Hi Ken,
Are there bad and/or redundant governance and ethics papers? Plenty. And if
you'd like to see more use of direct observation, justified/validated modeling,
statistical argumentation, and other systematic methods used in those papers,
I'm right there with you.
But I worry that you're overstating. From my whatever-it-is perspective,
computational model outputs (while certainly useful and important) are several
shades back from "empirical facts," if that is supposed to refer to facts about
the world, not facts about math. Meanwhile, the exploratory conceptual work
done in governance/ethics, which I sense is what you're objecting to, is
several shades up from bare opinion.
Researchers writing on governance and ethics are (1) trying to describe and
work within human society, which is a more complex and less specifiable problem
domain than 3D PDEs; (2) are trying to synthesize and develop concepts in a
mode that's much closer to model design than to the interpretation of model
outputs; and (3) often trying to suggest through argument how things ought to
work, which involves challenges and pressures that physical science is
typically relieved from.
Best,George
Unrelated PS: Good to see folks in Heidelberg, and sorry I missed the big
shindig at the end. Happily I'll get to follow up with most of you in Berlin--
From: [email protected]
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 09:42:53 -0700
Subject: Re: [geo] Enough of govern-nonsense
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]; [email protected]
>From the perception of a physical scientist,h it seems that to publish a new
>physical science paper you need new facts, but to publish a new "governance"
>or "ethics" paper you just need opinions, and it seems like they don't even
>have to be new opinions.
Much of the low-hanging fruit that could be picked by climate modeling has
already been picked, so in the absence of physical experiments, it is becoming
harder and harder to generate new empirical facts. On the contrary, the number
of people who feel a need to express their opinions on governance and ethics
issues appears to be growing daily.
As a consequence, it seems as if the ratio of governance/ethics papers to
papers reporting new empirical facts is increasing without bound.
_______________
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
Assistant: Dawn Ross <[email protected]>
On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 9:04 AM, Ronal W. Larson <[email protected]>
wrote:
Andrew cc list
Can we assume that your use of the term "geoengineering" below is meant
to ONLY include the term "Solar Radiation Management " (or SRM) or "Solar
geoengineering"? You do not mean to include the terms "Carbon Dioxide
Removal" (CDR) and "Negative Emissions Technologies" (NETs)?
Ron
On Aug 3, 2014, at 8:56 AM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]> wrote:
> Just a personal opinion, but one that's been brewing for a while. I
> am definitely NOT writing this in my capacity as list moderator!
>
> I'm concerned that governance and social policy research is not always
> entirely what it seems. My suspicion is that it's potentially a
> delaying tactic. This work is advocated by funders and politicians to
> avoid grasping the nettle of seemingly-odious experimentation. I'm
> not saying that anyone who works in the field is acting in bad faith,
> but there's a risk that social/governance work is supported because
> there's a need to 'do something' about geoengineering, but not
> actually to do anything that would possibly upset anyone. The risk is
> that such lily-livered prevarication stops us learning crucial lessons
> about the science - lessons which would help us better answer the
> governance questions (which we delay the science in order to seek
> answers to).
>
> To make genuine, effective policy decisions, we need accurate
> information about the science and engineering. Governance research in
> a 'fact-vacuum' achieves little. Governance decision-making without
> the friction of urgency lacks realism. The problem with the
> 'governance first' approach is that it leads to bad, ill-informed
> governance - 'govern-nonsense'. To do good governance, we need a
> 'science first' approach, which strives to provide complete and
> accurate information to policy makers. This simply can't be done
> dependably without experimentation. With the exception of some small
> ocean iron fertilisation trials, there have been no
> officially-sanctioned outdoor experiments on geoengineering. As a
> result, we have wasted years of progress into deployment technology,
> aerosol physics etc.
>
> The problem with the current timidity is two-fold. Firstly, we don't
> have full factual information about the technologies. Secondly, we
> have an artificial sense that decisions about deployment are far into
> the future. As a result, we don't have the heated and crucial
> discussions about deployment, which are actually what governance IS.
> Both of these elements are the true feedstock of a proper governance
> process, and both are held up by a lack of experimentation and
> technological development - which is in turn held up by the very
> governance research which is ostensibly aiming to assist the process.
> It's like an evil chicken and egg scenario.
>
> There seems to be both an explicit and implicit view that more
> 'governance' is needed before any 'offensive' outdoor research can be
> done. This can be interpreted as governance of the research agenda,
> and of eventual deployment. But the result is still the same - we
> delay and delay, whilst sailing closer and closer towards the
> waterfall.
> My personal view is that we are wasting valuable time. We need to
> sweep aside the social policy work and get on with the science,
> without obsessively worrying about the consequences. Do we delay
> physics at CERN, because someone may in future develop a Higgs-field
> death ray? No. Do we insist on social policy research before
> developing Google Glass? No. There are many other fields where
> governance is equally 'required' as it is in geoengineering - and it
> is absent. We are not being asked to research governance in these
> fields because people do not fear research on them. Governance is
> still required, but it is not conducted at present, because there is
> nothing anyone wishes to delay.
>
> We must recognise and resist what is happening. When we're implored
> to delay science to research or establish governance, we need to ask a
> simple question: 'is the benefit of delay worth the risks of delay'.
> We could wait another 5 years before doing the first test flights, or
> launching the first ships. We would have a lot more papers on
> governance, and yet we would really be no further along in the
> governance process. We'd have another 5 years of climate change under
> our belts, with all the effects, both reversible and irreversible,
> that go with it.
>
> 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. Only when the
> engineering team asks the question 'Do you want us to fly this thing
> tomorrow, in ten years, or never?' will governance discussions start
> with the information and urgency needed to do the job properly. Anyth
> such discussion beforehand is just govern-nonsense.
>
> Any comments?
>
> A
>
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