Jim, cc list
I really don't understand the ETC position, so please excuse a few
questions. I restrict myself, and ask you to also, to CDR, not SRM. I want
to tackle the easiest issues first. The reason for asking the following is my
having just finished Chapter 1 of a new book Climate Change Ethics by Professor
Donald A Brown. I today feel a responsibility to ask you about the ethical
foundation for the ETC positions you express below - that I find unethical.
1. Jim Hansen's civil disobedience actions arose from an ethical position
that I greatly admire. As a highly credible scientist, way earlier than this
latest IPCC report, he went out of his way (went to jail) to endorse exactly
what you are opposing. In a 2008 article he showed how to bring CO2 levels
quickly down to the 350 level primarily through afforestation and some biochar.
Do you think Dr. Hansen should not have made that recommendation? If so,
why not?
2. Could you explain ETC's ethical rationale for saying (below) that the
IPCC should not have introduced the word CDR? Insufficient knowledge?
Insufficient study? Insufficient review? Need for more ethical training?
3. I have no sense how seriously ETC takes our current climate path. I
view that path as the biggest global problem ever - and that all of us have an
ethical responsibility to do something about it. Where do you rank it -
compared to anything else, population, food, etc?
4. I think the IPCC is a pretty good group to offer guidance on CDR. I
can't think of a better group. What other group would you rather see making
suggestions like those on CDR we heard about today?
Ron
On Sep 27, 2013, at 11:45 AM, jim thomas <j...@etcgroup.org> wrote:
> News Release
>
> ETC Group – www.etcgroup.org
>
> 27th September 2013
>
>
>
> Concern as IPCC Bangs the Drum for Geoengineering
>
> IPCC Shoots a Silver Bullet (Point) for Climate Change, Includes
> Geoengineering in its Latest Report
>
> As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published the first
> installment of its latest climate change Assessment Report, AR5, the final
> paragraph of its Summary for Policymakers – a bullet point referring to
> proposals for deliberately altering climate systems – has caused
> consternation by addressing the controversial topic of geoengineering.
> (1)While the paragraph does not endorse geoengineering, as had been proposed
> by Russia, its very presence is ringing alarm bells.
>
> "It’s the paragraph that should never have been," explained Neth Daño, ETC
> Group's Asia Director." The explicit purpose of Working Group I [WGI] is to
> report on the latest climate science, not to discuss response measures. The
> report doesn't discuss solar power or electric cars; it doesn't discuss
> public transport, carbon markets or any other actual or potential policy
> response to the climate crisis, so why have the authors chosen to devote the
> concluding paragraph to this highly speculative and dangerous technofix?”
>
> Last week, on the eve of IPCC's final negotiating meeting, The Guardian (UK)
> revealed that not only was geoengineering to feature in WGI’s report, but
> also that one country, Russia, had made a bid for the report’s ‘last word’ to
> endorse geoengineering as a possible solution. (2)
>
> Comments submitted by the Russian government lamented the report’s lack of
> answers to the climate crisis and proposed including a "possible solution of
> this [climate change] problem can be found in using of [sic] geoengineering
> methods to stabilise current climate." Russia also highlighted that its
> scientists are developing geoengineering technologies. Incredibly, the push
> for geoengineering was the sole comment submitted by Russia on the summary
> for policymakers– regarded as a politically sensitive document. It since has
> been rumoured that the Russian government’s comments had been penned by Yuri
> Izrael, a notorious geoengineer and climate change denier. In the past few
> years Izrael has carried out at least two small geoengineering experiments
> using trucks and military helicopters to release sulphate aerosols into the
> skies.
>
> The text approved in Stockholm last night fell far short of endorsing
> geoengineering, pointing out that too little is known and that geoengineering
> schemes "carry side effects and long-term consequences on a global scale."
> However the paragraph also suggests that geoengineering methods to reflect
> sunlight "if realizable, have the potential to substantially offset a global
> temperature rise" – an oversimplification hiding the speculative nature and
> practical complexity of what are still very theoretical proposals. Nor is
> this the last time that geoengineering is expected to get a high-profile
> airing from the IPCC. Two further installments of the AR5 report (from
> Working Groups II and III) are expected to deal with geoengineering in more
> detail. Among the authors of all 3 reports include well-known proponents of
> geoengineering, some of whom also have commercial interest in its
> development. Throughout the entire AR5 process, civil society groups have
> alerted the IPCC that it risks being hijacked by a geoengineering agenda. In
> 2011, 160 groups sent an open letter to the IPCC asking them not to stray
> from their mandate (to “provide policy-relevant but not policy-prescriptive
> information”).
>
> "We are beginning to hear a drumbeat where geoengineering advocates will use
> the IPCC’s reports to press for geoengineering experimentation and,
> eventually, deployment," warned Jim Thomas of ETC Group. "The actual
> sentences about geoengineering in the IPCC report matter less than the fact
> that they are there at all. They will be repeatedly referenced, lending
> legitimacy and respectability to a set of suggestions that were previously
> considered unacceptable and should remain so.”
>
> Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group’s Latin American Director adds “This report may
> mark geoengineering's coming of age even though geoengineering does nothing
> to address the causes of climate change. It is a techno-fix that could be
> used by the countries most responsible for climate change to avoid their
> commitments and can have grave unintended impacts; the worst is that it could
> be used for warfare. This matter should be taken up by the United Nations
> General Assembly – and fast."
>
> For more information:
>
> Neth Dano (Philippines) – n...@etcgroup.org +63 9175329369
>
> Jim Thomas (Canada) – j...@etcgroup.org +1 514 2739991
>
> Silvia Ribeiro (Mexico) – sil...@etcgroup.org +52 55 55632664
>
> Kathy Jo Wetter (USA) – k...@etcgroup.org +1 9196887302
>
>
>
> Notes to Editors:
>
> 1) The Paragraph at the end of IPCC Working Group 1 Summary for Policy makers
> (p21) reads:
>
> “Methods that aim to deliberately alter the climate system to counter climate
> change, termed geoengineering, have been proposed. Limited evidence precludes
> a comprehensive quantitative assessment of both Solar Radiation Management
> (SRM) and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and their impact on the climate
> system. CDR methods have biogeochemical and technological limitations to
> their potential on a global scale. There is insufficient knowledge to
> quantify how much CO2 emissions could be partially offset by CDR on a century
> timescale. Modelling indicates that SRM methods, if realizable, have the
> potential to substantially offset a global temperature rise, but they would
> also modify the global water cycle, and would not reduce ocean acidification.
> If SRM were terminated for any reason, there is high confidence that global
> surface temperatures would rise very rapidly to values consistent with the
> greenhouse gas forcing. CDR and SRM methods carry side effects and long-term
> consequences on a global scale. {6.5, 7.7}”
>
>
>
> 2)2) Martin Lukacs, “Russia urges UN climate report to include
> geoengineering” - The Guardian, Thursday 19 September 2013
>
>
>
> 3) The Open Letter to the IPCC signed by 160 organisations is online at
> http://www.etcgroup.org/content/open-letter-ipcc-geoengineering
>
> Jim Thomas
> ETC Group (Montreal)
> j...@etcgroup.org
> +1 514 2739994
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> 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.
--
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.
