Clearly I’m a bit late (sorry, skipped the conference to go on a honeymoon instead), and I see others have made similar points, but three things strike me in the original wording:
1. If you consider something like the global-average radiative forcing perturbation, there are perhaps 8 or 9 orders of magnitude between an experiment like Scopex (Andersen, Keith et al) and SRM implementation, plus the time-scale of the experiment is short (~week). If that doesn’t constitute a “bright line” between actually proposed tests and implementation, I don’t know what is… On top of that, flying a balloon to understand aerosol chemistry doesn’t advance any technical path towards implementation either. 2. Where there is NOT a bright line boundary is between experiments labeled solar geoengineering (SRM) and those that simply advance climate science. As Ken has pointed out to this group many times, it is not possible to define a solar geoengineering experiment. Is understanding cloud-aerosol interactions now off-limits because marine cloud brightening has been suggested? (E.g. should E-PEACE not have been funded? Or only funded provided that the researchers were unaware of MCB?) 3. Personally I might have thought that any US government funded work would already include an open and transparent review process; the wording in the original text is not sufficiently clear to me to understand what more is expected beyond what already exists. Are the people who propose this type of wording actually concerned about experiments that might inform SRM, or only concerned about subscale implementation type experiments that have as their goal modifying radiative forcing in some meaningful way? (That is, I think this type of document is meaningless without clearly identifying what specific experiments are included, or what characteristics might describe them.) Flying home now, and I couldn’t find any modified text online, but if anything like this text was adopted, I would draft up a “non-Berlin Declaration” calling on governments and funding bodies to not withhold approval or endorsement of experimental work simply based on fear of a label, when that label is the only reason for some particular proposal to not be funded. doug From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Andrew Lockley Sent: Monday, August 18, 2014 9:01 AM To: geoengineering Subject: [geo] Fwd: CEC14 - Draft Berlin Declaration ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Maas, Achim" <[email protected]> Date: 18 Aug 2014 17:51 Subject: CEC14 - Draft Berlin Declaration To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Cc: Dear participants of CEC14, Please find attached the draft of the proposed Berlin Declaration, which Steve Rayner mentioned earlier this afternoon in his talk. If you have any suggested amendments, please email them to Tim Kruger at <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] by 13:00 on Wednesday 20 August. With our best wishes, The CEC14 Steering Committee -- 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. 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.
