Re: [geo] Reassessment of satellite-based estimate of aerosol climate forcing - Ma - JGR Atmospheres - Wiley

['Adam Sacks' via geoengineering]

Hi Greg - Despite the proliferation of 72 +/- Greg Rau clones, I had the right one.  I thought you had a funny bone, anyway.  And now you have 26 "friends" (which is more than I have). We are decidedly in agreement that everything is on the table and at the very least open to consideration (if we can find a table - our conference is trying to build one, with at least three legs, as opposed to the currently in-fashion policy tables which sport a strange proclivity for two legs - I hope you can make it to the conference, bring another table leg!).   To date biology as a driver (as opposed to a victim) of climate change has been left in the desertified dust, and after over 25 years of futility in climate action we think its time has come.  If planetary warming is a function of two processes, sources and sinks, we should start paying attention to much-ignored low-tech sinks of the biological variety.  Certainly nothing to lose at this point, and quite possibly much to gain. As for your little grenade - great question.  Do you have some answers to offer?  My pet pterodactyl whispered in my ear that it wasn't quite that simple (he likes to pretend that he remembers, but his memory seems a bit shaky at his age), and of course one can prove anything by analogy (just say'n).  Along these lines, if you would send me some of your papers relevant to this discussion, e.g., "Reversing Excess Atmospheric CO2," "Enhancing the Ocean's Role in CO2 Mitigation," "The need for new ocean conservation strategies in a high-carbon dioxide world," and "CO2 Mitigation via Capture and Chemical Conversion in Seawater," I would be interested in having a look - I have much to learn from people with your level of expertise. Many thanks! Adam On 8/24/2014 4:04 PM, Greg Rau wrote: Brian and Adam,  I'm all for biological methods "being at the table"*.  By the same token we should not exclude abiotic methods or potential "technofixes"until they are PROVEN unneeded or unworthy. We need more information before deploying any of these at scale, and that means more research.  In any case, there is no "table" (at least not in the US) at which such R&D investment decisions are being made, reflecting a serious policy vacuum. On can hope the forthcoming NAS weigh-in might change things, but I'm not holding my breath. Greg ps as for my "humorous" facebook page, I'm not sure my grand total of 25 "friends" would agree.  There are more than a few Greg Rau's listed, so you might want to re-evaluate: https://www.facebook.com/greg.rau.73 * http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-007-5784-4_54 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6140/1522.2.full pss at the risk of tossing another grenade on the fire, if (the abundance of) land plants play a major role in controlling air CO2, then why, as land plants were decimated during the last 12+ glacial periods, did CO2 decline, and why, as land plants rebounded and flourished during interglacials, did air CO2 dramatically rise? By this analogy more land plants = more CO2.  I'm just say'n....  From: Brian Cartwright <briancartwrig...@gmail.com> To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2014 6:59 AM Subject: Re: [geo] Reassessment of satellite-based estimate of aerosol climate forcing - Ma - JGR Atmospheres - Wiley To Greg, This is somewhat off the topic of categorizing geoengineering approaches, but I need to respond to your warnings about considering biological remedies for climate. The remedies being considered in this category are almost without exception simply reversals of damage done by humans, so the alarm about "massive restructuring" of landscapes is painfully ironic. Deforestation, desertification, oxidation of soil by chemical agriculture - aren't those the massive restructurings of land use that have gotten us here? Similar alarms have been raised about biochar use, a topic that gets some traction on this list. The assertion that biochar could be scaled up to accomplish substantial CDR led some to infer that there were giant plantations being planned for feedstocks. Again this is ironic since the only giant land grabs that are succeeding are for projects such as palm oil. So I would urge this list to allow biological methods an equal place at the table. As Adam points out, plants annually cycle massive amounts of carbon. Enhancing abd assisting biological methods of CDR should not be dismissed since photosynthesis is well understood and proven. Without plants we would have been cooked long ago. And if we let things go the way they are going we may end up without plants. Brian -- 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 geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. 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