Andrew,
I can only speak for myself but please keep doing what you are doing. It is needed. I tell people that when the world finally wakes up with white knuckle fear to the risks and danger that Climate Change represents they will need geo-engineering to buy the essential couple of decades required to make the real transition to zero carbon emissions and then to start CO2 removal on mass from the atmosphere. Cold hard facts are that even if we started scaling up this today, it would not be fast enough and geo-engineering would be needed. The longer society takes to wake up, the greater the need will be for geo-engineering to address the time problem. Those would have us do no research into the tools of geo-engineering are those who would leave us and our children defenceless to avoid disaster. No remotely sensible person or organisation in this space is arguing for avoiding moving to net zero quickly. We all worry about the massive risk the delay to this happening is creating and wish this would happen a lot faster. Keep doing what you are doing and ignore those who would risk our children’ future for foolishness. David Sevier Carbon Cycle Limited 248 Sutton Common Road Sutton, Surrey SM3 9PW England Tel 44 (0) 208 288 0128 www.carbon-cycle.co.uk From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Andrew Lockley Sent: 31 January 2023 00:06 To: [email protected] <[email protected]> <[email protected]>; geoengineering <[email protected]> Subject: [geo] Tiresome nomenclature squabbles Hi Geo/CDR lists, I say very little personally - but I feel it's time to confront a problem, which has been building up for a while. I'm noticing increasingly ill-tempered nomenclature egg-throwing in this community. It's affecting my work - and it's probably harming other people's work, too. I'm therefore cross-posting, in an attempt to get the problem under control. Most particularly, the eggs are being thrown by a few select CDR folk, who refuse to cooperate with people/projects describing the field as geoengineering (or related terms). Sorry if that's blunt, but them's the facts. I'm declining to name names - but I have the receipts, if anyone needs them. Before addressing the core argument being (incorrectly) made, here's some background on my scicomm work. This context is relevant, as the scicomm reaches broadly across this field (2k twitter followers, 10k podcast downloads, ~3k email readers). I've always worked on SRM and CDR, in both academic publications and scicomm. As a matter of historical fact, the CDR list (which I don't moderate) was spun out from the geoengineering Google group (which I do moderate), and as a matter of convenience the residual list focussed on SRM. This was done to manage comms in a practical way, not as some ideological schism. Plenty of people cross both lists, and I've seen no reason to rebrand. The other information services I operate (@geoengineering1 twitter, Reviewer 2 Does Geoengineering podcast) use the same generic geoengineering branding, and have done for a decade or more. This is partly as a matter of historic consistency, and partly because the word is being used correctly - as I'll explain below. I don't therefore feel that this wording choice is any justification for people to attack me or my work. How bad has it got? Well, I'm reliably informed that I've had my CV binned for at least 1 job because I use the word "geoengineering" to describe the field. I've recently had several people (without exception CDR types) refuse to cooperate with my scicomm work - because I use the word "geoengineering" as a convenient, dictionary-accurate, and historically-relevant way to describe my work. That's denying their work an audience, based on a squabble over historic branding. Coca-Cola doesn't even have cocaine in anymore, but people don't argue with bar staff about it. So why argue with me, when my work is much more accurately described? People are free to use whatever words they like to describe what they do; my beef isn't with the string of related terms for the same things (geoengineering vs climate intervention; solar radiation modification vs solar radiation management; carbon removal vs CDR vs GGR; etc.). The problem I have is with the petty personal sniping and factionalism that's increasingly creeping in to the discipline, as a result. For the avoidance of doubt: I'm not rebranding everything I do just because a few CDR fans won't play nicely with their SRM counterparts. And I'm not going to jump into a silo, just because other people think I should. Notwithstanding the objectionable pettiness of this behaviour, I don't believe the core argument bears any real scrutiny. So let's get to that. With a quick Google I have found both present and historical references to the term "geoengineering" (relatedly climate engineering/intervention) being used to encompass CDR. Here's the OED https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095848469;jsessionid=8F01D3B289E2BB2911C69F51B5050E01#:~:text=Geoengineering%20is%20the%20intentional%20large,of%20reducing%20undesired%20climatic%20... NASEM https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/18805/climate-intervention-carbon-dioxide-removal-and-reliable-sequestration Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/publications/2009/geoengineering-climate/ Futurelearn / Adam Smith https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/climate-change-and-public-policy/0/steps/291219 ...I could go on. The issue here isn't the use of one word or another, it's the daftness of people shunning opportunities/people because of the utilisation of a standard (if not ubiquitous) term to describe the discipline. So please, let's not have wars over words reminiscent of the kids' book "Fatipuffs and Thinnifers" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fattypuffs_and_Thinifers ...as even the kids reading that book knew it was stupid. We have all got much more to lose than to gain from such silly squabbles. Just because we might not like words that have been used for 15y or more doesn't mean it's a valid excuse to shun people and opportunities. Thanks for listening. And best wishes to all my geoengineering friends - including both the SRM and CDR ones. Andrew -- 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 [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> . To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/CAJ3C-04_FoiiKfqT9ogcapfacZuSU5VJ%3DjwsE5Bn9G1EC5TYCg%40mail.gmail.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/CAJ3C-04_FoiiKfqT9ogcapfacZuSU5VJ%3DjwsE5Bn9G1EC5TYCg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . -- 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 [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/014b01d93582%248a670c10%249f352430%24%40carbon-cycle.co.uk.
