I wonder why it should matter who identified the problem or who thought of the solution, i.e. a member or members of the scientific elite. Why should it matter whether the perceived problem is obvious to the person on the street? And whether the proposed solution or any solution other than the proposed geoengineering scheme can be implemented easily by the existing political order or not seems irrelevant.
Phil Rausch recently gave a talk entitled Geoengineering at the AGU Chapman conference on Communicating Climate Science (available *here*<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coa3VFcMCIA>) where he referred to geoengineering as "the introduction of climate change deliberately rather than carelessly", which seems to be at the heart of what the word means to actively researching contemporary climatologists. Bringing the nitrogen cycle up while discussing geoengineering seems useful as a way to talk about the fact that humans have had an impact on the planet for some time, but the question is, does it advance the debate to include it as geoengineering now? On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 3:43:49 AM UTC-7, O Morton wrote: > > 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. > > -- 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.
