geoengineering as even a temporary fix”). > > > > Or, rather, our children and grand-children would be totally screwed, not > that our actions today suggest we care about them very much (see Is the > global economy a Ponzi scheme?). The study has this to say about the > intergenerational ethics issue: > > > > While there have been careful analyses of the significance of > intergenerational justice in the wider context of climate change (Gardiner, > 2009; Page, 2006; Wolf, 2009), our study is the first to quantitatively > examine issues of intergenerational justice raised by aerosol geoengineering > for the case that aerosol geoengineering can be intermittent and the aerosol > forcing can cause harm. Our analysis shows, for example, that substituting > aerosol geoengineering for CO2 emissions abatement is a risk transfer from > current to future generations (Figures 4 to 7). In addition, the impacts of > the abrupt warming due to a discontinuation of the aerosol forcing would > place a heavy burden on human communities and ecosystem integrity (Alley et > al., 2002) and thus threaten the conditions required to satisfy basic > welfare rights of future generations. Substituting aerosol geoengineering > for CO2 emissions abatement decreases the required abatement costs in the > near term but imposes sizeable risks for more distant generations (Figure 4 > a, b). Since Rawlsian intergenerational distributive justice requires that > current generations avoid policies that create benefits for themselves but > impose costs on future generations, substituting aerosol geoengineering for > CO2 abatement fails on the grounds of this particular approach to ethics. > > > > It would appear that what science advisor John Holdren reasserted in 2009 > remains true today, “The ‘geo-engineering’ approaches considered so far > appear to be afflicted with some combination of high costs, low leverage, > and a high likelihood of serious side effects.“ > > > > Mitigate, mitigate, mitigate — or punish countless future generations. > > > > Related Post: > > > > Key ‘geoengineering’ strategy — cloud whitening — may yield warming, not > cooling > > Science on the Risks of Climate Engineering: “Optimism about a > geoengineered ‘easy way out’ should be tempered by examination of currently > observed climate changes” > > Share Print > > This entry was posted by Joe on Sunday, April 17th, 2011 at 5:13 pm > and is filed under Geoengineering. You can follow any responses to this > entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a > response. Pinging is currently not allowed. > > -- > 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. > > -- *Michael Hayes* *360-708-4976* http://www.wix.com/voglerlake/vogler-lake-web-site -- 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.
