Andrew et al.,
Thanks for your comments. I share the view that endless discussions of how to regulate geoengineering consume effort and postpone action. Many years ago I was working on a major project, multi-billions of dollars, in the early conceptual stage. We had a schedule of eight to ten years to startup. The then quite old project manager made a comment that stuck with me my whole life: “If this was World War II, we would do this project in 30 months. So the question is, how much longer do we need because it isn’t World War II.” I have the same sense of addressing climate change, both by emission reduction and by geoengineering of impact: it isn’t yet “World War II” urgency. But as Andrew notes, we get closer to the waterfall…. Peter Peter Flynn, P. Eng., Ph. D. Emeritus Professor and Poole Chair in Management for Engineers Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Alberta [email protected] cell: 928 451 4455 *From:* [email protected] [mailto: [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Stephen Salter *Sent:* August-03-14 10:56 AM *To:* [email protected]; Ronal Larson *Cc:* Andrew Lockley; Geoengineering *Subject:* Re: [geo] Enough of govern-nonsense Hi All Please excuse any query marks which Thunderbird thinks should be added to my emails without troubling to inform me. I foolishly started saving papers on 'geo-politics' some time ago.? Sometimes there were several a day, many very similar.? Some were even about the number of papers.? The folder now has 3400 files.? There are about 30 really useful papers on climate models.? I know of? 5 on engineering hardware to actually do something unless people can tell me about any more.? Perhaps someone should write a paper about the balance of effort. Stephen Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering. University of Edinburgh. Mayfield Road. Edinburgh EH9 3JL. Scotland [email protected] Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195 WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change On 03/08/2014 17:42, Ken Caldeira wrote: >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 [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 > > -- > 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. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. 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