Both the SRM and the CDR volumes of NAS's Climate Intervention report
acknowledge support from the "US intelligence community". Interestingly, the
reasons for this community's interest in this topic and the implications for
national security are never really discussed in the report, at least not in the
CDR volume that I reviewed. Anyway, always good to have "intelligence"
involved, even if without transparency? In what other aspects of Earth
sustainability are they (silent) partners?Greg
From: Ken Caldeira <[email protected]>
To: Fred Zimmerman <[email protected]>
Cc: Andrew Lockley <[email protected]>; Greg Rau <[email protected]>;
geoengineering <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 5, 2016 9:08 AM
Subject: Re: [geo] CIA Director Brennan Speaks at the Council on Foreign
Relations on geoengineering
I am comforted by the fact that the CIA director has the facts basically right.
Rumor had it that the CIA was one of the funders of the recent National Academy
reports on geoengineering. It is reassuring to see that the main points of the
solar geoengineering report have been digested reasonably well:
An SAI program could limit global temperature increases, reducing some risks
associated with higher temperatures and providing the world economy additional
time to transition from fossil fuels. The process is also relatively
inexpensive—the National Research Council estimates that a fully deployed SAI
program would cost about $10 billion yearly. As promising as it may be, moving
forward on SAI would raise a number of challenges for our government and for
the international community. On the technical side, greenhouse gas emission
reductions would still have to accompany SAI to address other climate change
effects, such as ocean acidification, because SAI alone would not remove
greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.On the geopolitical side, the technology’s
potential to alter weather patterns and benefit certain regions at the expense
of others could trigger sharp opposition by some nations. Others might seize on
SAI’s benefits and back away from their commitment to carbon dioxide
reductions. And, as with other breakthrough technologies, global norms and
standards are lacking to guide the deployment and implementation of SAI.
NAS report available here:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/18988/climate-intervention-reflecting-sunlight-to-cool-earth
+1 650 704 7212
http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab
On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 8:29 AM, Fred Zimmerman <[email protected]>
wrote:
I think I overstated my formulation. I was not talking about the science but
really the level of enthusiasm and energy around various options. While we see
people full-throatedly arguing for MOAR BECCS NOW we don't really see the same
breadth of enthusiasm for immediate SAI.ᐧ
On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 11:06 AM, Ken Caldeira <[email protected]> wrote:
I think of carbon dioxide removal as a form of mitigation and of solar
geoengineering as an extreme form of adaptation.
They are not not mutually exclusive, and not substitutes except insofar as more
carbon dioxide removal reduces the motivation to deploy solar geoengineering.
On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 07:52 Fred Zimmerman <[email protected]> wrote:
What I find interesting about this is that it had seemed to me that this
community had largely moved on to CDR & especially BECCS as the preferred
mechanism, most people accepting David Keith's view of SAI as a last-ditch
option for slowing the rate of change. Do others agree with my formulation?
On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 10:06 AM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]>
wrote:
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/2016-speeches-testimony/director-brennan-speaks-at-the-council-on-foreign-relations.htmlExtract
Another example is the array of technologies—often referred to collectively as
geoengineering—that potentially could help reverse the warming effects of
global climate change. One that has gained my personal attention is
stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI, a method of seeding the stratosphere
with particles that can help reflect the sun’s heat, in much the same way that
volcanic eruptions do.An SAI program could limit global temperature increases,
reducing some risks associated with higher temperatures and providing the world
economy additional time to transition from fossil fuels. The process is also
relatively inexpensive—the National Research Council estimates that a fully
deployed SAI program would cost about $10 billion yearly. As promising as it
may be, moving forward on SAI would raise a number of challenges for our
government and for the international community. On the technical side,
greenhouse gas emission reductions would still have to accompany SAI to address
other climate change effects, such as ocean acidification, because SAI alone
would not remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.On the geopolitical side,
the technology’s potential to alter weather patterns and benefit certain
regions at the expense of others could trigger sharp opposition by some
nations. Others might seize on SAI’s benefits and back away from their
commitment to carbon dioxide reductions. And, as with other breakthrough
technologies, global norms and standards are lacking to guide the deployment
and implementation of SAI.--
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