Dear Mike and Jonathan I enjoy quietly reading this list and learn, especially from atmospheric and arctic scientists.
As a non-scientist I note that the economics and the science seem to indicate that: CCS is expensive (because social costs of burning fossil fuels are externalities not born by coal oil and gas corps.) and its climatic effects are known (on large enough scale it will mitigate global warming from ongoing fossil fuel use). SRM is expensive, its climatic effects are unknown (unfamiliar) because unpredictable. Mt Pinatubo eruption 1991 provides best real world analogy to human intentional injection of particulates designed to 'shade the earth' from the sun, or 'cool the arctic' to use a phrase often seen on this list. As others argue, the effects of SRM are relatively unknown but in the case of Pinatubo included, counter-intuitively, tropospheric warming in N Hemisphere winter according to NASA: http://m.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Volcano/ Currently Arctic is much warmer than it should be and winter ice formation is delayed. Pinatubo '91 like atmospheric injections apparently won't fix this and they will cause other unknown harms - as did Pinatubo '91. As a philosopher I can say, from my area of expertise, that there is no moral equivalence between stopping intentional harm to the atmosphere and trying to counter one kind of intentional harm (which is stoppable through available tech and regulation and yes CCS) with another kind of intentional harm whose externalities are unpredictable. This lack of moral equivalence combined with extreme uncertainty is why currently international law rightly bans SRM but not CCS. Michael Northcott (School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh) On 21 Nov 2016, at 21:13, Michael MacCracken <mmacc...@comcast.net<mailto:mmacc...@comcast.net>> wrote: Dear Jonathan--While I certainly agree that governance and the social status quo are issues, I would just note that the notion of SRM is to prevent further change and perhaps take us back a bit from the consequences of the warming that we are experiencing (so back to more familiar territory), whereas the no-SRM path is one heading into the future and to much greater and unknown (at least more uncertain) changes. This is not to say that SRM is a perfect response as there will be changes, but generally back toward the more familiar and less likely to severe new extremes. And if that is not what is happening, SRM can be stopped, and if things are implemented and moderated relatively gradually and careful observations are being taken and used in the planning, the phasing out would not also not be so harmful as the future that lies ahead without SRM. So, I am a bit confused by all this talk of harm from doing (gradually implemented) SRM as compared to the harm that seems to clearly lie ahead from not doing this. Putting a tourniquet on a rapidly bleeding leg might well cost me the leg, but otherwise I might well be dead. I'd like to hear more about the social science and governance challenges of undertaking a comparative analysis of ongoing GHG-induced change with and without there being SRM; while to an external or long-term observer (like me, quite probably), it would seem the rational choice is to gradually implement SRM, in reality, acceptance of the ongoing upward trend might well be seen as less disruptful of one's short-term interests (so the classic frog in the warming pot of water dilemma)--this, at least, seems to me, to be the tenor of the social science discussions, and, if the way society seems to be going about its living, short-term interests seem to me to really have the upper hand. Are there instances or approaches that might lead to greater consideration of the long-term interests of society? Mike On 11/20/16 5:34 PM, Jonathan Marshall wrote: The real thing to remember about governance is that it is often about politics and preserving the social status quo. Just as current governance processes seem often to be about protecting the fossil fuel industries from any harm. I would imagine the most likely result of changing the rules "in an instant" will be to have rules which protect the people who impose SRM (and impose is the right word, plenty of people will object to the potentially disastrous consequences) from any legal liability for damages. The argument will be that it is impossible to determine what damages will have happened anyway, and what damages came directly from the SRM. This will lessen any pressures to make sure the process works properly. The other obvious problem is that if the bad effects were localized, then people could think it was an act of "Weather warfare" and decide to strike back with either more SRM, or terrorist attacks, or nukes.... This would render the systems (social, international, and ecological) even more unstable. Basically if you don't think about the social consequences now while you have time, the chances are high that it will massively interfere with any success the project might have and amount to a massive waste of time.... jon ________________________________ From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com> <geoengineering@googlegroups.com><mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Stephen Salter <s.sal...@ed.ac.uk><mailto:s.sal...@ed.ac.uk> Sent: Monday, 21 November 2016 1:46 AM To: Myles Allen; geoengineering@googlegroups.com<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>; Oxford Martin Info Subject: Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | Oxford Martin School Hi All It is much easier to change legal rules about liability and governance than to alter the laws of physics and the boundaries of engineering. The rules will be changed in an instant when the results of climate change get bad enough. But now the arguments about them are wasting time which we may not have. Stephen Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3DW, Scotland s.sal...@ed.ac.uk<mailto:s.sal...@ed.ac.uk>, Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704, Cell 07795 203 195, WWW.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs<http://WWW.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs>, YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change On 20/11/2016 14:13, Myles Allen wrote: Others much more expert in these matters than I have concluded that liability and governance issues mean that SRM is probably out of the question unless we have a very different global governance regime than the one we have now (and not necessarily in a good way). Which leaves CO2 disposal (initially from stationary sources, ultimately from free air capture) as potentially the only option. Myles Myles R Allen FInstP | Professor of Geosystem Science | Environmental Change Institute School of Geography and the Environment and Department of Physics | University of Oxford Oxford University Centre for the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK myles.al...@ouce.ox.ac.uk<mailto:myles.al...@ouce.ox.ac.uk> | +44 (0)1865 275895 (Direct) | +44 (0)1865 275216 (Anne Ryan, PA, anne.r...@ouce.ox.ac.uk<mailto:anne.r...@ouce.ox.ac.uk>) From: Stephen Salter <s.sal...@ed.ac.uk<mailto:s.sal...@ed.ac.uk>> Date: Sunday, 20 November 2016 12:30 To: "geoengineering@googlegroups.com<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>" <geoengineering@googlegroups.com<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>>, Oxford Martin Info <i...@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk<mailto:i...@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk>>, Myles Allen <myles.al...@ouce.ox.ac.uk<mailto:myles.al...@ouce.ox.ac.uk>> Subject: Re: [geo] CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast | Oxford Martin School Hi All In the headline of http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/opinion/view/346 Myles Allen writes that 'CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures.' I believe that at least three things will be desperately needed. We have to reduce emissions by use of renewable sources, remove existing CO2 from the atmosphere and also directly reduce the levels of incoming solar energy especially in the Arctic. I am sad that my ignorance of chemistry and biology prevents me from contributing to CO2 removal and I am careful not criticise people who know much more than I do. I would be grateful to anyone who could stop me wasting time trying to solve insoluble problems and so I ask Myles Allen to explain why marine cloud brightening cannot contribute to stabilising temperatures. Stephen Salter Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design. School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3DW, Scotland s.sal...@ed.ac.uk<mailto:s.sal...@ed.ac.uk>, Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704, Cell 07795 203 195, WWW.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs<http://WWW.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs>, YouTube Jamie Taylor Power for Change On 19/11/2016 14:49, Andrew Lockley wrote: http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/opinion/view/346 CO2 capture may be our only option for stabilising temperatures - we need to find out the costs, fast 15 Sep 2016 Professor Myles Allen, Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Net Zero Carbon Initiative, gives his views on a new report on carbon capture and storage (CCS), and asks whether this technology could deliver “net zero CO2 fossil fuels”. The UK government has so many things to worry about right now that combatting climate change appears to have slipped a long way down the priority list. But ensuring that Big Business pays its way and doesn’t get away with dumping costs on long-suffering taxpayers and consumers is at the heart of Theresa May’s agenda. So the report of the Parliamentary Advisory Group on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), chaired by Lord Oxburgh, should be at the top of her in-tray this week. The report recognises that we need a completely new approach to CCS, because relying on subsidies and various forms of carbon pricing clearly isn’t working. Everyone agrees that we need to get net global emissions of carbon dioxide to zero to stabilise climate. There are only two ways to achieve this: a watertight global ban on the extraction and use of fossil fuels, or the deployment of technologies to ensure that, if CO2 is generated by the burning of fossil fuels, it is safely captured at source or re-captured from the atmosphere and disposed of out of harm’s way. A global ban on fossil fuels is neither affordable nor enforceable, so capture and disposal of CO2 is the only option. Assuming we don’t want to turn the world over to cultivating biofuels and resort to eating insects, then there will always be some uses of fossil fuels for which there is no effective non-fossil substitute, much as environmentalists hate to admit it. Right now, the only proven large-scale approach to CO2 disposal is geological CCS – the reinjection of CO2 into geological formations underground. There are other ideas out there, but since we have no clear idea what geological CCS will actually cost when it is deployed at scale, whether or not these are needed remains largely hypothetical. And as I have written previously, the IPCC's most ambitious climate change scenario for tackling climate change involves a substantial element of industrial-scale CO2 disposal. This is the core conclusion of the Oxburgh report: there is no time to lose to find out what CCS actually costs, and the only way we will find that out is by doing it at scale. Britain, with vast off-shore storage potential and a North Sea oil and gas industry literally begging for new opportunities, is uniquely placed to do this – and we have a chance to become world leaders in what will be one of the major growth industries of the 21st century. The report proposes the establishment of a state-owned CO2-disposal company, to avoid the massive cost escalations resulting from asking private investors to accept all the risks. Crucially, however, they also map out a path to allow the state to withdraw as soon as everything is up and running. This is the recommendation that should chime with the government’s stated agenda of making sure Big Business pays its way. Within a decade, the Oxburgh report recommends the introduction of a “CCS obligation system”, or more simply a “carbon take-back scheme”, under which companies supplying fossil fuels in the UK would be obliged to prove they have stored (or paid someone else to store) CO2 equivalent to a given percentage of the carbon content of the fuel they have supplied in any particular year. In principle, this works just like a packaging take-back scheme: we, the consumers, don’t actually want the CO2 emissions that come along with fossil-fuel-based products. One of the most efficient ways of dealing with them is, just like unwanted packaging, to require the companies that sell us those products to take these emissions back. One day, if we’re going to stabilise climate, they will have to take them all back: that is what net zero means. But for now, it is enough for them to take back a rising percentage so they can demonstrate their CO2 disposal capabilities and avoid any shocks (or “too big to fail” declarations) in the future. As the Oxburgh report emphasises, such a scheme would also be good for investors in the fossil fuel industry. It would provide them with the security that their money was placed in assets with a long-term future. The costs of CO2 disposal, just like packaging disposal, would eventually be borne by the consumers of fossil-fuel-based products: but provided the disposed fraction rises progressively, this cost would increase slowly and predictably over decades, allowing consumers and investors to plan and adjust. One of the puzzles in climate change politics is why the environmental movement is not crying out for a carbon take-back scheme. My personal suspicion is that they have a nagging fear that it might work. The fossil fuel industry has such a formidable track record at driving down the costs of massive engineering projects that they might turn out to be able to deliver “net zero CO2 fossil fuels” that would continue to play a major role in powering the world economy into the 22nd century. Then again, perhaps they won’t. Perhaps, when the costs of CO2 disposal are included, fossil fuels will remain competitive for only a tiny number of niche applications. There is only one way to find out. -- 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<mailto:geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com<mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com>. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. 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