Peter:
1. I have just started reading a text where (almost Dr.?) Holly Buck
is one of 13 different chapter authors. See
https://books.google.com/books?id=__7FdtVobcAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false
for this book edited by Christopher Preston. Her contribution re your topic
is positive - saying that justice and development can possibly be furthered
with SRM.
2. It would help advance your query if we knew more about whether any
of your simulations to date have shown substantial variation that might favor
Holly’s “development-justice” interests. For example do you see any major
change in developing country impacts (rainfall, etc) with the same sulfur
inputs at different altitudes and latitudes? Are there ways for SRM to favor
developing over developed countries?
Ron
On Aug 1, 2015, at 1:25 PM, Peter Irvine <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Thanks for the thoughtful responses.
>
> To summarize crudely:
>
> Suggestions to improve output from scientists to social scientists:
> - Assess more tangible things - Perhaps: Coral reefs, the amazon rainforest,
> iconic species?
> - Provide more details of regional climate response + its uncertainties.
> - Put the biogeophysical projections in the context of the site-specific
> societal factors that will shape its effects on peoples lives.
>
> Thing to bear in mind:
> don't think about it as if there were output "from scientists to social
> scientists" - this is an issue that requires more linked-up thinking.
>
> I agree that its critical to think about the issues around SRM in a joined up
> way but my concern is how do we do so without becoming paralyzed by the
> complexities of the issues involved? I'd suggest that we do need to divide up
> the issues somehow (though perhaps not along traditional disciplinary
> boundaries) to reduce the complexity enough to grasp the nature of parts of
> the issue which can then be reassembled to form a clearer picture of the
> whole.
>
> Thanks again, and please feel free to add more suggestions and thoughts.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pete
>
>
> Peter Irvine
>
> Research Fellow
> Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS)
> Berliner Str. 130, D-14467 Potsdam
>
> Tel: 0049 331 288223 68
> Email: [email protected]
>
> On 1 August 2015 at 20:50, Holly J <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Pete,
>
> Thanks for the thought-provoking questions. As a social scientist /
> geographer working with questions of "development", I'd answer:
>
> 1) With regards to its consequences, what one thing would help you to better
> understand the implications of SRM for your area of interest?
>
> More detailed and uniform, spatially explicit social / demographic baseline
> data about pretty much everything: employment, income, infrastructure. Land
> tenure data, forest resource use, agricultural techniques; the social aspects
> of land use that can't be remotely sensed and are expensive to collect
> reliable data on. Even if biophysical scientists working on SRM had
> fantastically predictive impacts models, understanding the implications for
> social dynamics (conflict, inequality, livelihoods etc.) relies on acquiring
> more granular, reliable knowledge of specifically who lives where, and how
> they live. (Apologies, not an answer many physical scientists working on SRM
> can do much with - needs massive funding from national & international
> agencies worldwide to address!)
>
> 2) What one thing do you wish that those of us working on the physical
> consequences of SRM would bear in mind?
>
> That the social impacts / consequences / implications don't inhere in the
> technologies themselves, or perhaps even in the method and process of
> "deployment": the social implications depend on the social / cultural /
> political context in which SRM is used. This seems so obvious that it maybe
> shouldn't even be mentioned, but often both research design and casual
> conversation leaves it out— it's almost reflexive to talk about "societal
> impacts" of geoengineering as if society is a "thing" which responds to
> geoengineering as a stimulus external to the system. Or to project SRM done
> in the future into a social world that looks like today's. To some degree I
> understand why this is the case: it's "too big" to look at how migration
> policy, or instability in the "Middle East", or new biotech crops, or changes
> in income inequality, or corruption, would work with whatever precipitation
> patterns are predicted to influence the social implications and real social
> costs or benefits of doing SRM. Obviously, the sheer complexity is easier to
> address when the knowledge is simplified broken up into specific domains for
> specialists. Yet I do think we, collectively, could produce more relevant
> and interesting research if we figure out how to think and talk about the
> problem somewhat differently (with less of a we do x, y happens model /
> research question framing).
>
>
> Cheers,
> Holly
>
>
> --
> Ph.D. Candidate / Development Sociology
> Cornell University / [email protected]
>
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 8:20 PM, Jon Lawhead <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Pete et. al.,
>
> Philosopher of climate science here, for what it's worth.
>
> I'd echo what the others have said here with respect to your first question.
> It's very important that we get a better understanding of the magnitude and
> distribution of regional variation in both SRM effectiveness (that is,
> reduction of radiative forcing and/or associated average temperature drops)
> and in associated side-effects (especially on the hydrological cycle).
> Whether or not SRM via aerosol injection is the sort of thing that would be
> worth trying--and in what circumstances it would be worth trying--depends
> very strongly on the nature of our best estimates of those two things, as
> well as our confidence in those estimates. While some uncertainty is
> obviously unavoidable, the wide disparity in model estimates of these factors
> right now is incredibly worrying.
>
> Your second question seems more complicated (if that's possible). My first
> instinct is to suggest that even this way of framing the question highlights
> something that's a cause for concern: namely, that there is (or ought to be)
> a sharp delineation between those who are working purely on the physical
> consequences of SRM, and those who are working on SRM as a piece of a broader
> social, political, and humanistic problem. Climate science in general--and
> the physical basis of geoengineering in particular--represents a
> multidisciplinary problem that's virtually unprecedented in the history of
> science. Attempting to divorce the physical investigation from more "messy"
> real-world concerns of implementation and governance strikes me as very
> dangerous, and likely to lead to serious problems down the road. Keeping one
> eye on the fact that this is a deeply multifaceted issue with significant
> implications for political scientists, economists, philosophers, and many
> other is absolutely essential if you're going to produce models that have
> relevance for making collective decisions with respect to the implementation
> of this stuff. The burgeoning integrative assessment approach to looking at
> SRM (as well as climate science more generally) is really heartening to see,
> and I think it's important that even those who are steeped in the day-to-day
> arcana of developing and improving specialized physical models maintain close
> ties to that community--and that the community be enlarged as much as is
> necessary to include even more perspectives.
>
> Asking questions like those you're asking here is, in other words, absolutely
> essential. If ever there was a time when the physical sciences, social
> sciences, and humanities need to work closely with one another in pursuit of
> a common understanding, it is surely now. It's vital that we all see
> ourselves as engaged in a single project, and that we maintain the kind of
> dialog this thread has opened up. Those of us who aren't directly engaged in
> the modeling project have a responsibility to understand the output of our
> best contemporary science to the best of our abilities, and those of you who
> aren't directly engaged in the social or humanistic evaluation of the
> policies suggested by those models have a responsibility to understand how
> your work fits into the larger context. I think that, by and large, both
> "sides" of this project have been doing admirably well so far, but that both
> sides can also probably continue to improve going forward.
>
> I'll add in more relevant thoughts if/when I have them. Thanks for opening
> up this topic.
>
> Naturally,
>
> Jon Lawhead, PhD
> Postdoctoral Research Fellow
> University of Southern California
> Philosophy and Earth Sciences
>
> 3651 Trousdale Parkway
> Zumberge Hall of Science, 223D
> Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740
>
> http://www.realityapologist.com
>
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 2:05 AM, p.j.irvine <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> As you might know, I work primarily on the climate response to SRM and I'd
> like to know how we can better understand the implications of SRM and how
> those implications will depend on what we discover about its likely
> consequences. So if you have the time, I'd like all you social scientists,
> humanities researchers and philosophers of SRM to answer these 2 questions:
>
> 1) With regards to its consequences, what one thing would help you to better
> understand the implications of SRM for your area of interest?
> 2) What one thing do you wish that those of us working on the physical
> consequences of SRM would bear in mind?
>
> These don't have to be easily achievable and feel free to be controversial
> but I'd like to get a taste for what people feel we'll need to do to
> understand this issue better.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pete
>
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