Ken's idea seems to require going from a current/projected growth CO2 emissions rate of 0.1-0.2 GtC/yr per year to zero virtually instantaneously.
I cannot see how this could be possible. My own combined mitigation/geoengineering scenarios, presented many times in lectures, assume more gradual transitions to zero growth and then a decline through a ramp up of mitigation over decades. Tom. +++++++++++++++++++++ On 9/11/2013 6:25 PM, Andrew Lockley wrote:
There's no reason to assume that blocking geoengineering in such a scenario will do anything to affect carbon emissions. A more likely outcome is that it will affect only temperatures! Fossil fuel use is often small scale and widely distributed. It's virtually impossible to police. The same is true for manufacturing the tech which uses it. Every gas stove factory and lawnmower fabricator would have to be shut down. It's not really feasible, especially when the impacts are remote and untraceable, and the incentives for cheating enormous. If we can't stop dope being delivered faster than a pizza, we can't ban the fossil economy. The fossil age will end soon enough. Solar will get ridiculously cheap, and batteries will get far better. Both will happen before politicians manage to do anything about fossil . The oil age will end: not with a bang, but with a whimper. Geoengineering is there to ensure there's someone left to see in the post oil era. While the oil age is still here, we should learn to stop worrying and love SRM. ;-) A On Sep 12, 2013 1:16 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: But do we really want to be geoengineering at the same time we are building more devices that use the atmosphere as a waste dump? Isn't that nearly assuring an outcome with ever increasing CO2 levels compensated for by ever increasing amounts of solar geoengineering? Isn't the end game of that scenario rather ugly? _______________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 <tel:%2B1%20650%20704%207212>[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 3:36 PM, Fred Zimmerman <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: It seems more likely that declarations of that nature would tie our hands at the moment of greatest need. It will be centuries before we stop building carbon-emitting devices. --- Fred Zimmerman Geoengineering IT! Bringing together the worlds of geoengineering and information technology GE NewsFilter: http://geoengineeringIT.net:8080 On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 2:18 PM, Ken Caldeira <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: My proposal was not to establish political institutions and agreements, but to aim for establishment of norms. For example, countries could be encouraged at this time to make public statements like: /If things every got so bad that we felt compelled to deploy a solar geoengineering system, we will, before deployment, stop building devices that use the atmosphere as a waste dump./ / / Even absent enforcement mechanisms, propagation of this norm could prove powerful. _______________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 <tel:%2B1%20650%20704%207212>[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Philip M. Macnaghten <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Ken You make a good point (on which I agree in principle). However, if you think this through, you need to imagine what kind of political institutions and agreements need to be in place to 'police' all nation-states to ensure that 'no-one builds new CO2-emitting devices' (cars, power stations, infrastructure etc.). And whether this is in any way plausible in current circumstances. The wider point is that in a number of respects (including for the reason you suggest below) it is implausible to imagine how SRM can be compatible with current, liberal, democratic institutions. I suggest that the 'political' challenges posed by SRM need further consideration in groups such as this one. We have developed a paper on this point which I will be happy to share with the group when an on-line version is available (hopefully in the next month or so). PhilVisiting Professor____ Department of Science and Technology Policy____ Institute of Geosciences____ P.O. Box 6152____ State University of Campinas – UNICAMP____ 13083-970, Campinas, SP, Brazil____ Professor of Geography____ Department of Geography____ Science Laboratories____ Durham University____ South Road____ Durham, DH1 3LE, UKFrom: Ken Caldeira <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> Reply-To: "[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Wednesday, 11 September 2013 14:51 To: Andrew Lockley <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> Cc: geoengineering <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [geo] Linking solar geoengineering and emissions reduction Note that I did not require decarbonization of the economy as a pre-requisite for deployment as my proposal allows existing CO2-emitting devices to continue being used. I merely required that we stop building new CO2-emitting devices. My point is that if climate change is enough of an emergency to require rapid deployment of solar geoengineering then it is also enough of an emergency to stop building devices that will exacerbate that emergency. If we are doing solar geoengineering at the same time as we are building new fossil-fueled power plants that use the atmosphere as a waste dump, how do you assure that the solar geoengineering system does not facilitate continued production of those devices? _______________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 <tel:%2B1%20650%20704%207212>[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 1:25 PM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Ken We need to control temperatures far more quickly than we can hope to decarbonise the economy. Are you seriously trying to argue that every car factory in the world needs to close before we can do any SRM at all? That seems entirely implausible. Perhaps more sensible to suggest that emissions growth be capped (possibly at zero) before geoengineering starts. As I see it the 'buy time' argument for SRM is a strong one. We need to stop temperatures increasing *whilst * we decarbonise. A On Sep 11, 2013 5:36 PM, "Ken Caldeira" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: We do not want to be in a situation where a solar geoengineering system is used to enable continued increases in CO2 emissions. Therefore, a reasonable demand is that no new smokestacks or tailpipes be built after a solar geoengineering system is deployed. Another way of phrasing this is to demand that new construction of all new CO2-emitting devices cease prior to any solar geoengineering system deployment. This would help address the concern that solar geoengineering could provide cover for continued expansion of CO2-emitting industries. Norms that would prevent simultaneous solar geoengineering deployment and increasing CO2 emissions would help diminish the likelihood of bad outcomes and could help broaden political support for solar geoengineering research. -- This would limit deployment of solar geoengineering systems to the case of "catastrophic" outcomes and would not permit use of solar geoengineering for "peak shaving" amid promises of future reductions in CO2 emissions. Thus, this proposal does have a substantive implications for "peak shaving" strategies. -- /I am floating this idea without being certain that the formulation presented here is the best possible formulation./ _______________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 <tel:%2B1%20650%20704%207212>[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira -- 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] <mailto:geoengineering%[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. 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