Greg, Ms. Talberg, etal
1. To repeat the original question posed by MIT, and for which Ms. Anita
Talberg ("Neetberg") sent this list an invitation:
"How can research into climate engineering be governed to limit its
environmental and political risks?"
2. I suggest that few will want to respond because the terms SRM and CDR are
never mentioned. The CDR approach I work on is is undergoing a great deal of
research, both government and private funded - and having either zero (in the
case of backyard testing) or minor difficulties with (local - not
international) governance issues. The subject of risks is rarely mentioned -
and are assumed by the researchers/users. The environmental and political
risks we talk about are in not pursuing this approach. We would welcome a
dialog with those who see any type of risk - as we are thinking benefits - and
benefits also outside the atmospheric realm. I can imagine some brave SRM
folks could enter as stated, but they would be asking for a lot of grief
talking about a dozen other technologies different from their own - about which
they probably know little (unless they repeat what has been said on this list
- no governance for some (not all) CDR approaches).
3. I know of no group presently competent to cover governance of the whole
climate engineering field. If you want dialog on SRM, best to say so. If you
think governance can be different for different approaches, then ask for
discussion of that. So, I suggest that if you want any reasonable entries on
this topic, you avoid an umbrella term such as "climate engineering".
Ron
On Apr 3, 2014, at 5:09 PM, Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> How about a more basic question:
> How can climate engineering research be conducted so as to maximize
> information return on investment while minimizing environmental and societal
> risk? We can then worry about how to govern such a pathway(?)
> Not sure what political risks this would pose, but I can imagine risks to
> certain ideologies.
>
> Greg
>
> From: Jamais Cascio <cas...@openthefuture.com>
> To: kcalde...@gmail.com
> Cc: neetb...@gmail.com; geoengineering <geoengineering@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, April 3, 2014 10:17 AM
> Subject: Re: [geo] How can research into geoengineering be governed to limit
> its environmental and political risks?
>
> I can see a few reasons to want to consider regulating/governing "climate
> engineering" research that *aren't* predicated on the desire to limit or stop
> knowledge generation.
>
> * A desire to keep the research knowledge *open*, and not made a trade or
> government secret.
> * Related to this, a desire to keep potential climate engineering tests
> transparent, with the results openly available.
> * A need to identify as early as possible potential political side-effects of
> promising lines of research.
>
> All of these are, to one degree or another, hallmarks of good science
> practice. But geoengineering (or whatever we're calling it now) has
> unavoidable political aspects -- questions of control, of liability & blame
> for perceived problems, of asymmetric impacts, of accidental harm. There are
> already people in positions of government influence who see this as a
> potential tool of international power (source: I've spoken to them at
> government events), and whether or not this idea even makes sense from a
> science perspective is irrelevant. If GE/CE is seen as a tool of power, it
> may be treated as a tool of power, and not as a tool of planetary
> environmental management.
>
> There are undoubtedly people who fall into Ken's characterization; I'd even
> be willing to accept that a large plurality, even a majority, of the people
> calling for governance of research want to do so for knowledge-suppression
> reasons. But that doesn't mean that there are no legitimate reasons to want
> to see research governance. Moreover, I think that such governance can be
> directly in support of the kind of broad knowledge generation and exchange
> that I think most of us here would encourage.
>
> -Jamais Cascio
>
>
>
> On Apr 2, 2014, at 5:57 PM, Ken Caldeira <kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> Can the question be amended to read
>>
>> "How can research into climate engineering be governed to limit its
>> environmental and political risks, without substantially interfering with
>> the ability to generate new and potentially useful knowledge?"
>>
>> The only reason that I can think of to regulate "climate engineering" qua
>> climate engineering is if the knowledge generation itself is seen to be a
>> primary risk.
>>
>> If the primary risk is direct risk to the environment, then the relevant
>> question might be:
>>
>> "How can research that poses environmental and political risks across
>> international boundaries (or to international commons) be goverened to limit
>> these risks, without substantially interfering with the ability to generate
>> new and potentially useful knowledge?"
>>
>> It seems to me that a lot of people opposed to climate engineering research
>> are opposed to knowledge generation. It seems to me that the primary reason
>> for a "climate engineering" governance regime is to cater to people who
>> oppose knowledge generation.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Ken
>>
>> _______________
>> Ken Caldeira
>>
>> Carnegie Institution for Science
>> Dept of Global Ecology
>> 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
>> +1 650 704 7212 kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu
>> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab
>> https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira
>>
>> Assistant: Dawn Ross <dr...@carnegiescience.edu>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 1:04 PM, Anita Talberg <neetb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> MIT has just launched its Climate CoLab for 2014. This year it includes a
>> contest where participants can propose a solution to the question:
>>
>> "How can research into climate engineering be governed to limit its
>> environmental and political risks?" (link)
>>
>> What is Climate CoLab?
>> It's a platform that hosts annual contests to crowd-source ideas on how to
>> tackle various aspects of climate change. There are 17 contests this year.
>> Check them all out here.
>>
>> Who can enter?
>> The contests are all public and free. Anyone can enter. Anyone can comment
>> on other people's answers. Anyone can vote on the answers they like. And
>> anyone has a chance at winning the $10,000 prize for the best solution
>> across the 17 contests.
>>
>> Help spread the word...
>> Check out the contest and enter if you have a great idea.
>> If you don't want to enter, have a look at other people's entries and vote
>> on them or make a comment.
>> Forward this to anyone you know that is interested in the topic of
>> geoengineering and might want to enter the contest. And ask them to forward
>> on in the same way. The best type of promotion is word-of-mouth for this
>> kind of thing.
>> Any questions can be asked on the discussion board in Climate CoLab.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Anita
>>
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