On Feb 18, 2014, at 2:29 AM, Oliver Morton <[email protected]> wrote:
> Dear Ron
>
> Very large (eg 2TW - 20TW) wind installation will have effects on the climate
> system by changing wind patterns, though the scale is not yet I think well
> agreed; similarly large biomass plantations have albedo and
> evapotranspiration effects. They could thus be seen as fitting the Royal
> Society defintition of geoengineering as
> >>deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth's climate system, in order
> >>to moderate global warming.
RWL: I agree that 20 TW of new wind fits the first part of the RS
definition, but I think that amount may not moderate global warming. I
remembered this topic came up a few years ago, and so found a pertinent
doctoral thesis at
http://www.bgc-jena.mpg.de/uploads/Publications/TechnicalReports/tech_report27.pdf
On p 77, we have what I take to be discouraging: "... upper-atmospheric
temperature increases of more than 20 C in both high-altitude polar
atmospheres (Fig. 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9)." I believe the rationale is that the
energy taken out at low elevations has to come from higher elevations and
eventually out of the jet streams. We know that the present weakening of the
jet streams has led to record high colds in mid latitudes, but high
temperatures near the Arctic, so the large wind scenario doesn't surprise me
(but I have only skimmed this and a few similar papers from the Max Planck
group.
Also a 20 TW wind approach would necessitate a third geo subset, since
I don't see a massive wind effort fitting into either SRM or CDR. But I
don't want to discourage anyone looking for additional methods and a new subset.
>
> On your second point, I'm trying to be quite precise here; climate
> geoengineering involves decoupling climate outcomes from cumulative carbon
> emissions. I don't see ocean acidification as a climate issue. It's an issue
> that, like the climate issue, can be traced to anthropogenic carbon
> emissions, but that doesn't mean it's the same thing, or that climate
> geoengineering has to address it in order to be climate geoengineering. If
> people want to say of carbon dioxide reduction that it doesn't just offer
> hope as a climate engineering solution but also has the benefit of reducing
> ocean acidification, then that is fine by me.
[RWL: Well we disagree on whether acidification should be considered a
climate issue or a climate geoengineering issue. I presume we agree it is a
CO2 issue, which is the last part of your definition. My point is that, as
Greg Rau has said today, the benefit cost ratio of SRM, is likely to change
from low cost to expensive, depending on whether or not analysts are
considering the costs of uncontrolled ocean acidification. I of course agree
with your last sentence - but would put it stronger.
>
> To explain my use of decoupling: solar methods do their decoupling by
> changing the energy inputs; carbon methods do their decoupling by changing
> the link between cumulative emissions and atmospheric levels.
[RWL: Fair enough. But your definition also included the words "climate
outcomes" - and I believe many still want maximum attention paid to increased
ocean acidification, which I consider a negative (not decoupled) outcome of
SRM. The issue I guess is whether and how acidification will be considered
when Geo governance choices are made in the future. Very different results
will follow from that inclusion or not.
>
> As I said in previous post, the purpose of this definition is really just to
> try and express a bit more analytically the status-quo solar+carbon methods
> definition that most people were I think using before the Royal Society
> report and went on to use afterwards. I think there is some advantage in this
> not least because it links climate geoengineering directly to cumulative
> carbon emissions, currently seen as a particularly useful proxy for human
> intervention in the climate system (cf Myles Allen, passim). But it obviously
> does little to settle the differences between
> carbon-dioxide-reduction-would-be- practitioners and
> carbon-dioxide-reduction-policy-people I mentioned in my previous post.
[RWL: So you are here expanding on the last part of your definition's
"... cumulative carbon dioxide emissions", not the "decoupling" portion. I
agree that geoengineering should be about those four words.
I found Dr. Allen's Guardian article from November here:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/26/green-levies-crap-carbon-burial-fossil-fuels#start-of-comments
- and am pleased to see his emphasis on CDR. I hope he will add biochar as
well as BECCS in his next article, as did quite a few commenters.
Re your last sentence, I am mostly concerned that the difference are
often never discussed because CDR is ignored; somehow geoengineering only
equates to SRM for many authors. This includes the new one Andrew gave us
today by McKusker etal; not one use of the term CDR. The paper essentially
endorsed the concept of irreversibility - which might be said for many SRM
papers.
>
> Ken may be right to worry that "geoengineering" ends up an epithet that hurts
> approaches, such as BECCS, that have little in common with stratospheric
> sulphates and the like. Worth noting though that if BECCS were to be moved
> out of the geoengineering camp people who opposed it, as many would, would
> point to the name change itself as evidence of perfidy: "they used to call it
> geoengineering but then they changed its name to try and hide what it really
> is," etc.
[RWL: It is already an epithet, I am afraid - but SRM and CDR
are not. I agree that changing the name would have the " perfidy" effect. So,
I would prefer not to change the name, but rather to just stop using it and
instead to have comment on the positive and negative features of the two
subgroup names, which names I do not see any major move to change.
I thank you for what you are doing at the Guardian - and I urge this
list to read your fantastic "Eating the Sun" - which is a great sales pitch for
photosynthesis (and therefor biochar).
Ron
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 10:53 PM, Ronal W. Larson <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> Oliver and ccs.
>
> I mostly agree with all you say below, including your final "Is that
> not.." question below. But I ask that you say more about two items:
>
> 1. How can your "very large scale deployment of wind energy"
> (highlighted below) fit into the Royal Society's two part (SRM and CDR)
> geoengineering definition? To me, wind is firmly in the mitigation category
> and not helpful to try to fit it into geoengineering.
>
> 2. I am concerned about your "definition" (also highlighted below
> and repeating from your message following Ken's below which read:
>> For me, climate geoengineering is distinguished by, and can be defined
>> through, its capacity to decouple climate outcomes from cumulative carbon
>> dioxide emissions.
>
>
> My concern is with the word "decouple". I see SRM saying it is going to
> ignore ocean acidification - which is certainly decoupling but I believe
> acknowledged to be quite harmful, and perhaps the main reason for opposition
> to SRM. I see CDR saying it intends strongly to couple (not decouple) with
> the ocean acidification issue. Can you clarify your word "decouple" as
> applying to both parts of geoengineering?
>
> Ron
>
> On Feb 17, 2014, at 3:02 AM, Oliver Morton <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I'm struck by how much everyone wants a definition of geoengineering to do
>> something -- to include ethics, to be a tool, not to be bad PR. I'm dubious
>> about this in various ways. First, while understanding that language is
>> inevitably value laden, I think it's helpful to try and be transparent about
>> seeking to minimise that burden especially in contentious areas like this --
>> not to ask what definitition is helpful, but to ask what broadly fits with
>> the history of the discourse, the current general perception of the
>> processes involved, and the need to be able to say of future ideas whether
>> they are or aren't geoengineering. I appreciate that this sounds like a
>> counsel of perfection, but trying to get to a place where people can just
>> speak clearly isn't surely too much to ask.
>>
>> Second, I think that trying to steer the debate by controlling the
>> terminology suggests a power that the in-group/geo-clique/whatever both
>> doesn't have and shouldn't have.
>>
>> Realistically, in everyday discourse the world is for the time being stuck
>> with some sort of definition of climate geoengineering similar to that in
>> the Royal Society report. (What I like about my definition is that it offers
>> to my mind a pretty good way of formalising that status quo rather more
>> rigorously than the Royal Society did; its definition would include, to my
>> mind, very large scale deployment of wind energy). This isn't a problem as
>> far as I can see for people with a primary interest in solar geoengineering
>> methods. It does seem to be a problem for people interested in carbon
>> methods, in two opposing ways: people interested in carbon dioxide removal
>> from a practical point of view think they might do better if they are not
>> tarred with the geoengineering brush (a position which may be true); people
>> interested in carbon dioxide removal from a policy point of view fear that
>> if it is not seen as geoengineering the subject might fail to qualify for
>> research money set aside for geoengineering policy/governance questions (a
>> position which may also be true). Is that not, at the moment, the conflict
>> at the heart of this debate?
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 5:05 AM, Ken Caldeira
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Words are tools.
>>
>> Before designing a tool, it is a good idea to understand what the tool will
>> be used for.
>>
>> Rather than defining terms in a vacuum, it may be a good idea to think about
>> the contexts in which these words will be used and then provide a definition
>> (or definitions) that make these words most useful in these contexts.
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Biomass energy is generally considered mitigation.
>>
>> Carbon capture and storage is generally considered mitigation
>>
>> So, for the time period in which we are still emitting copious amounts of
>> fossil CO2 into the atmosphere, biomass energy + CCS is perhaps best viewed
>> in the context of climate change mitigation. I do not see how labeling
>> biomass energy with CCS (BECCS) "geoengineering" is helpful in this context.
>>
>> If we are concerned about novel risks, and want to govern things called
>> "geoengineering" because they pose novel risks, then it might be a good idea
>> to define "geoengineering" in terms of novel risk.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________
>> Ken Caldeira
>>
>> Carnegie Institution for Science
>> Dept of Global Ecology
>> 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
>> +1 650 704 7212 [email protected]
>> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab
>> https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 8:34 PM, Rau, Greg <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I would go further and say "climate geoengineering is distinguished by, and
>> can be defined through, its capacity to decouple climate outcomes from
>> atmospheric carbon dioxide (or other GHG) levels." Thus, the very different
>> (and in my opinion usually lower) risks from atmospheric CO2/GHG management
>> R&D and deployment are separated from those of SRM.
>> Greg
>> From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on
>> behalf of O Morton [[email protected]]
>> Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2014 4:20 AM
>> To: [email protected]
>> Cc: [email protected]
>>
>> Subject: Re: [geo] Re: What Is Climate Geoengineering? Word Games in the
>> Ongoing Debates Over a Definition
>>
>> I'm not sure that you want to include intention in the definition, though it
>> is hard to exclude. And I think srm, for example, could, though, unwisely,
>> be used without abatement options being pursued; I don't think its
>> reasonable to include normative assumptions about how geoengineering should
>> be pursued in the definition.
>>
>> For me, climate geoengineering is distinguished by, and can be defined
>> through, its capacity to decouple climate outcomes from cumulative carbon
>> dioxide emissions.
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, 16 February 2014 07:46:40 UTC, Emily L-B wrote:
>> Hi is it only fossil-fuel use it's aiming to deal with, rather than
>> including the effects of land use change, deforestation, burping cows, etc?
>> I wonder if geo-engineering aims to
>>
>> 'reduce climate change (or global warming specifically) alongside efforts to
>> reduce ghg emissions.'
>>
>> This can include srm and cdr.
>>
>> This captures other ghg emissions sources, so for example, human release
>> direct to air, but we are also weakening natural carbon draw down pumps in
>> the ocean and may be causing carbon stores to release, from, for example,
>> the oceans, forests and methane hydrates.
>>
>> This also captures the suggestion that geo-eng is expressly intended to be
>> used as well as emissione reductions and not instead and not wait till
>> emissions reductions is declared inadequate because some people are
>> differently optimistic about that and may disagree/ be too late.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Emily.
>> Sent from my BlackBerry(R) smartphone on O2
>> From: Greg Rau <[email protected]>
>> Sender: [email protected]
>> Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2014 15:03:20 -0800 (PST)
>> To: [email protected]<[email protected]>;
>> [email protected]<[email protected]>
>> ReplyTo: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: [geo] Re: What Is Climate Geoengineering? Word Games in the
>> Ongoing Debates Over a Definition
>>
>> How about:
>> "geoengineering schemes seek to mitigate the effect of fossil-fuel
>> combustion on the climate in the event that fossil fuel emissions reductions
>> prove inadequate to avoid dangerous climate change."
>>
>> Due to very different risks and benefits, my preference would be to have
>> geoengineering be synonymous with SRM, and to treat CDR separately.
>>
>> Greg
>>
>> From: Oscar Escobar <[email protected]>
>> To: [email protected]
>> Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2014 12:24 PM
>> Subject: [geo] Re: What Is Climate Geoengineering? Word Games in the Ongoing
>> Debates Over a Definition
>>
>>
>> I think the most accurate definition of climate geoengineering - Climate
>> Engineering or (Insert new term here_________________), should include the
>> following concept:
>>
>>
>> "geoengineering schemes seek to mitigate the effect of fossil-fuel
>> combustion on the climate without abating fossil fuel use."
>>
>> David Keith
>> Ecyclopedia of Global Change - Environmental Change and Human Society -
>> volume 1 (2002)
>> Also here:
>> "Geoengineering Climate - David Keith - Dept. of Chemistry and Chemical
>> Biology - Harvard University - Cambridge, Massachusett
>> http://keith.seas.harvard.edu/papers/16_Keith_1998_GeoengClimate_s.pdf
>>
>> I think this is doubly accurate in the case of fossil fuel CCS and enhanced
>> oil recovery with carbon storage. I don't think any level of language
>> sophistry, or legalese, will separate this fact from reality.
>>
>> I have to say that, I understand that the many climate geoengineering
>> schemes have many different levels of risk, and other issues such as those
>> raised by Dr. Smolker, but I don't oppose them in such a blanketed way.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Oscar E.
>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> O=C=O O=C=O O=C=O O=C=O O=C=O
>>
>> Oliver Morton
>> Editor, Briefings
>> The Economist
>>
>> O=C=O O=C=O O=C=O O=C=O O=C=O
>
>
>
>
> --
> O=C=O O=C=O O=C=O O=C=O O=C=O
>
> Oliver Morton
> Editor, Briefings
> The Economist
>
> O=C=O O=C=O O=C=O O=C=O O=C=O
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