Bill, I think the CC/cancer analogy is particularly valuable (and it's one I've used many times). I'm most struck by the timing of our changing awareness. I'm just barely old enough to remember a time when a lot of adults smoked, the statements from the US Surgeon General were a new thing, and many people were just coming to grips with the reality that smoking wasn't just "not good for you" but had major impacts on one's health. We're going through a similar process with CC, but we have far less time to climb that learning curve.
I also agree that the first actors to publicly talk about geoengineering as an explicit public policy will pay a huge price. E.g. I can only imagine what the political firestorm would be like if President Obama mentioned geoengineering in a positive light in his Tuesday speech about CC and emissions reductions. It would virtually hand the next election to his opponents, no matter what the Democratic nominee said on the subject. I suspect that our squeamishness about geoengineering will be the last conceptual barrier to fall, and it could trail taking large-scale action on climate by a decade or more. We won't embrace geoengineering until we've made (perceived) "painful" emissions cuts and circumstances still leave us no other choice. As I say in presentations about the long atmospheric lifetime of co2, "love is fleeting, but co2 is (virtually) forever". On Thursday, June 20, 2013 4:24:37 PM UTC-4, Bill Stahl wrote: > > For both governments and NGOs there is still a taboo on official > discussion of post-GHG emissions climate intervention. There are many > reasons for this- and not silly ones either!- but the net effect is > unfortunate. It's as if the American Cancer Society dared not mentioned > curing or treating cancer for fear of backhandedly encouraging kids to > start smoking - and being accused of being in Big Tobacco's pocket to boot. > But the public understands the connection between tobacco and cancer so > well that they see the importance of doing both. A bigger and bigger chunk > of the world now understands the connection between CO2 and climate trouble > well enough to start hearing a more complicated message. Of course another > chunk doesn't yet, which is another problem. > I suspect that many of the people proposing adaptation measures while > studiously avoiding mention of even geoengineering research are aware of it > nonetheless. But there will be a huge penalty for being the first mover. In > the meantime, some may say one thing from the conference podium and another > thing entirely after a couple of bourbons in an airport bar on the way > home. > Just how the narrative changes, I've no idea > -- 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 geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
