Dear All, I received an invitation to link to your group several months ago and have been receiving your mails since, although I have not had the time to read all the detail or participate, as I am pretty overwhelmed keeping up with the flood of literature and results in a related field. Some of you may know that Jim Lovelock and I once wrote a letter to the Nature Editor suggesting that it would be good to find ways to stimulate the planet's natural systems to draw down more CO2. We suggested that ocean pipes might offer a way to do so - and were thoroughly beaten up by the ocean biologists for our pains! Good to see that the idea lives on, much improved!
Anyway, I have been a bit disturbed at some of your recent correspondence about Clive Hamilton, which i felt were quite tribal. I met Clive when he came to the UK a couple of years ago, and formed a good opinion of him. I have found his writings thoughtful and interesting - if sometimes challenging. In fact I have invited him to come and spend a few weeks at UCL later this year. I haven't yet read his latest book on geo-engineering, but I did read the article he wrote a few weeks ago urging caution. It seems to me he reflects the worries a lot of people have about the risks of unintended consequences and the potential for agents with agendas and little of no accountability to intervene in the Earth system in ways that we could all regret. So I was relieved to see Lou and Ken's messages (below) as they give me an opening to encourage you to open up a discourse with Clive, establish where you all agree, and where you disagree - see if the differences can be reconciled - and if not discuss how things might be taken forward constructively anyway. I haven't copied Clive in to this mail, and haven't copied any of your correspondence to him, although I did mention to him in a mail a few weeks ago that he seemed to have made himself pretty unpopular and controversial, and he replied that he felt misunderstood. So my suggestion is that you start a conversation with Clive. If it doesn't go anywhere useful, nothing much is lost, but it could lead to some interesting new progress on this really tricky and important topic. His email address if you don't have it is [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Best regards, Chris Prof Chris Rapley CBE University College London Department of Earth Sciences Room 224 Pearson Building Gower Street London WC1E 6BT [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> m: 07590 680372 Can we make contact with Hamilton and simply ask him about his thoughts on these points? Speculating about them like this is likely to lead to some wildly inaccurate conclusions. I think it's just as likely that his view is: [1] the political system in some places, most notably the US, is horribly broken in terms of dealing with CC, [2] a major part of [1] is the huge influence of large corporations, [3] because of [1] and [2] we're playing with fire by attempting geoengineering -- i.e. we'll make horribly wrong decisions about what to do, when, how, etc. -- so we shouldn't even go down that road, and should instead focus on fixing the political system and making the swiftest possible cuts in GHG emissions. I'm NOT saying this is his view, merely that as I read his published work and interviews, it's one possible interpretation. And given his fairly high and (seemingly) rising profile, it seems like a good idea to find out how he views this incredibly messy situation. On Tuesday, May 28, 2013 1:10:40 AM UTC-4, David Lewis wrote: The root of Clive Hamilton's "thought" on geoengineering appeared more clearly in this interview. When discussing the fact that The Heartland Institute and the American Enterprise Institute have endorsed geoengineering as a solution for the problem they have denied exists more emphatically than anyone else on the planet, Clive said: "They see it—see geoengineering as a way of protecting the system, of preserving the political economic system,whereas others say the problem IS the political and economic system, and it’s that which we have to change." And later in the interview, after Clive states that the risks to civilization that scientists such as David Keith and Alan Robock are concerned about are one thing, i.e. "scientific risks" whereas Clive sees an additional factor, which he calls "political risks", he says this: [edited to make my point clear] "the danger that geoengineering becomes... ...a way of protecting the political economic system from the kind of change that should be necessary" A way to interpret this is to say Clive wants our system of economic and political relationships as they exist to fail to cope with climate change in order that civilization will change in ways he thinks will make it more likely that the changed civilization will survive for a longer term. Another way to say this is he wants everyone in civilization to realize there is no way forward without a fundamental reordering of our political and economic relationships with each other, which is a necessary precursor to fundamental change. In "Green" philosophy, this lines up with those who say anything that allows this civilization to continue, such as discovering how to mitigate acid rain back in the 1980s for instance, is not the good thing it appears on the surface, because it merely allows the civilization to exist a bit longer which allows it to expand to a larger size, enabling it to do more damage to the planetary life support system, allowing it to take more of the rest of life on Earth with it as and when it collapses. Geoengineering, even removing CO2 from the atmosphere, in this line of thought, is therefore something to be opposed. If this is the root of Clive's "thought", it would throw some light on why he has taken the position in his Nature piece<http://www.nature.com/news/no-we-should-not-just-at-least-do-the-research-1.12777>, i.e. "no, we should not do the research" [into geoengineering]. On Saturday, May 25, 2013 1:12:10 AM UTC-7, andrewjlockley wrote: http://m.democracynow.org/stories/13653 Democracy Now!/ MON MAY 20, 2013/ Geoengineering: Can We Save the Planet by Messing with Nature? Amy Goodman interviews Clive Hamilton with some recorded clips of Shiva, Dyer, Keith, etc. I am not a big fan of Clive but I think it is a bit much to suggest that he needs to provide attribution for each idea expressed in his Op Ed. Most of the ideas we think are original with us were probably in somebody else's brain at some earlier point in time. (I am sure somebody else has thought this before, but I am not sure to whom it should be attributed.) Often ideas occur nearly simultaneously to several people because the preconditions for the idea are floating around. I am not concerned about borrowed ideas. My bigger concern is that some people have a tendency to make up facts when the available supply is insufficient to their needs. On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Gregory Benford <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: ALAN: Hamilton's shoplifting your ideas without credit gives insight into his qualifications as an ethicist... Gregory On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 12:39 PM, Fred Zimmerman <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: An excellent point. This is why I have been arguing for a holistic view of anthopocene climate management that includes the full 15,000-year? span of anthopocene modifications beginning with animal & plant domestication (never underestimate the land use / land cover modification ability of sheep ...). This is also consistent with my suggestion that GE information management needs will eventually far exceed our current assumptions (or capabilities). Imagine a society 1000 years in the future trying to recreate the history of what climate modification interventions were actually carried out in the 21st century. We have enough trouble reading 8-track tapes, imagine trying to figure out when exactly ocean iron fertilization began and how much it affected the natural history of ocean primary productivity. Geoengineering in response to global warming may be only the forerunner of the many times future society will be forced to contemplate geoengineering. Bill William B. Gail, PhD | Chief Technology Officer | Global Weather Corporation 3309 Airport Rd, Boulder, CO 80301 USA | 303.513.5474<tel:303.513.5474> mobile | [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> President-Elect | American Meteorological Society | www.ametsoc.org<http://www.ametsoc.org/> From: Alan Robock [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Monday, May 27, 2013 10:26 AM To: Geoengineering Subject: [geo] Clive Hamilton's op-ed in the New York Times today Dear all, I agree with virtually everything in Clive's op-ed in the New York Times today. That is because I wrote it several years ago, first in my 20 reasons why geoengineering might be a bad idea, and then in several articles since then. But he gives no indication that these are not his original ideas. You can see all my papers at http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock/robock_geopapers.html Here is the op-ed: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/opinion/geoengineering-our-last-hope-or-a-false-promise.html?hp&pagewanted=print Geoengineering: Our Last Hope, or a False Promise? By CLIVE HAMILTON CANBERRA, Australia — THE concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere recently surpassed<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/science/earth/carbon-dioxide-level-passes-long-feared-milestone.html> 400 parts per million for the first time in three million years. If you are not frightened by this fact, then you are ignoring or denying science. Relentlessly rising greenhouse-gas emissions, and the fear that the earth might enter a climate emergency from which there would be no return, have prompted many climate scientists to conclude that we urgently need a Plan B: geoengineering. Geoengineering — the deliberate, large-scale intervention in the climate system to counter global warming<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> or offset some of its effects — may enable humanity to mobilize its technological power to seize control of the planet’s climate system, and regulate it in perpetuity. But is it wise to try to play God with the climate? For all its allure, a geoengineered Plan B may lead us into an impossible morass. While some proposals, like launching a cloud of mirrors into space to deflect some of the sun’s heat, sound like science fiction, the more serious schemes require no insurmountable technical feats. Two or three leading ones rely on technology that is readily available and could be quickly deployed. Some approaches, like turning biomass into biochar, a charcoal whose carbon resists breakdown, and painting roofs white to increase their reflectivity and reduce air-conditioning demand, are relatively benign, but would have minimal effect on a global scale. Another prominent scheme, extracting carbon dioxide directly from the air, is harmless in itself, as long as we can find somewhere safe to bury enormous volumes of it for centuries. But to capture from the air the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by, say, a 1,000-megawatt coal power plant, it would require air-sucking machinery about 30 feet in height and 18 miles in length, according to a study by the American Physical Society<http://www.aps.org/policy/reports/assessments/upload/dac2011.pdf>, as well as huge collection facilities and a network of equipment to transport and store the waste underground. The idea of building a vast industrial infrastructure to offset the effects of another vast industrial infrastructure (instead of shifting to renewable energy) only highlights our unwillingness to confront the deeper causes of global warming — the power of the fossil-fuel lobby and the reluctance of wealthy consumers to make even small sacrifices. Even so, greater anxieties arise from those geoengineering technologies designed to intervene in the functioning of the earth system as a whole. They include ocean iron fertilization and sulfate aerosol spraying, each of which now has a scientific-commercial constituency. How confident can we be, even after research and testing, that the chosen technology will work as planned? After all, ocean fertilization — spreading iron slurry across the seas to persuade them to soak up more carbon dioxide — means changing the chemical composition and biological functioning of the oceans. In the process it will interfere with marine ecosystems and affect cloud formation in ways we barely understand. Enveloping the earth with a layer of sulfate particles would cool the planet by regulating the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth’s surface. One group of scientists is urging its deployment over the melting Arctic now. Plant life, already trying to adapt to a changing climate, would have to deal with reduced sunlight, the basis of photosynthesis. A solar filter made of sulfate particles may be effective at cooling the globe, but its impact on weather systems, including the Indian monsoon on which a billion people depend for their sustenance, is unclear. Some of these uncertainties can be reduced by research. Yet if there is one lesson we have learned from ecology, it is that the more closely we look at an ecosystem the more complex it becomes. Now we are contemplating technologies that would attempt to manipulate the grandest and most complex ecosystem of them all — the planet itself. Sulfate aerosol spraying would change not just the temperature but the ozone layer, global rainfall patterns and the biosphere, too. Spraying sulfate particles, the method most likely to be implemented, is classified as a form of “solar radiation management,” an Orwellian term that some of its advocates have sought to reframe as “climate remediation.” Yet if the “remedy” were fully deployed to reduce the earth’s temperature, then at least 10 years of global climate observations would be needed to separate out the effects of the solar filter from other causes of climatic variability, according to some scientists. If after five years of filtered sunlight a disaster occurred — a drought in India and Pakistan, for example, a possible effect in one of the modeling studies — we would not know whether it was caused by global warming, the solar filter or natural variability. And if India suffered from the effects of global dimming while the United States enjoyed more clement weather, it would matter a great deal which country had its hand on the global thermostat. So who would be turning the dial on the earth’s climate? Research is concentrated in the United States, Britain and Germany, though China recently added geoengineering to its research priorities. Some geoengineering schemes are sufficiently cheap and uncomplicated to be deployed by any midsize nation, or even a billionaire with a messiah complex. We can imagine a situation 30 years hence in which the Chinese Communist Party’s grip on power is threatened by chaotic protests ignited by a devastating drought and famine. If the alternative to losing power were attempting a rapid cooling of the planet through a sulfate aerosol shield, how would it play out? A United States president might publicly condemn the Chinese but privately commit to not shooting down their planes, or to engage in “counter-geoengineering.” Little wonder that military strategists are taking a close interest in geoengineering. Anxious about Western geopolitical hubris, developing nations have begun to argue for a moratorium on experiments until there is agreement on some kind of global governance system. Engineering the climate is intuitively appealing to a powerful strand of Western technological thought that sees no ethical or other obstacle to total domination of nature. And that is why some conservative think tanks that have for years denied or downplayed the science of climate change suddenly support geoengineering, the solution to a problem they once said did not exist. All of which points to perhaps the greatest risk of research into geoengineering — it will erode the incentive to curb emissions. Think about it: no need to take on powerful fossil-fuel companies, no need to tax gasoline or electricity, no need to change our lifestyles. In the end, how we think about geoengineering depends on how we understand climate disruption. If our failure to cut emissions is a result of the power of corporate interests, the fetish for economic growth and the comfortable conservatism of a consumer society, then resorting to climate engineering allows us to avoid facing up to social dysfunction, at least for as long as it works. So the battle lines are being drawn over the future of the planet. While the Pentagon “weaponeer” and geoengineering enthusiast Lowell Wood, an astrophysicist, has proclaimed, “We’ve engineered every other environment we live in — why not the planet?” a more humble climate scientist, Ronald G. Prinn<http://web.mit.edu/rprinn/> of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has asked, “How can you engineer a system you don’t understand?” Clive Hamilton<http://www.cappe.edu.au/staff/clive-hamilton.htm>, a professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University, is the author<http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300186673>, most recently, of “Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering.” -- Alan Robock Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor Editor, Reviews of Geophysics Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751<tel:%2B1-848-932-5751> Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644<tel:%2B1-732-932-8644> 14 College Farm Road E-mail: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock http://twitter.com/AlanRobock -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. 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