David (and also Andrew),-- if you look at "Morton's reasoning" as expressed in the text, you'll find that I don't agree.
The technology required for the industrial takeover of the nitrogen cycle did not appear through an unguided process of innovation, nor was it deployed that way; the foresight involved is part of what makes it a geoengineering technology in a way that other agricultural innovations, and indeed agriculture itself, are not. Nitrogen fixation was developed purposefully in response to a threat, which, while not obvious in everyday life, had been identified by the scientific elite. Like climate change today, that threat was seen as being of global significance and to have no easily attainable political solution. That justified a concerted effort to develop a technological response. Though people working in the climate arena may not immediately recognize this response as geoengineering, some of those working on the nitrogen cycle have no problem seeing it as such. On Tuesday, 9 July 2013 16:47:30 UTC+1, David Lewis wrote: > > If inventing a way to convert nitrogen from air into chemicals qualifies > as geoengineering, it isn't even close to being the first example. I.e. > when the first hominid moved the first rock out of the way to get into the > first cave, according to Morton's reasoning, geoengineering began. See: > Wilkinson B. H. *Geology 33, 161 - 164 (2005)* *Humans as geologic > agents: A deep-time perspective.* > > From the abstract: "Humans are now an order of magnitude more important > at moving sediment than the sum of all other natural processes operating on > the surface of the planet". > > On Tuesday, July 9, 2013 4:16:29 AM UTC-7, geoengineeringourclimate wrote: >> >> Dear colleagues, >> >> Oli Morton of The Economist has penned an Opinion Article for the >> 'Geoengineering Our Climate?' series titled "Nitrogen Geoengineering" >> >> >> -- 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
