Hello Mike plus All,
To amplify slightly Mike's arguments re field testing of SRM
techniques, using Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) as an example,
I mention that in the penultimate section of our recent Phil Trans
Roy Soc review of MCB (full reference below) we present
an outline of a three-stage field test of MCB [which may never
be conducted]. It would last for several weeks and be conducted
over an oceanic area of about 100km x 100km.
John Latham, Keith Bower, Tom Choularton, Hugh Coe, Paul Connolly, Gary
Cooper,Tim Craft, Jack Foster, Alan Gadian, Lee Galbraith, Hector Iacovides,
David Johnston, Brian Launder, Brian Leslie, John Meyer, Armand Neukermans,
Bob Ormond, Ben Parkes, Philip Rasch, John Rush, Stephen Salter, Tom Stevenson,
Hailong Wang, Qin Wang & Rob Wood, 2012, Marine Cloud Brightening,
Phil.Trans.Roy. Soc. A . 2012, 370, 4217-4262. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2012.0086
Cheers, John.
****************
John Latham
Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
Tel: (US-Work) 303-497-8182 or (US-Home) 303-444-2429
or (US-Cell) 303-882-0724 or (UK) 01928-730-002
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/people/latham
________________________________________
From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on
behalf of Mike MacCracken [[email protected]]
Sent: 21 February 2013 17:28
To: [email protected]; Geoengineering
Cc: Doug MacMynowski
Subject: Re: [geo] pre-print of forth-coming paper: Svoboda, T and Irvine, PJ,
"Ethical and Technical Challenges in Compensating for Harm Due to Solar
RadiationManagement Geoengineering"
Just to take the issue one step further, it has come up in the area of even
doing field testing.
Let’s suppose that we want to do a field test of the cloud brightening
approach. The field test would be done at such a low level that it would not
really generate present benefits (i.e., any significant counter-balancing of
adverse impacts) for anyone, but let’s suppose it might (though not clear how)
cause some negative influence to some one—say someone on an island out in the
remote area where the test is being done. Let’s also suppose that the field
experiment would be expected to show that this approach could be used to
counter-balance significant future climate change and in that way create a
large net benefit (so, yes, some relatively limited negative impacts, but many,
widespread benefits (or, at least, significant reductions in anticipated
adverse impacts). So the question then arises, what if the present offended
party objected to the experiment going forward because of negative impacts (or
possible unknown consequences)? The net present effects of this experiment
would be negative, but there would be great potential benefits in the future
that would be foregone.
In some sense, for the close-in direct consequences, this is likely not unlike
the testing of new medicines, so there would be a need for informed consent and
damages. While there may be precedents for the potential direct damages, a key
question would be how to deal with the less well-defined unknowns and how does
one consider the benefits of gaining knowledge about potentially achieving net
benefits (so, yes, some damages) in the future. Pretty clearly, climate
engineering will not go forward without testing, and testing raises the
question of how to weigh/consider potential near-term negative consequences to
gain confidence in an approach that would provide net benefits in the future.
Basically, I would just suggest that we need to have social science
consideration of both the issues arising around testing as well as for
potential application.
Mike
On 2/21/13 9:28 AM, "David Morrow" <[email protected]> wrote:
Doug,
Interesting question. I'd have to think about it more; it's probably more
complicated than it appears. (What isn't?)
The basic issue is that on most ethical frameworks, one party may sometimes
have the right to insist that some other party refrain from harming them, even
when the latter party would benefit from doing so. To take a well-worn but
dramatic example, I have a right to insist that you refrain from harvesting my
organs, even if you were confident that doing so would save the lives of
several other people. I certainly don't need to compensate people for refusing
to give them my organs. The wrinkle is that this right may not apply when the
first party is responsible for the second party's distress -- and that may be
the case in your SRM scenario. Let us stipulate, for the sake of this argument,
that in virtue of their fossil fuel exports, Russia and Canada bear some
non-neglible responsibility for the climate change that some future SRM-seeking
states are trying to counteract. If Russia and Canada oppose SRM because the
warmer climate benefits them, they might not be able to defend themselves by
claiming that others have no right to harm them. If they blocked SRM in that
scenario, they might be obligated to compensate those who wanted to use it.
That's my initial response, anyway. Does that seem sensible?
David
On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 3:39:12 PM UTC-6, Doug MacMartin wrote:
Agree that we all need to work together. Two quick comments:
1. Just want to reiterate to the non-physical-scientists that while it is
quite plausible that some would be harmed by SRM (a trivial example being those
who want to ship through the Arctic) it is premature to assume any specific
harms from SRM, as it depends on the method, the amount, and how it is
implemented (e.g. our Nature Climate Change paper indicating that some harms
could be reduced by tailoring the distribution, along the lines of John &
Stephen’s observations that precip changes depend on where you do MCB.) And
even if you specify everything, I would at least wait for GeoMIP analysis to
understand a bit of model robustness. I only skimmed through, but I think
Peter and Toby were reasonably careful to say “could” most of the time rather
than “would”
2. This is a serious question, not a joke: is there an ethical framework
to ask about compensation to those who would be harmed by blocking the use of
SRM? I.e., in some hypothetical future scenario in which there was great
confidence that many people could benefit from SRM, should those who don’t want
SRM compensate those who would likely be harmed by that decision? If not, why
not?
doug
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