On Aug 3, 2014, at 7:56 AM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think the true governance work has a clear start date. It's when we > have a shiny aerosol plane sitting on the runway, full tested and > ready to deploy - with its performance well studied. So, let's run a little thought experiment here. Your shiny aerosol plane (and corresponding systems of planes, source materials, monitoring networks, etc.) gets the go-ahead, and begins our SSI effort. Shortly thereafter, for reasons explained by "it's the Earth's climate, stuff like this happens" an especially large (but not unprecedented) hurricane hits Central America. Coincidentally, drought conditions in western China worsen, as predicted rainfall doesn't happen. Again, stuff like this happens, and in fact the models that you've used and tested offer a strong argument that these events (and similar minor to moderate weather problems) really have little to do with the SSI program. Do you expect: 1) The global public will say "these are tragedies, but the science just doesn't support these events as being triggered by solar geoengineering," and focus on clean-up and carbon reduction while the geoengineers continue their work. or 2) The global public will be screaming for the heads of whichever countries, companies, and universities "did this to them," no matter what the science says, with the added bonus of accusations that this was all carried out "behind the backs of the public" because of a lack of serious civil society/governance work beforehand. You're almost certainly correct that there are people advocating for more governance research, conferences, blah blah blah in order to deflect, delay, and avoid making hard decisions about both climate and geoengineering (of all stripes, with solar/SSI being the lead boogeyman). But that's not the only reason there are people calling for more governance work. There are some *very* difficult dilemmas that will arise around any kind of geoengineering, especially solar/SSI, dilemmas that can't be easily modeled. Let's imagine about another, related, thought experiment: Your shiny aerosol plane (etc.) is ready to go, but the governance and oversight groups decide to hold off for now. Maybe that's because they want more time to study the economic/political complexities, maybe they truly believe that the benefits aren't worth the risks, but no matter: they said NO. And while I'm sure most climate scientists involved in the research will be good global citizens and be willing to put this on the shelf until conditions change, not everyone is so compliant. You have at least one, possibly several, "rogue" SSI projects get underway, run by good-hearted people who truly and honestly think that the global oversight groups got it wrong, and that they need to do this to save the world. There would likely be quite a bit of sympathy from the more compliant scientists, too. What happens then? You won't even have the cover of "the science says it's safe" if the governance groups (who, in this scenario, followed all of the conditions of letting experiments work) have concluded that the risks are greater than the benefits, or that the conclusions aren't yet clear enough to say yes. Governance isn't about the ignorant masses stopping the sober, wise scientists from doing what needs to be done to fix the planet, it's about trying to defuse and spread the blame and fear those ignorant masses will generate when problems (related to the project or not) happen afterwards. Think of governance as "desperation management." -Jamais Cascio -- 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]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
