I usually like Herman Daly's work, but this seems a bit sloppy. Most people are advocating research not deployment at this stage. Most people do not see sunlight reflection as an alternative to emissions reduction.
Furthermore, it is a research question whether situations might plausibly arise wherein a deployment of a sunlight refleciton system might help protect "the interests of both our species and life in general" -- this is not the sort of thing you know just by sitting in an armchair. On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Rau, Greg <[email protected]> wrote: > > Response to Daly's crtique (below) of geo-engineering > ------------------------- > The very sad and unappreciated truth is that: > > a. If all emissions were shut off tomorrow, the sulfate would go away first > and that would yield about a W/m2 forcing in first two weeks, perhaps > diminished slightly by loss of organic aerosols (though these may be > balanced by loss of black carbon). Then we’d lose several tenths of a W/m2 > due to methane over a decade or two. But with thermal inertia and the > remaining positive forcing, temperature would be pushed up to near 2 C (and > dangerous is likely really about 0.5, not 2). And such an emissions shutoff > cannot occur. > > b. If the global CO2 emissions could be held constant at the year 2000 > level for century (so global emissions of about 6.5 GtC/yr) even as > population rises, standard of living rises, and we tend toward coal and oil > shale, and then go to zero CO2 emissions after that, we are at 550 ppm or > so, and that warming (given end of SO2 emissions) is 3 C or so above > preindustrial and clearly over reasonable limit. Doing this will be a real > challenge, but not good enough. > > c. If we assume 8 billion average population for the century and 3 > tonneC/yr per person, we reach 1000 ppm by 2100 and would likely be headed > higher, and that is 6 C or so. > > What energy path does one choose that keeps world from going over 2 C, and > maybe way over, and how would we suffer through those impacts? So, question > is do we suffer or consider climate engineering. There is no question we > must mitigate-the question is how much we must suffer. > 7/2/11 1:08 PM, "Kirk R. Smith" <[email protected] < > [email protected] > ________________________________________________________ > > http://steadystate.org/geo-engineering-or-cosmic-protectionism/ > June 27, 2011, Daily News > > Geo-engineering or Cosmic Protectionism? > by Herman Daly > “We are capable of shutting off the sun and the stars because they do not > pay a dividend.” John Maynard Keynes, 1933 > Frederic Bastiats classic satire, Petition of the Candlemakers Against the > Sun, has been given new relevance. Written in 1845 in defense of free trade > and against national protectionism in France, it can now be applied quite > literally to the cosmic protectionists who want to protect the global > fossil fuel-based growth economy against unfair competition from sunlight a > free good. The free flow of solar radiation that powers life on earth > should be diminished, suggest some, including American Enterprise Institutes > S. Thernstrom (Washington Post 6/13/09, p. A15), because it threatens the > growth of our candle-making economy that requires filling the atmosphere > with heat-trapping gasses. The protectionist solution of partially turning > off the sun (by albedo-increasing particulate pollution of the atmosphere) > will indeed make thermal room for more carbon-burning candles. Although > this will likely increase GDP and employment, it is attended by the > inconvenient fact that all life is pre-adapted by millions of years of > evolution to the existing flow of solar energy. Reducing that flow cancels > these adaptations wholesale just as global warming cancels myriad existing > adaptations to temperature. > > Artificially reducing our most basic and abundant source of low entropy > (the solar flux) in order to more rapidly burn up our scarcer terrestrial > source (fossil fuels), is contrary to the interests both of our species > and of life in general. Add to that the fact that candles, and many other > components of GDP, are at the margin increasingly unneeded and expensive, > requiring aggressive advertising and Ponzi-style debt financing in order to > be sold, and one must conclude that geo-engineering the world for more > candles and less sunlight is an even worse idea than credit default swaps. > Why then do some important and intelligent people advocate geo-engineering? > As the lesser evil compared to absolutely catastrophic and imminent climate > disaster, they say. If the American Enterprise Institute has now stopped > offering scientists money to write papers disputing global warming, and in > fact has come around to the view that climate change is bad, then why have > they not advocated carbon taxes or cap-auction-trade limits? Because they > think the technical geo-fix is cheap and will allow us to buy time and > growth to better solve the problem in the future. One more double whiskey > to help us get our courage up enough to really face our growth addiction! > Probably we are irrevocably committed to serious climate change and will > have to bear the costs, adapt, and hasten our transition to a steady state > economy at a sustainable (smaller) scale. Panicky protectionist > interventions by arrogant geo-engineers to save growth for one more round > will just make things worse. > At the earthly level I am no free trader, and neither was Keynes, but > shutting off the sun and the stars to protect the fossil fuel economy is > carrying protectionism to cosmic extremes. Reality has overtaken satire. > > > > -- > 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. > -- 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]. 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