On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 3:24 PM, Max Mogren <[email protected]> wrote:
> Re:#1 I call chemotherapy a techno-fix for cancer (and a criminally > expensive one at that). Less techno-based fixes for cancer include banning > carcinogenic products/chemicals/pesticides, promoting vegetarianism, > Vitamin B17, and good old THC. IMHO, geoengineering is the equivalent of > applying chemotherapy to Earth systems: changing the climate to mitigate a > changing climate is like invasively inducing genetic mutations to eliminate > genetic mutations. > > If you get cancer, you are going to forego chemotherapy and radiation therapy because these are techno-fixes? > Re:#2 It is self-evident that geoengineering would disempower people from > developing countries. Within the constraints of the existing educational, > economic, political, military, and financial systems the probability of > geoengineering being used for the benefit of people from developing > countries is nil. Despite the best intentions of scientists and > philosophers, history has consistently shown that new tech offering the > potential for profit and power will be used as such. Utilitarianism trumps > idealism in a profit-driven world. As Geoengineer David Keith said on > Australian TV in November, 2012: there will be winners and there will be > losers. > > As I mentioned before, solar geoengineering may empowerg relatively poor tropical countries to take control (or at least to threaten to take control) of their own climate-- countries that may see crop failure as a result of CO2 emissions largely from rich countries, and thus act to transfer power to relatively poor tropical countries. In any event, this argument is a fundamentally Luddite argument, in that any technology that gives us more power (e.g., airplanes, cell phones, computers, medicine, improved crop varieties, etc) will disproportionately benefit the rich and powerful. However, the world is not zero sum. Even people in relatively poor countries have benefited from many of these technological advances. Keith's claim that there will be winners and losers is a conjecture. Another view is that the plight of different peoples on this planet are intertwined, and in the long haul we will rise or sink together. > Have a great day, y'all! Keep looking up! > > Max Mogren > > > On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 6:39 AM, Ken Caldeira < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> It seems their critique boils down to: >> >> (1) It is a "techno-fix" >> (2) They claim (without substantiation) that it disempowers people from >> developing countries >> (3) That it would need to be deployed at large scale. >> >> While (3) is clearly right, I think few people see solar geoengineering >> as a "fix" (unless you call chemotherapy a "techno-fix" for cancer). >> >> My sense is that they are wrong on (2). Solar geoengineering may be seen >> as empowering relatively poor tropical countries to take control (or at >> least to threaten to take control) of their own climate-- countries that >> may see crop failure as a result of CO2 emissions largely from rich >> countries. >> >> CO2 emissions on a massive scale is something that mostly rich countries >> do. Solar geoengineering is something that poor countries can do. >> >> >> >> On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 2:10 AM, Geoengineering Our Climate (eds. >> Blackstock, Miller and Rayner) <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> Dear colleagues, >>> >>> The ETC Group penned an Opinion Article (1500 words) on the HOME >>> campaign's opposition to climate engineering for the 'Geoengineering Our >>> Climate?' Series, accompanied by excerpts of a video-interview with Jeff >>> Tollefson. >>> >>> You can find this at http://geoengineeringourclimate.com/, where once >>> per week for the next year, we will release either a Working Paper (5000 >>> words, academic analyses) or an Opinion Article (1500 words, >>> practitioner-oriented perspective). In 2015, these will be collected into >>> an edited volume published by Earthscan from Routledge's Science in Society >>> Series. >>> >>> I've also attached the PDF here. >>> >>> Best wishes, >>> >>> Sean Low >>> >>> -- >>> 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. >> >> >> > > > > -- > http://www.oilfreefun.com/ > http://www.facebook.com/max.mogren/ > -- 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.
