Dear David
When you're responding to my arguments, how do you get from "carefully
and thoughtfully", in the quotation Ron offers, to "in all ways the
human imagination can conceive"? To me, and I suspect most readers,
"carefully and thoughtfully" means precisely what you say is required:
that people should asses specific climate geoengineering proposals on
their merits -- as they should assess other responses to the
carbon/climate crisis -- and pass over some that they find unsupportable
On "humans are of course part of nature"; I don't think there's any of
course about it. How much and in what ways humans are part of nature
seems to me to be the question which anthropocene politics attempt to
answer, not an agreed ground from which people start.
Best as ever
Oliver
On Sunday, 27 October 2013 21:01:22 UTC, David Hawkins wrote:
Without making an argument that we should never pursue any form of
geoengineering, let me note an obvious response to Oliver's
arguments quoted below.
The fact that we are already manipulating "nature" in many ways does
not support an argument that we should therefore manipulate it in
all ways that human imagination can conceive. Our job is to
exercise good judgement in deciding where to go and where to stop.
So purely as an intellectual matter, the option of not doing some
forms of geoengineering cannot be rejected. It is not a valid
argument to respond to criticisms of specific forms of
geoengineering by saying we already manipulate nature a lot.
(I put "nature" in quotes to start because humans are of course part
of nature. We don't act on nature; we act in nature. But our
capacity to change the functioning of many ecosystems previously
largely uninfluenced by humans, is enormous. The fact that we are a
part of nature does mean we can argue that we should be comfortable
with any actions we take because they are "natural." That stance
conveniently would discard any responsibility we have for
considering the impacts of our actions.)
Sent from my iPad
On Oct 27, 2013, at 3:34 PM, "Ronal W. Larson"
<[email protected] <javascript:><mailto:[email protected]
<javascript:>>> wrote:
List cc Andrew
This interview is of course not good news; Dr. Shiva has a
pretty strong following in environmental circles.
I add a few comments here for three reasons
First because she has said all of the same things about
biochar (not mentioned in the transcript below) on several
occasions. She wrote a very confused forward (as though she hadn't
read it) to a major biochar book by Albert Bates (at his invitation)
- should anyone want to see more on her CDR/biochar views. Albert,
a leader in both fields, says that mostly the Permaculture movement
is behind biochar, not listening to her. Her views on biochar are
the same as given below.
Second, because I have today read the following in Oliver
Morton’s excellent book (“Eating the Sun”) on photosynthesis. He
comments on views like hers in the last chapter where he reports
(pages 389ff) on the views of (former “Geo" list member) Peter Read.
a. Oliver wrote p 392: “What’s more, we are rearranging
the world……. in a decentralized, slapdash way. The idea we might do
it better should not be rejected for an unworkable if understandable
desire that we not do it at all.”
b. A paragraph later: “We can’t let a romantic idea that
nature should be free to carry on regardless dominate our thinking;
nature is everywhere under our influence already.
c. One more paragraph later. We are on the flight deck, and
we are alone. We are at the controls and we have no option but to
use them. And we know where we want to go. The fact that we have
only a dim idea of how to fly means we must act carefully and
thoughtfully, not that we must not act.
All of Oliver’s book was written before the name “biochar”
was selected (in 2007 at a biochar conference - because of Peter).
Dr. Shiva’s views were probably the same then and I feel are
refuted nicely above in these three excerpts. These apply as well
to George Monbiot, whose similar views are on p 389. They were also
given recently even more strongly in an e-mail response to Albert
Bates, saying:
On Oct 25, 2013, at 6:05 PM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]
<javascript:><mailto:[email protected] <javascript:>>> wrote:
http://www.nogeoingegneria.com/interviste/terra-futura-2013-interview-with-vandana-shiva-about-geoengineering/
<http://www.nogeoingegneria.com/interviste/terra-futura-2013-interview-with-vandana-shiva-about-geoengineering/>
TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW
NoGeoingegneria: So, first, thank you very much for your time
because you’re an incredible woman and you always have so much time
for everybody. and it’s great. We wanted to speak a little bit about
geoengineering with you. It’s something that embraces everything:
food and water and what is happening now in the world in a situation
of climate change, and great change, and risk of collapse at every
level. I saw the interview you had with Amy Goodman. So, first, what
is, for you, at this moment, the role of geoengineering?
00:55 Vandana: the role of geo-engineering should, in a world of
responsibility, in a world of scientifically enlightened decision
making and ecological understanding, it should be zero. There is no
role for geo-engeneering. Because what is geoengineering but
extending the engineering paradigm? There have been engineered parts
of the earth, and aspects of ecosystems and organisms through
genetical engineering: the massive dam building, the re-routing of
rivers. These were all elements of geoengineering at the level of
particular places and we have recognized two things: one, that when
you don’t take into account the way ecological systems work, then
you do damage. Everyone knows that in effect climate change is a
result of that engineering paradigm. We could replace people with
fossil fuels, have higher and higher levels of industrialization, of
agriculture, of production, without thinking of the green-house
gases we were admitting, and climate change is really the pollution
of the engineering paradigm, when fossil fuels drove industrialism.
To now offer that same mindset as a solution is to not take
seriously what Einstein said: that you can’t solve the problems by
using the same mindset that caused them. So, the idea of engineering
is an idea of mastery. And today the role that we are being asked to
play is a role based on informed humanity.
2:45 NoGeoingegneria
In my eyes geoengineering started in the 50s with atomic tests,
because in this period they started to make geoengineering of the
atmosphere of earth in a global sense, in a bigger sense, and a lot
of projects in the 50s started to organize the earth, the planet, in
a new way, with a new idea of engineering really the whole planet.
With the power of atomic bomb scientists made a shifting in their
mind, in my eyes. So in this period, in the 50′s weather
modification also started very energically. It is part of geo
engineering, and you have here the map of the ETC group, in the
whole world, they are doing it, and you cannot do local
modifications without changing the whole system. I know in India, in
Thailand, and Australia weather modification maybe is more
discussed, more open than in Europe. For example in Italy they made
weather modification in the 80′s and people don’t know it. What do
you think about the role of weather modification in a sense of
geoengineering for food, for water, for the whole system?
4:21 Vandana
Weather modification is a very small part of geo engineering.
Geoengineering right now is the hubris of saying: “all this climate
change, and we’re living in the anthropocene age and now human
beings will be the shapers of our future, that totally control the
overall functions of not just our planet, but our relationship with
other planets, so many of the solutions offered have been putting
reflectors in the sky to send the sun back as if the sun was a
problem rather than the very basis of life, or to put pollutants
into the atmosphere in order to create a layer of pollution that
would stop the sun from shining. But the instability of the climate
that is the result of the greenhouse effect will just be aggravated
by these interventions. Now weather modifications done in a
narrow-minded way, to say “we are not getting rain so let us
precipitate rain artificially so that agriculture doesn’t fail” is
something that for example the Chinese did for the olympics. They
made sure there would be no rain during the Olympics. It is a lower
level of hubris than the larger project of geoengineering.
5:47 you know this map…..?
5:49 Vandanayes of course i know Etcetera.
5:52 N: and you see that the ETC Group also published only a part,
it’s only a part because everyday something else is coming out, in
the whole world they are doing it, so if you make in a lot of
points.
6:07 V: it’s not too much the points
6:08 N: what does it mean for weather extremes for example?
6:11 V: the first thing is it creates more instability, and we are
dealing with instability, therefore we must deal more with actions
that create insurance against instability, rather than aggravating
the instability. It’s like I’m driving a car and I know there’s a
precipice there, I should put the car in reverse and then turn into
another direction. What geo engineering is doing is saying “let’s
put our foot on the accelerator”. And the precipice is climate
instability, climate unpredictability. And at the root of it is the
false idea that these silly little actions will be able to control
and regulate the weather and climate. But the second most important
part of why geo engineering is so so wrong is that is ultimate
expression of patriarchal irresponsibility. Patriarchy is based on
appropriating rights and leaving responsibility to others. In this
case the scientists who are playing these games, the who are
investors financing it, are all doing it without having any consent
for these experiments, any approval for these experiments, locally
or globally, and worse, without thinking of the consequences or what
it can lead to, and without ever ever being bound to responsibility.
Therefore it is the ultimate expression of all the destructive
tendencies of patriarchy.
7:50 N: Yeah, and you see you can take one name Edward Teller. He
comes from the atomic bomb. He had the idea of controlling the
weather by atomic bomb. He proposed the shield for sun radiation
management, so the same persons, the same power structure is
organizing this type of management of the planet and of space. So,
you know about the intention of control ….?
8:22 V: Well for some people the intention is really one of making
others suffer. And therefore aspects of geo- engineering are about
links with military warfare. How do you alter the climate so that
you can just make rain fall or fail in a particular area and let
agriculture suffer. But in other cases, even if there isn’t that
military intention of harm to the other there is an ignorance…..
8:56 N: There is also economic interest ……
8:58 V: Not all, the reason that there is such a battalion of
scientists behind it…..
9:00 N: You know oil and not soil, the food and water …….
9:05 V: The people are pushing it have a money interest. The people
who are pushing it have a military interest. , people are pushing to
have a military interest. The players merely have the arrogance that
” I have the solution”. And it’s the combination of stupidity
combined with the arrogance of the little players, and the evil
projects of the ones who control it, that combination is what makes
it toxic. Because if the scientific community could only recognize
its responsibility to society and the planet and say “I will not be
part of your games”, which is how Scientists for Social
Responsibility was created, which is how the group that started to
monitor the whole nuclear issue, those were all scientists. This is
a marriage of stupid scientists with evil minds, and we need
scientists with responsibility to be the counterforce to say this is
not science, just as we need in genetic engineering. And it is as
the community of scientists who really know the science start to
speak more and organize better, that the stupid scientists of the
biotech industry will quieten down. And biotech and geo engineering
have the same mindset, of engineering, of power, of control, of
mastery of nature
10:30 N: you spoke also of the dams. It’s big geoengineering also in
India and in the whole world and there are now the big interests of
water and here, the last time we had an interview with Pat Mooney he
said that big dams, energy production, water control, and weather
control, it’s one thing. So it’s not only a small intervention to
have crops. It’s something more.
11:06 V: No as I said it’s the ultimate hubris, that’s what it is!
Hubris on a planetary scale!
11:19 N: Uh….. what do you think about the fact they will spray nano
particles? That’s the program!
11:29 V: Each of these issues has a particular aspect thats
different but i think those particular aspects are very small
compared to the overall damage and the overall irresponsibility. For
me the first issue is, how dare you do this. How dare you. That has
to be humanity’s response. Then the rest of the little thing of how
nano particles can harm or have too much sulphur in the atmosphere
can harm, those are specific details but this is a civilizational
issue. And in civilizational issues you don’t look at the tiny
details as the debate. You have to look at the big picture!
Transcript by lukinski&trishy
Vandana Shiva –
Biography:Vandana Shiva, a world-renowned environmental thinker,
activist, physicist, feminist, philosopher of science, writer and
science policy advocate, is the Director of The Research Foundation
for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. She serves as
an ecology advisor to several organizations including the Third
World Network and the Asia Pacific People’s Environment Network. In
1993 she was the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, commonly
known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”. A contributing editor to
People-Centered Development Forum, she has also written several
works include, “Staying Alive,” “The Violence of the Green
Revolution,” “Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge,”
“Monoculutures of the Mind” and “Water Wars: Privatization,
Pollution, and Profit,” as well as over 300 papers in leading
scientific and technical journals. Shiva participated in the
nonviolent Chipko movement during the 1970s, whose main participants
were women. She is one of the leaders of the International Forum on
Globalization, and a figure of the global solidarity movement known
as the anti-globalization movement. She has argued for the wisdom of
many traditional practices, as is evident from her book “Vedic
Ecology” that draws upon India’s Vedic heritage. Shiva has fought
for changes in the practice and paradigms of agriculture and food.
Intellectual property rights, biodiversity, biotechnology,
bioethics, genetic engineering are among the fields where Shiva has
contributed intellectually and through activist campaigns. She has
assisted grassroots organizations of the Green movement in Africa,
Asia, Latin America, Ireland, Switzerland and Austria with campaigns
against genetic engineering. In 1982, she founded the Research
Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. Her book, “Staying
Alive” helped redefine perceptions of third world women. Shiva has
also served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well
as non governmental organisations, including the International Forum
on Globalisation, the Women’s Environment & Development Organization
and the Third World Network
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