Ken (cc List and Simon - with thanks to Simon for bringing this TR news item to our attention)
1. I am a little disappointed that you say "A nicely done article." You are usually supportive of separating the term "geoengineering" into the separate SRM and CDR components. This article never once mentions CDR. 2. One has to assume that Rotman (and/or Keith?) believe there is nothing at all to the CDR approach. This last conclusion follows from this peculiar un-attributed statement (the thought of Rotman? of Keith?) that begins paragraph 8: "The overriding reason why Keith and other scientists are exploring solar geoengineering is simple and well documented, though often overlooked: the warming caused by atmospheric carbon dioxide buildup is for all practical purposes irreversible , because the climate change is directly related to the total cumulative emissions. " I hope someone can explain why the last "because" clause justifies the just preceding four bolded/underlined words. Or perhaps someone on the list can give us a few of the "well-documented" citations behind this weird conclusion. There are at least 100 academic programs around the world with biochar in their name - who will be mighty surprised that they are working on an irreversible problem. 3. Should I suspect a conspiracy when Prof. Pierrehumbert is only partially quoted from his recent AGU talk? Here is a skipped quote (see last December's message #61 on this list), where (my added emphasis) the Professor stated: " I see lots [ of geoengineering ideas ] that are feasible but they all terrify me. Let me clarify a bit. Some people refer to schemes for taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, or sequestering CO2 as a form of geoengineering. Those I find relatively benign because they [ aim to ] put the climate system back in the state that it was in before we started to mess with it." 4. So two request s: a. Can you assure us that your above compliment on the article was not done in the same "parody" spirit with which you coined the SRM term? b. Can you generate a new term to replace CDR, since "CDR" seems not to have caught on as well in geoengineering circles as did "SRM"? Ron ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Caldeira" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Cc: "geoengineering" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2013 5:06:13 PM Subject: Re: [geo] "A Cheap and Easy Plan to Stop Global Warming" By David Rotman A nicely done article. I would like to expand on one of Ray Pierrehumbert's comments. He is quoted as saying: “The term ‘solar radiation management’ is positively Orwellian. It’s a way to increase comfort levels with this crazy idea.” —Raymond Pierrehumbert He is right that it was created to inrease comfort level, but it was done so with ironic intent. In 2007, I was organizing a meeting that took place at NASA-Ames. (Incidentally, that meeting is where this google group started. http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20070031204 ) There was some nervousness on the part of local NASA officials that the term "geoengineering" might raise red flags back in Washington. At the time, DOE was talking about "carbon management" which was a bureaucratic way to speak about the potential for CO2 emissions reduction. To avoid the use of the word "geoengineering" in the meeting name, I suggested that we create the term "Solar Radiation Managment" to use for the workshop. It was meant as parody of US-government-style bureaucratic jargon. It was meant as a joke and was intentionally obscurantist. We were laughing about it at the time and never dreamed that it would become standard jargon. The term "Solar Radiation Management" was meant to lower the profile of the meeting while parodying Washington jargon. It amuses me that it has become standard jargon. What started out as parody has moved on from its comedic roots. Comedy has become drama. Incidentally, lately I have been using the term "solar geoengineering" as my term of choice to refer to what SRM has come to denote. Best, Ken _______________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 [email protected] http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira Caldeira Lab is hiring postdoctoral researchers. http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab/Caldeira_employment.html Our YouTube videos On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 5:29 AM, Simon Driscoll < [email protected] > wrote: http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/511016/a-cheap-and-easy-plan-to-stop-global-warming/ Ray Pierrehumbert recently sent this to me, and I haven't seen this posted to the group (apologies if it has been and I missed it in a quick search), so I thought it may be of interest. All the best, Simon ________________________________________________ Simon Driscoll Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department of Physics University of Oxford Office: 01865 272930 Mobile: 07935314940 http://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/contacts/people/driscoll http://www.geoengineering.ox.ac.uk/people/who-are-we/simon-driscoll/ http://80000hours.org/members/simon-driscoll -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected] . To post to this group, send email to [email protected] . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
