My comment is not an argument against doing SRM research. It is an argument against trying to persuade people that SRM research is no different than tests of any other new technical systems. I doubt that is what Ken intended but I want to point out the importance of careful articulation of the rationales for SRM research and, more importantly, the need to acknowledge that SRM research will require extraordinary efforts to minimize risks that could emerge in course of such research at levels designed to produce significant forcing.
From: Mike MacCracken [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2011 11:16 AM To: Hawkins, Dave; Ken Caldeira Cc: Doug MacMynowski; [email protected]; Geoengineering; [email protected] Subject: Re: [geo] Can We Test Geoengineering? paper and YouTube videos True-but we also don't know nearly everything about what ongoing GHG emissions will bring, so what we need to work toward, in my view, is a relative risk analysis. Not at all easy to do, but the question is not really SRM or not, but GHG without or with SRM. Mike On 10/22/11 8:49 AM, "David Hawkins" <[email protected]> wrote: Ken, You argue that we won't know everything about SRM deployment ahead of time but "this is no different than any test that is done of anything". I don't think this is helpful as a response to concerns about the challenges of designing protocols for an SRM research program. There are real differences in the risk profile for SRM tests that are intended to produce detectable forcing. This needs to be acknowledged and a research program needs to examine whether effective approaches to manage these risks can be developed. David Sent from my iPad On Oct 22, 2011, at 6:39 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <[email protected]> wrote: As Doug states below and I pointed out in our YouTube discussion, the question "Can geoengineering be tested?" is either trivially true or trivially false depending on what you mean by "tested". If by "Can geoengineering be tested?" we mean "Is it in principle possible to perform tests that would give us more information about the likely consequences of an SRM deployment?", the answer is of course 'yes'. If by this question we mean "Is it in principle possible to know everything one would like to know about the consequences of an SRM deployment prior to the deployment?", the answer is of course 'no'. Fundamentally, this is no different than any test that is ever done of anything. Every test is designed to give us useful information; some tests are more useful than others; no test gives you the same information as a full deployment. _______________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 <tel:%2B1%20650%20704%207212> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab <http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab> @kencaldeira See our YouTube: Sensitivity of temperature and precipitation to frequency of climate forcing: Ken Caldeira <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDRYM_5S0AE> Her lab, mules, and carbon capture and storage: Sally Benson speaks to Near Zero <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMJJn6eP8J0> On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Doug MacMynowski <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Hi Ron, My thanks for your comments too. Re your specific concern about CDR, I think that to the extent that those outside this list have an opinion associated with the word geoengineering, it is most likely associated with SRM, at least if they have negative connotations with the word. So I would agree that there's no advantage to CDR folk to use the word geoengineering. And personally, I see no disadvantage to SRM to use the word geoengineering, if that's what people already think it means. Of course, that's my guess, not formal research. Re testing, a few comments (note of course, that we didn't script any of our discussions in the video, so some of those comments there may have lacked full caveats). 1. In response to Nadine, we certainly are not proposing testing, we simply believe that we need to understand what tests could tell us, since they could be a part of a strategy to manage risk (if we knew we could never test, that might alter our perspective) 2. I do not think that "can we test it" is really even a very well-posed question. Of course there are things we can learn. Of course there are things we can't learn. That's true for every test of anything; the real question is what we can or can't learn and what it would take. 3. I do not think that anyone would ever conduct a test just because we wanted to know what SRM might do, so that we would then have it available as an option in case we needed it. That was what I intended to mean in saying that I didn't think it would ever be tested. 4. However, if there is ever a point at which the risks of not doing SRM are clear and substantial to a sufficiently broad swath of population that it seems quite plausible that they outweigh the risks of doing SRM, then I do think that rather than simply turning things on at say 4 W/m2, it is reasonable to start smaller, and design the initial subscale deployment in a way that gives as much information as we can get as soon as possible. In that sense, I do believe that testing still has the potential to be useful as part of risk-reduction. 5. SRM can still be a quick response to a "climate emergency", but only if the emergency is sufficiently severe that we are willing to accept the risks of SRM. 6. I don't think that anyone knows today whether the consequences of SRM will be negative for any region (relative to not doing SRM, that is.) I think that most studies suggest that that is actually not likely to be the case, but the reality is simply that we don't know (and I strongly disagree with the folks who imply that they do know). More research would help. 7. And finally, I am neither an SRM proponent nor an opponent, and this paper was not intended to either be in favour or against it. I am simply in favour of sufficient research to understand it more. I do not personally think that anyone has sufficient information today to know whether implementing some form of SRM will be better or will not be better than not implementing it. (For pretty much any useful sense of the word better, which I acknowledge is ill-defined.) I know there are people on this list who disagree with me. 8. And maybe one more point... There were a couple of comments last year to the effect of geoengineering not being testable without full-scale implementation. If "full-scale" means 4W/m2, then I think its clear we can learn useful information from a test that is smaller than that. If "full-scale" means using enough radiative forcing so that the test itself could have unforeseen negative consequences, then I agree that any useful test would satisfy that criterion. In that very narrow sense, I agree with both Jim Fleming and Alan et al.'s statements last year - but I think its important to clear the record rather than leave impressions from over-simplified statements, since not everyone who read those statements would interpret them the same way. doug From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] On Behalf Of Ken Caldeira Sent: Friday, October 21, 2011 7:26 PM To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ; geoengineering; [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [geo] Can We Test Geoengineering? paper and YouTube videos Ron, Thank you for your substantive comments. You are correct that we are talking only about SRM and Marchetti spoke only about an approach to carbon storage -- something that today many (most?) people would not consider to be 'geoengineering'. My own view is that the term 'geoengineering' is not particularly useful as it refers to an odd collection of things. I think it is impossible to define a set of properties for which there would be wide agreement that all things with those properties are 'geoengineering' and no things without those properties are 'geoengineering'. Best, Ken PS. Thanks also for your stylistic comments on our videos. We are trying out this idea of making videos in an effort to improve communication. I agree that the conversational style is more engaging than having one person speak. _______________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 <tel:%2B1%20650%20704%207212> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab <http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab> @kencaldeira See our YouTube: Sensitivity of temperature and precipitation to frequency of climate forcing: Ken Caldeira <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDRYM_5S0AE> Her lab, mules, and carbon capture and storage: Sally Benson speaks to Near Zero <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMJJn6eP8J0> On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 9:11 AM, <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Ken (cc List, adding Ken's co-author, Doug and Ms Brachatzek): 1. This is foremost to thank you for making and supplying the short videos. I found both helpful and they encouraged me to also look at the paper - unusual since I am not usually looking (lack of time, not interest) that closely at the SRM side of Geoengineering. 2. Of the 12 videos I found at your site, I believe only the second below had two participants. I thought that was effective - and encourage you to do more with that back-and-forth format. 3. Your last few minutes in the joint dialog I thought was the most informative, where I believe you and Doug agreed that it was very unlikely to ever see serious SRM testing (and your reasoning seems correct). You both seemed to agree however that SRM could still occur - if we get to a certain point (Doug mentioned 20 years - and this seems reasonable). But this reasoning seems like a reason to forget SRM altogether - as a main rationale for SRM has been that it could be accomplished quickly. And I have, until this paper, been thinking it might be put in safely enough. The uncertainty Doug found about (for instance) rainfall impacts in India, strikes me as pretty strong proof that the impacts are almost certain to be negative for some groups/countries. Did I miss something? Is there anything in this paper that SRM proponents would find supportive? 4. In the last minute, Ken called attention to the Cesare Marchetti first use of the term "Goengineeering". I don't have access to the main 2007 paper, but in a 2006 IIASA paper with similar title, he used the term only to describe CCS - and then only with ocean deposition. The term has changed a lot. The Marchetti paper is at: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/PUB/Documents/RM-76-017.pdf <http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/PUB/Documents/RM-76-017.pdf> 5. But the above required me to also look closely (again, apologies for repeating myself) for whether there could be confusion in the paper and both short videos on the differences between "Geoengineering", SRM, and CDR. There was a slight mention of the second in the first, but the term CDR never was mentioned (I think). I fear that the (generally accepted to be much less risky) term CDR will be assumed to have all the same problems as brought out in this paper by Doug etal. This is therefore a repeat plea that the term "Geoengineering" be slowly phased out in favor of the two terms SRM and CDR. (Just as Marchetti's use to mean CCS has disappeared.) It is also to ask Doug and Ken if there is anything cautionary in this recent paper that carries over to the world of CDR ? 6. I believe that my interpretation of the negative conclusion about being likely to ever do meaningful SRM testing should overcome the several concerns of Ms. Badine Brachatzek. I took her remarks in this thread to be one of concern for (the US) pushing testing - and that is not what I heard in the joint video being discussed in this thread. Ron From: "Ken Caldeira" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > To: "geoengineering" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 2:20:47 PM Subject: [geo] Can We Test Geoengineering? paper and YouTube videos Folks, Please find attached: MacMynowski, D. G., Keith, D., Caldeira, K., and Shin, H.-J., 2011. "Can we test geoengineering?" Energy and Environmental Science, DOI: 10.1039/c1ee01256h. We also made a couple of YouTube videos about this paper: Doug MacMynowski discussing "Can We Test Geoengineering?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0spy0Yn_nko <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0spy0Yn_nko> Doug MacMynowski and Ken Caldeira in discussion: Can We Test Geoengineering? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o8wBo4R7ME <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o8wBo4R7ME> Enjoy, Ken PS. Be aware that these videos are extemporaneous talking I believe without any internal edits, so not everything is said as carefully as one might have liked. _______________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 <tel:%2B1%20650%20704%207212> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab <http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab> @kencaldeira See our YouTube: Sensitivity of temperature and precipitation to frequency of climate forcing: Ken Caldeira <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDRYM_5S0AE> Her lab, mules, and carbon capture and storage: Sally Benson speaks to Near Zero <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMJJn6eP8J0> -- 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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