Toby, I regret I will not be at the meeting to learn more about the ethics of CDR. Presumably this refers to enhancement of existing, natural CDR which is already removing about 55% of our emissions, but which is immune from ethical considerations(?) Regardless of our actions, this natural CDR will eventually consume all of our CO2 and return air CO2 (and climate?) to pre-industrial levels, so what are the ethics here? In any case, I assume the "ethics of CDR" referred to really means the "ethics of accelerated CDR". Good to see that such activity and its ethics will be put in context of alternative actions as stated in the session description.
Greg ________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Toby Svoboda [[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2014 7:26 AM To: Ronal W. Larson Cc: Geoengineering Subject: Re: [geo] Response to Svoboda and Irvine, J Reynolds Hi Ron, I agree that CDR warrants attention from ethicists (and others). For those attending the Berlin Climate Engineering Conference this week, there is a session on the ethics of CDR that might be of interest: http://www.ce-conference.org/ethics-carbon-dioxide-removal. Best, Toby The Ethics of Carbon Dioxide Removal Date: Thursday, 21. August 2014 - 11:00 to 12:30 Location: Copenhagen Speakers * "Geoengineering and Non-Ideal Theories of Justice" by David Morrow (University of Alabama at Birmingham) and Toby Svoboda (Fairfield University) * "An Overview of CDR Techniques - Adverse Impacts and Ethical Concerns" by Haomiao Du (University of Amsterdam) * "Public Participation and Stakeholder Inclusion for Geoengineering: What Do We Know from CDM A/R?" by Erik Thorstensen (Oslo and Akershus University College) * "Would the Development of a Safe, Robust and Scalable Technique to Sequester Carbon Dioxide from the Air Create an Obligation to 'Clean up the Mess'?" by Tim Kruger (University of Oxford) Session Description Most of the current literature on ethical aspects of climate engineering (CE) has concentrated on solar radiation management. CDR has not gained wide addition up to now, even though it also seems to raise major normative challenges. In the session we will outline major issues regarding the ethics of CDR, summarize the main properties that distinguish CDR form SRM from a normative perspective, take a look at some case studies on different CDR techniques and put them in the context of mitigation and adaptation efforts. On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 12:57 AM, Ronal W. Larson <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Dr. Svoboda, cc list and others in this dialog: 1. I thank you and the others writing about a portion of the ethics of Geoengieering. Your work is valuable. 2. But I am concerned that there has been only discussion of a portion of Geoengineering - only about SRM. Not just in the current exchange, but in virtually every geoengineering/ethics article I have read. This is true for most of the papers mentioned in this thread. 3. One exception: Dr. Wong briefly mentions CDR and does a good job of using the term "Geoengineering" to mean both SRM and CDR. His emphasis on post implementation certainly can apply to CDR - so I am applauding his small contribution. However, I disagree strongly with the word "only" in this sentence quoting Vaughan and Lenton at about his p 2.4/6 (my emphasis added): "For example, Naomi E. Vaughan and Timothy M. Lenton note that the 'effect [of any Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) techniques] will decay over time [ . . . ], and it will also decay if carbon storage is not permanent. In the long-term, the only way to return atmospheric CO2 to pre-industrial levels is to permanently store [ . . . ] an equivalent amount of CO2 to the total emitted to the atmosphere' (Vaughan & Lenton, 2011, p. 750). That is, I believe there is general agreement that afforestation/reforestation can be a valuable CDR approach, even though it is certainly not permanent. I claim the same about biochar, with a major portion likely to last for millennia. My concern might extend to Dr. Wong, but certainly to Drs. Vaughan and Lenton. Permanence should never be a requirement for any form of either SRM or CDR. So this is to urge list members to read the Wong paper for the (limited) way that CDR stays in his discussion. 4. Dr. Svoboda yesterday directed our attention in his last sentence to a 2012 (behind pay-wall) article, whose abstract reads (emphasis added): As a strategy for responding to climate change, aerosol geoengineering (AG) carries various risks, thus raising ethical concerns regarding its potential deployment. I examine three ethical arguments that AG ought not to be deployed, given that it (1) risks harming persons, (2) would harm persons, and (3) would be more harmful to persons than some other available strategy. I show that these arguments are not successful. Instead, I defend a fourth argument: in scenarios in which all available climate change strategies would result in net harm, we ought to adopt the strategy that would result in the least net harm. Barring substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, we can reasonably expect future scenarios in which all available strategies would result in net harm. In such cases, there is good reason to suspect that AG would result in less net harm than emissions mitigation, adaptation, or other geoengineering strategies. with this key words in the middle (emphasis added): "....scenarios ... all ....... strategies .......net harm...." I strongly believe that afforestation/reforestation, biochar and probably several other CDR approaches will result in net good, not net harm. I hope someone can show me why this is not true. If true, then it should follow that Dr. Svoboda's final sentence is not logically valid. I hope some ethicist will challenge my (and many others) view that some forms of CDR are strongly positive forces at this time. 5. I understand that every geoengineering/ethics paper cannot also include CDR. But surely there must be someone interested in the geoengineering /climate/ethics arena who is also interested in the CDR side? And willing to write on the topic - either with or without mentioning SRM? There are many of us ready to help on specific approaches. Caution - one can't write on CDR as a single approach, but there are probably some important ethical general statements about that grow of CDR approaches which we can agree are net positive good. Jim Hansen doesn't discuss SRM; he has mainly talked about the afforestation/reforestation form of CDR (but also see his most recent piece with a tad about biochar two days ago at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2014/20140814_JeremiahsProgeny.pdf) Ron Most of the following shortened for clarity: On Aug 14, 2014, at 2:20 PM, Toby Svoboda <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi All, Interesting discussion. First, regarding intention, much of what has been said above is helpful, and I would second Jesse's recommendation of David Morrow's paper<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21550085.2014.926056#.U-0WuWP6eyM> on doing/allowing and double effect (full disclosure: David and I are coauthors on a separate project.) <snip to last Svoboda sentence> In some future scenario, it might be permissible to deploy some form of SRM (as I have argued in other published work--see here<http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/ethics_and_the_environment/v017/17.2.svoboda.html>), but even then we should try to compensate for harm if we can. <snip remainder> His "here" refers to his 2012 article found at: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/ethics_and_the_environment/v017/17.2.svoboda.html with the abstract being given above. -- Toby Svoboda Assistant Professor Department of Philosophy Fairfield University 1073 N. Benson Rd. Fairfield, CT 06824 -- 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]<mailto:[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[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. 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.
