I've not seen anything that would qualify as extreme irrationality from all ten of the world's largest economies. As I said in my post above and in the paper, I could imagine one or two countries ignoring the risk of termination shock but I find it harder to imagine that all capable states would. And recall, where there are multiple states capable of maintaining SRM it can't be terminated unilaterally. If a powerful country wanted to stop SRM suddenly they would need to be able to persuade or force all other countries around the world to suffer the ravages to termination shock. We can make up some 'what if...?' scenarios where this could happen, but 'what if...?' scenarios on their own are not a strong foundation for risk analysis. Andy
On Thursday, March 15, 2018 at 2:32:32 PM UTC, Anna-Maria Hubert wrote: > > Not that we have any examples of "extreme irrationality" in international > relations of late. 😉 > > > *Anna-Maria Hubert* > > *Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary Associate > Fellow, Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS), University > of Oxford* > > MFH 3344, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB Canada T2N 1N4 > T: 403.220.8762 | M: 587.586.3045 > annamaria.hub...@ucalgary.ca > <https://mail.ucalgary.ca/owa/14.3.266.1/scripts/premium/redir.aspx?SURL=JkKyJFCGUmOHPwnojHKF8mM2XVqQBlfBA_O8D5z0lPrEMxg9MX_TCG0AYQBpAGwAdABvADoAYQBuAG4AYQBtAGEAcgBpAGEALgBoAHUAYgBlAHIAdABAAHUAYwBhAGwAZwBhAHIAeQAuAGMAYQA.&URL=mailto%3aannamaria.hubert%40ucalgary.ca> > www.law.ucalgary.ca | www.insis.ox.ac.uk/people/ > associate-fellows/anna-maria-hubert > ------------------------------ > *From:* geoengi...@googlegroups.com <javascript:> < > geoengi...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>> on behalf of Andy Parker < > apar...@gmail.com <javascript:>> > *Sent:* March 15, 2018 5:13:16 AM > *To:* geoengineering > *Subject:* Re: [geo] Re: detecting problems with SRM > > > Hi Jessica, > > > The rationality/irrationality argument is very much open to debate and I > agree with your general point that countries, leaders, and 52% of > referendum voters are not always informed by facts and rationality. > > > In our Earth’s Future paper, Pete and I didn’t find that it would take > great prudence and rationality to avoid termination shock, more that it > would just require governments to avoid extreme *irrationality*. We > argued by analogy: many people are opposed to nuclear power but we suspect > that very few would want nuclear reactors to be shut down immediately by > having the control rods removed, causing a meltdown. Similarly, we believe > that regardless of initial antipathy to the use of SRM, most people in > favour of ending deployment would prefer to see it phased out carefully > rather than terminated suddenly. > > > > Another key conclusion of our paper was that it would only take one > capable power to avoid termination shock. We therefore find it hard to > believe that the world's major powers would know that termination shock > were possible, and know how catastrophic it would be, and know that they > could insure against it by spending a few billion dollars, and still *all > *decide not to do it. I could imagine one or two countries doing this, > but not all capable powers given how damaging termination shock is > projected to be. Noting how states build spare capacity for critical > infrastructure, and noting that in general the larger the threat to > security and stability the more a country will pay to manage it, I find it > hard to believe that all states would separately decide against building > backup SRM hardware. > > > > But Pete and I have no crystal ball and I hope our paper can result in > much more in-depth research exploring argument and analogy. Is our nuclear > power analogy useful? Are there better ones that paint a different > picture? We point out that it would be useful to research where and how > societies protect against damage from interruption to important > infrastructure—and crucially where they do not. > > > > Andy > > > > On Thursday, March 15, 2018 at 1:33:13 AM UTC, jessica.gurevitch wrote: > > I am wondering what makes people think that decisions made by countries, > their leaders, or political factions in those countries would follow facts, > logic, and rationality? I do not see how you can assume that these social > and political entities would be relying on detailed scientific climate > evaluation to consider whether and when to deploy or cease deploying. Any > event could be attributed to SRM, and any effect of SRM could be attributed > to other things (or chance) by governments or the public, or by interest > groups of various sorts. Look at the response to genetically modified > food--lots of confusion and extrapolation (not that it's all harmless--the > main use in this country seems to be a great excuse to dramatically ramp up > pesticide use). Anyone who is counting on careful and rational evaluation > of the facts, particularly but not exclusively subtle climate responses, > seems to me to be fooling themselves. > > Jessica > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Jessica Gurevitch > Professor > Department of Ecology and Evolution > Stony Brook University > Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245 USA > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 5:07 PM, p.j.irvine <p.j.i...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi, > > Good question Alan. > > You're right that to detect troublesome climate changes would require > large-scale, long-run deployments (more below) but there are potential > problems that could be evident much sooner. However a slow ramp-up could > still lead to worrying changes in stratospheric chemistry and dynamics that > could be detected before changes in regional climate. For example, if novel > particles are employed cause an unforeseen chemical reaction with > troublesome implications, this would likely be detectable much sooner than > a change in regional climate. > > On the climate trends, you're right that climate trends that would be > troubling would likely not be detectable until one was fairly far into a > deployment, and that this might change whether a nation remains in favor of > deployment. On this, I'd note a few things. > First, the smaller the trend, the harder it is to detect so something > really radical would be spotted sooner rather than later > Second, all regions face a mix of climate risks and an unexpected "bad" > outcome for annual-average river runoff, may be offset by "good" outcomes > for temperature change, sea-level rise, wind storm impacts, extreme > precipitation, etc. > Third, If the climate effect is really unforeseen what guarantee would the > nation have that this would be made better by ending SRM deployment, what > if things would be worse without? > Fourth, we do speak about the potential for Nation A to decide that some > unspecified bad outcome (or simply a change in preferences) warrants > terminating SRM and discuss how this may be difficult to achieve even were > Nation A the original deployer given that other nations would have vested > interests to maintain the deployment and many would have capacity to do so. > > Cheers, > > Pete > > On Tuesday, 13 March 2018 17:54:09 UTC-4, Alan Robock wrote: > > Dear Pete and Andy, > > With respect to your new paper on termination shock, could you please > explain how you will detect negative impacts of SRM as you slowly ramp > it up? How can you solve the detection and attribution problem without > decades of SRM at a large amplitude? Please see our paper: > > Robock, Alan, Martin Bunzl, Ben Kravitz, and Georgiy Stenchikov, 2010: > A test for geoengineering? Science, 327, 530-531, > doi:10.1126/science.1186237. > > Alan > _________________________________________________________________________ > Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor > Editor, Reviews of Geophysics > Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751 > Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 > 14 College Farm Road E > <https://maps.google.com/?q=14+College+Farm+Road+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0+%C2%A0E&entry=gmail&source=g>-mail: > > rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu > New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock > ☮ http://twitter.com/AlanRobock 2017 Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN! > Watch my 18 min TEDx talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrEk1oZ-54 > > -- > 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 geoengineerin...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to geoengi...@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- > 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 geoengineerin...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to geoeng...@googlegroups.com > <javascript:>. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. 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