Andrew, List, Professor Svoboda:
I’d like to focus on the “reasonably”, “all” and “net harm” in the
next-to-last sentence in the Abstract given below: “Barring substantial cuts
in greenhouse gas emissions, we can reasonably expect future scenarios in which
all available strategies would result in “net harm”.”
Professor Salter has regularly disagreed on this list about cloud
brightening being more harmful than the AG (as stated in the final abstract
sentence). But I write to defend CDR. CDR is discussed only very briefly on
page 3 of the article (at Academia). I believe this short paragraph contains an
inaccurate statement on costs. CDR cost can obviously be harmful, but are not
yet proven to be so.
Professor Svoboda has an escape clause that I understand in the first
part of this sentence (“Barring substantial cuts”). However, I think we need
to discuss the two parts of this sentence together very closely. I doubt few
on this list think we are moving, or will move fast enough, on “substantial
cuts”, but today’s trend seems to be towards cuts. Certainly this is the
intent of this year’s Paris meeting.
So, I see no reason to exclude “substantial cuts” that, when combined
with CDR, can give peak emissions within a decade or two. A peak in emissions
can obviously be followed thereafter with a path leading into the negative
growth called for in the lowest of the four IPCC scenarios. Jim Hansen has
published one with CDR that is even faster; 350.org is assuming that CDR can
happen.
In sum, I fear that this article will be interpreted to say that AR5’s
Scenario RCP 2.6 is impossible. So, I hope we can agree there is still hope
for a Scenario that does not conform with the article’s sentence under
question. Perhaps we can agree there is a possibility of CDR approaches that
provide net good, not net harm. Hopefully, that was Prof. Svoboda’s intent -
based on the ethical principles that are the main topic in his article.
Ron
On Jan 8, 2015, at 9:35 AM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]> wrote:
> Poster's note : please excuse bust formatting
>
> https://www.academia.edu/3869914/Is_Aerosol_Geoengineering_Ethically_Preferable_to_Other_Climate_Change_Strategies
>
> Is Aerosol Geoengineering Ethically Preferable to Other Climate Change
> Strategies?
>
> Toby Svoboda (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Fairfield University)
>
> Published in Ethics & the Environment 17:2 (2012): 111-1351
>
> Abstract.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: inscenarios in which all available climate change strategies would
> result in net harm, we ought toadopt the strategy that would result in the
> least net harm. Barring substantial cuts in greenhousegas emissions, we can
> reasonably expect future scenarios in which all available strategies
> wouldresult in net harm. In such cases, there is good reason to suspect that
> AG would result in less netharm than emissions mitigation, adaptation, or
> other geoengineering strategies
>
>
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