Hi All
I do not know whether to feel pleased or sorry to have Latham's Marine
Cloud Brightening ignored as so often before.
The comparison with pain killing will not seem so strong to people who
have actually been in really bad pain. I can assure you that, after a
bad road accident, medically administered morphine is really great and
not habit forming. However a better analogy might be with a tourniquet
to stop people with severed arteries from bleeding to death for long
enough to get to hospital. Geo-engineering can buy humanity some time
but maybe not enough if the ETC group succeed in delaying research.
After nearly forty years trying to develop renewable energy I would not
want to divert money away from it. I could manage with diverting money
from just one or two top sports celebs or half a climate conference a
year or 0.3% of the annual UK cosmetics spending. Does anyone have a
figure for US cosmetics?
Stephen
On 20/03/2013 14:40, etcgroup wrote:
Dear all, please find below a new piece published by ETC Group this
morning. Link and full text pasted. Many thanks.
http://www.etcgroup.org/content/geoengineering-%E2%80%93-opium-people-pain-killer-plane-chiller-plane-crasher
<http://www.etcgroup.org/content/geoengineering-%96-opium-people-pain-killer-plane-chiller-plane-crasher>
Geoengineering - The Opium of the People
Pain-killer, plane-chiller, Plane crasher
/The Artificial Intelligence of Geoengineering, Part II/
In the first two months of 2013, leading advocates of geoengineering
have argued variously that researching geoengineering (as a Plan B to
GHG emission cuts) is like helping a cancer patient manage pain while
seeking a cure; or, that an accelerating gaggle of executive jets
circling the equator could spray enough sulphuric acid in the
stratosphere to keep the Earth’s thermostat within bounds; or, that a
single island state could thumb its nose at the military might of the
major powers and geoengineer the planet to its liking. So much
lobbying and still months to go before the IPCC delivers its fifth
assessment report – with an anticipated treatment of geoengineering.
*Pain-killer: *Ken Caldeira[i] <#_edn1> of the Carnegie Institution
for Science at Stanford is arguing that solar radiation management
(SRM) is a short- to medium-term strategy to ward off the worst
effects of climate change while politicians and scientists work to
mitigate emissions and address the fundamental causes. Specifically,
Caldeira insists that geoengineering is like giving a cancer patient
morphine to make the pain tolerable while the major research effort
continues to find a cure for cancer. Although Caldeira notes that
diverting research and resources to painkillers could take away money
from addressing the climate conundrum, he insists it is only humane.
The analogy may be diverting but the intelligence is artificial.
There has never been any connection between the development of
painkillers and efforts to cure any disease. Painkillers and
anti-depressants are a large and profitable market, but as grateful as
a cancer victim may be for pain relief, the cancer’s life-threatening
trajectory soldiers on. The patient won’t long mistake the respite for
the remedy. Very differently, geoengineering is a painkiller whose
purpose and profits are directly tied to the prolongation of the GHG
disease. Plan B /is/ a remedy for politicians and polluters who want
to transfer tough socioeconomic decisions to another election or even
another generation.
*Plane chiller: *Pursuing the drug-addiction analogy, physics
professor David Keith at Harvard[ii] <#_edn2> describes a fast and
cheap SRM “solution” that requires higher and higher doses to achieve
the same “fix.” Keith has calculated that if, in 2020, one or two
Gulfstream business jets began flying 20 km above the equator blowing
25,000 metric tons of sulphuric acid into the lower stratosphere they
could block about 1% of the sunlight within the first year. By 2040
however, to maintain the same temperature (“high”?), Keith estimates
that the acid dose would need a tenfold boost (to 250,000 metric tons
per annum) and the number of executive jets would climb to 10 or more.
Around 2070, 100 or more planes would be shooting up a million tons of
acid a year at an annual cost in the low billions. (Business jets as
usual?) At some time before the stratosphere clogs up with airplane
wings excreting fossil fuel emissions we would have to figure a way to
safely stuff our planet into a detox unit.
*Plane crasher: *Science entrepreneur, Nathan Myhrvold recently told
the /Climate/ /Spectator/[iii] <#_edn3> that Plan B is inevitable
because an island nation like the Maldives – clearly threatened by sea
level rise – will launch its own Gulfstream jets or hoist
sulphate-spewing pipes into the stratosphere – to ward off the rising
tides. Myrhvold seems unperturbed that a unilateral initiative by a
tiny state might occasion the ire of the US, Indian or Chinese air
forces less appreciative of the island’s sovereignty than of their own
vulnerability. Drug addicts – and nations – have fought over less.
The artificial intelligence of geoengineering continues. Stretched
out, the brain’s nerve fibers can circle the globe four times but
geoengineers still can’t get their heads around responsible climate
governance.[iv] <#_edn4>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i] <#_ednref>Ken Caldeira, “We Need Symptomatic Relief,”, /Earth
Island Journal/, February 2013:
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/hack_the_sky.
[ii] <#_ednref>David Rotman, “A Cheap and Easy Plan to Stop Global
Warming,” /Technology Review/, February 8, 2013:
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/511016/a-cheap-and-easy-plan-to-stop-global-warming/.
[iii] <#_ednref>David Hodgkinson, “Geoengineering’s reckless risk,”
/Climate/ /Spectator/, 4 March 4 2013:
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/3/4/science-environment/geoengineerings-reckless-risk.
[iv] <#_ednref>Colin Barras, “Mind maths: Small world with big
connections,” /New Scientist/ electronic edition, 9 February 9 2013:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729032.000-mind-maths-small-world-with-big-connections.html.
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